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Early Arrows and a Harry-ing Conquest

So September arrived, and along with it came the mainstays of this time of year, the first sign of conkers, the first England football player injuries, the first Christmas goods appearing in Tesco’s, and the first fixture in the new British Inter-Counties season.

For Surrey, this meant a home clash against newly-promoted Oxfordshire, which turned out to be reminiscent of that glorious battle in 1066 where the naughty invaders were sent packing with their tails between their legs by the brave and rampaging English army commanded by King Harold.

OK, OK, I can hear you all shouting that Harold LOST the battle of Hastings (along with a sobbing Darts World editor pleading “Please! Not more history, this is a darts mag for crying out loud!”), but I wasn’t referring to the Normans dishing out one in the eye to Harold, that was in October of that year. The proud victory was in September against those pesky Norwegians at the Battle of Stamford Bridge … where, thank God, there was not a Samsung Day-Glo yellow shirt in sight!

In fact, there wasn’t much by the way of clothes in sight on the English foes at all when Harold marched to just south of York unexpectedly and caught the Vikings, literally, with their pants down. Even a giant of a Viking that held up the English army on a slatted wooden bridge was no match, unarmoured, for a sneaky spear through the gaps from the river below when only dressed in his smalls.

Similarly did the Surrey darts teams profit, as the three week advance of the start of the BICC 2007/8 season caught a talented Oxfordshire unprepared, with five of their A team players missing, the result being a 20-16 victory for our warriors in Epsom over a county that hadn’t been beaten since September 2003.

The signs of a Surrey win certainly weren’t evident as our Ladies B went down 2-4 to the visitors, with only Helen Cullip (19.26) showing her true form, but the Mens B match started in explosive fashion with a triumvirate of youngsters chipping in nicely to help Surrey to a 7-1 lead.

Lee Smyth (27.33) led off for the home side with a 3-0 victory after a bone-shattering Prodigy walk-on entrance. Lee left our youth side two years ago after making a huge impression in his time there … by being mentioned at the county AGM for letting off fire extinguishers and mooning! Since then, he has matured nicely & we have had to keep an eye on him for all the right reasons as he tore through the Super League to claim his county place with no silliness at all. Apart, of course, from being pictured with a Superking in each nostril, at one point, which was much appreciated, in a quiet week, by the nasty piece of work that lives off such gems to produce the satirical Super League newsletter (not me … honest).

Former youth team-mates, Dave Webb (20.13) and Steve Mead (25.05) (making his debut), both of whom also took to the stage with some Prodigy noise pollution posing as music, backed up a MoM display by the experienced Richie Blake (27.46) to put Surrey fully in command on Saturday night with a 9-3 success and an 11-7 lead for the Sunday.

Thus it came to be that an incredulous gathering of Surrey A players turned up on the Sunday to see that, contrary to previous experience, they had a four point LEAD to defend! Not that it’s rare or anything but they would have been less surprised if they had seen some brown blocks behind a hand-crafted rocking horse, or a bear using a public convenience in an urban environment.

The Ladies A further piled the misery on Oxfordshire with a 4-2 win that included joint LoM performances from Apylee Jones (21.78) & Laura Power (21.78), closely followed by further quality 3-0 wins from Sharon Cullip (21.47) and Mel Henry (19.27).

Surrey’s Mens A then furthered the lead by taking a 5-2 advantage with Aaron Turner (25.18) and MoM Spike Harris (pictured left, 28.07) excelling. The victory was now secured as the hosts led 20-11 but Oxfordshire finally downed their early season cup of wake-up coffee, cracked their knuckles, and mounted a late challenge that saw them reel off the last five points without reply. As far as the bonus points are concerned, it was akin to trying to stuff toothpaste back in the tube for Oxfordshire, but it reined Surrey in and made for a respectable score line where we were sort of hoping for something a bit more, shall we say, brutal, against a side that will cause many problems in Division 1 this season.

Surrey now march on to an away skirmish with Durham a month later, fully confident of another victory like King Harold was in October 1066 … oh, hold on!

It’s a Cruel, Cruel Summer

The Surrey Summer Super League ended with the “You’re Having a Laugh” team successfully defending their Title from last year, but in a completely different environment.

Firstly, last summer season, there was actually a summer! This year, however, instead of the usual spectacle of various wizened darters in rather dodgy shorts, I’m pretty sure I saw, at one point, the perturbing sight of someone wearing a kagoule!

Add to this the fact that, due to the smoking ban, there were, on many occasions, more people outside the building than in, and it was a rather alien experience this year for Peter & Lisa Munt’s latest successfully-run league.

Runners-up “Gone for a Burton” will feel hard done by in finishing second by four points seeing as they enjoyed a 100% record as opposed to the Champions suffering two losses but still prevailing, but the irritation would have been soothed somewhat by their talisman, Dave Askew, taking the most lucrative prize in Surrey Darts, the summer singles, and £500, by beating John Watson 4-3 in the Final. The match was a cracker of a finale for the Epsom-based league, and one which I was privileged to watch through the fire exit from the car park, with my deadly weapon of a Golden Virginia roll-up. Just think, if only tobacco had been discovered in England in 1066, Harold would have massacred those Normans.

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