Alan Towe - A Look Back In Time - 1st March 2007

The West Midlands, playing in division three of the Kaliber BDO Inter Counties Championships have played five fixtures, prior to their latest encounter, two at home and two away. They have won both of their home ties, but unfortunately their away form is not quite as consistent as they have drawn one and lost one.

The first fixture of the new year was a home game against Pembrokeshire and accordingly the squad were looking to extend their home form to three straight wins.

The ladies ‘B’ with two draws and two defeats were still seeking their first win. However, they were soon to realise that this was not going to be the day that they recorded it. Hayley Francis-Owens took first blood for the visitors when she beat Kim Fellows 3-0 in the first game. Enfys Hill doubled Pembroke’s advantage with a 3-1 success over Sarah Robbins and taking the scoreline along to 3-0 was Karen Thomas who accounted for Jacqui Simmons with a close 3-2 verdict after losing the first leg.

It was as early as the fourth game that the away team secured a victory, Tracey Hawkins-Green beating Ann Jones 3-1, once more after the home player had won the first leg. Claire Hobbs stopped the rot for the Midlander’s, when in the penultimate encounter she won 3-1 against Denise Evans, but she proved to be the only winner for the hosts and her 17.33 average earned her the lady of the match award. In the final game Pembrike produced their lady of the match in the form of Coralie Jones. Coralie, with a 16.54 average beat Claire Ford 3-1 to put the final score at 5-1 for the away side and make it two consecutive 5-1 defeats for the west Midlands.

The men’s ‘B’ have been riding high so far with a 100% win record, four games four wins. Viv Gould got the ball rolling handing out a straight 3-0 defeat to Jason Treharne, but the lead was short lived as Pembroke’s Timothy Hendra dished out a similar 3-0 defeat to West Midlands David Arnold. An award winning performance from Ian Hartland (26.12) restored the home team’s advantage, Paul Jones on the wrong end of a 3-2 result after leading 2-0. Hartland had bounced back with winning legs of 21, 15 and 18 darts. Once again the lead was cancelled out, this time it was Steve Thomas, who twice trailed to Mick Naokes, who won 3-2.

By the halfway stage West Midlands had gained a 4-2 lead thanks to long serving players Eddie Price and Jack Routledge. Price had a 3-1 win against Ray Milligan, while Routledge beat Darren Owens by the same margin.

On Davies (Pembrokeshire) took on Colin Wood in the opener to the second half. Davies went 2-0 up only to see Davies fight back to level terms. The decider could have gone either way as both players failed to find their finishing doubles, but it was Davies who found the all important double four to reduce the arrears to 4-3. From that point on it was virtually all West Midlands. Liam Kelly won 3-0 against Jim Williams, Andy Forrester beat Richie Williams 3-1, Chris Plumpton was another straight 3-0 winner against John Kinsella and in the eleventh game Robert carr beat Ian Robinson 3-1 to give a running score of 8-3 to the hosts.

The final game went to Steve Jones (Pembrokeshire). Chris opened a 2-0 lead over Nicky Bache and although Bache drew level a two each he lost the decider when Jones checked out on 25 after Bache had left himself on a 25 outshot. The final score 8-4 in the Midlander’s favour to stretch their unbeaten run to five games, very impressive.

Sunday’s ladies game looked to all to be going in the same direction as the ‘B’ side’s game, when Chris Banks lost 3-0 to Rhian Edwards and Kath Jenkins was another 3-0 loser, going down to Heather Goffin to put the away team 2-0 up. However, Claire Hobbs was the first winner for the home team, a convincing 3-0 win against Sue Phillips to keep her team in the hunt. Then came the lady of the match Leanne Jennings (21.28). Leanne went one leg down to Julie Gore, but fought back to earn a 3-1 win and level the match at two each.

For the first time in the game the West Midlands went ahead in the fifth encounter, Julie Aston winning 3-2 after twice being pegged back by Sarah Reynolds to set up a nail biting final game between Sara Jukes (West Midlands) and Gwyneth Hughes.

Sara won the first leg Gwyneth the second. Sara then took a 2-1 lead and wrapped up the issue in the fourth leg with a 22 darts game to win 3-1 and give her team a 4-2 victory.

The men’s ‘A’ had had a mixed season so far. They began the campaign with two opening wins against Suffolk and then Devon. They then lost following two games, going down to Wiltshire and Nottinghamshire, so they were eager to get back to winning ways and also as a priority chalk up enough winning legs to earn an overall win.

The first contest between Stuart Kendrick and Robert Coverdale (Pembrokeshire) was a 3-1 result going in favour of the former. Darren Hawkins and Jamie Lewis in turn defeated Gary Taylor 3-1 and Lol Frazer 3-0 to reverse the advantage to give the visitors a 2-1 lead.

Dave Robbins was made to fight the full five legs distance by Carl Lewis for his 3-2 win and with a further 3-1 success from Mick James over Mark Lewis. West Midlands went 3-2 up. To round off the first half Timothy Hendra followed up his previous day’s success against David Arnold with a similar 3-0 win over Steve Penwright to leave the match all square at the midway point.

It was Pembrokeshire who gained the incentive as the second half got underway, Robert Hughes adding his 3-0 win over Richard Foster to their tally. Avtar Singh was the man to bring the Midlands team back to level terms as he defeated Peter John 3-1 and with a man of the match display from Mark Jones whereby he beat Billy Edwards 3-2 and recorded a 29.40 average the home team were back in front again at 5-4.

A neat 3-0 win was supplied by Mark Rollinson over Richard Jupp, in which Mark checked out in all three games on a 40 game shot to ensure a share of the spoils with a 6-4 scoreline. Then came a shock result. Ian Jones suffered a rare defeat, a very close 3-2 win for Lee Chenery to leave the result hinging on the final game.

Representing the home side was Peter Wyse and for Pembrokeshire Jason Davies, fresh from his previous day’s 3-2 win over Colin Wood. Wyse proved that the previous day’s result stood for nothing as he slipped into gear and in double quick time stormed to a 3-0 victory, giving not only Peter a personal win, but also his team a 7-5 success and ensuring the weekend’s overall 20-16 result went in West Midlands favour.

In an effort to entice more players, young, old, male or female into their league the Small Heath and District League have changed their playing format for the forthcoming season. Teams will continue to consist of nine players, but each game will be 401 up with a straight start as opposed to a double start. According to league official John Young the league have taken this step so that players avoid the embarrassment of “Having the Brush and it also takes away the double start tension allowing players to play a more natural game”.

The newly formed Small Heath Charity team took on the established G.U.L.P. Charity team at the Emerald Club, Small Heath for what was their first charity game. The result was 9-9 draw with Small Heath just getting the edge on legs as they won 22 to G.U.L.P.’s 21.

Winners for the Small Heath team wereIan McLean, John McCaffrey, John Frost, Darren Brown, Sean Lysaght, Ross Webb, Terry Webster, Terry Walton and Bill Horsley, for the G.U.L.P. team Matt Cooper, Chris Stocks, Eddie Bullock, Chris Thomas jnr, John Quigley, Colin Walsh, Mick O’Sullivan, Tony Comerford and John Quigley (played twice).

The Small Heath team wish to thank Derek Rivett and John Hudson for all their hard work in setting up the charity game.

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