Ladders on Tour

I met up with Darren Johnson on Friday at 12 where I had organised to pick up my boarding pass. Darren had unfortunately forgotten to enter the tournaments in Holland despite booking hotels, flights and airport parking almost 3 months prior.

 

Darren works as a project manager doing projects at factories ranging from £0.5m to £10m where clear, concise and strategic planning is needed in order to hit deadlines. However on Wednesday at 12 when the online entry closes Darren had forgot to enter!

 

I wanted Darren to come along despite not entering and after a bit of persuasion he agreed. His only worry was the amount of stick he would get off the players for forgetting. Let’s think, beer = honesty. Surely he would get no stick...

 

On another note – while the PDC are a very well run organisation and very organised and are constantly moving the benchmark in top class darts surely they do not need to be so strict on closing the entries when there are another 3 days before the draw is done?

 

I am putting a suggestion forward o the board where text messages could be sent to players reminding them with 24 hours notice till entry closure. Let’s face it, we have not all got access to a computer and email all day but we surely have all got mobile phones!

 

We met up at Leeds Bradford airport with Chris Thompson, Martin Turner and Joe Cullen and the jokes were flying at Darren straight away.

 

When we arrived at the venue we checked in and went to watch the England match. Beer was a good price at 5 euros a pint!! NOT. But what was more disgracing than that was England’s performance! Just imagine it - we are sat in the middle of Irish, American, Welsh and Scottish and we were soon receiving more stick than Darren. During the first half Andy Relf (PDC Player) walked in where he received a round of boos, as he looks the spitting image of Fabio Capello. At half time Wes Newton stood up and shouted for f@@k sake Andy get Joe Cole on!!

 

Picture of a pint with 2 Euros worth drunk out of it!

 

 

After the disappointing result we all went to an Indian restaurant with Jamie Caven and Matt Padgett.

 

Funniest conversation in the restaurant was Chris asking Matt what job he did. It went something like this –

 

Chris " What job do you do Matt"

Matt "Bowling Alley Mechanic"

Chris "Ten-pin?"

Matt "no 40 hours a week"

 

How we did laugh! Darren had soon put the non-entry to the back of his mind and was enjoying the fun and camaraderie with the lads.

 

 

In the first round I had drawn Alan Tabern, Chris had drawn Steve Farmer and Martin had drawn John Part. It’s fair

to say that we had all got a task on our hands.

 

I played an outstanding game against Alan throwing 180’s finishing with one dart and flowing lovely. However a blocked dart on double 12 meant I missed 3 darts to win 6-4 and 3 narrow misses on double 19 for a 6-5 win meant I lost the match 5-6.

I was happy with my performance on the day and felt good.

 

 

Peter Hudson practicing. Peter is a great talent and one to watch but he does have an uncanny likeness to the family guy character Brian Griffin! Pa Pa Pe Par Par.

 

 

John Part and Steve Farmer both beat Martin and Chris so it was Darren turn to tell us he was £100 up on us all!

 

Sunday 20th June – Players Championship

 

I had drawn a Dutch opponent in the first round and really did not feel well. As little needs to be said about my game as possible as I played exactly how I felt. I was very under the weather and surprisingly not due to over doing the beer on Saturday or a late night – I was just rough. I lost 6-5 and did had 3 darts to win the match but really just wanted to go outside and grab some fresh air after losing as I felt I was going to faint!

 

Picture of the set-up

 

 

Enough of that – Chris played some super darts to beat Jelle Klaasen and Martin was playing well winning 6-5 in the last 64. Unfortunately they both fell in the last 32 to Steve Maish and Bernd Roith respectively.

 

Enough time now for more random people to ask Darren why he was not playing and for us to have more fun laughing at him until we caught our minibus to the airport.

 

We got the minibus with Louis and Tony Blundell with the latter being very inebriated and sitting in the front apologising for our drunken behaviour in the back – the look on the drivers face was a picture.

 

Thankfully I am now feeling well again and ready to do some damage in Vegas!

Thanks for reading,

 

Dave Ladley