Wonderful Wigan(!)

[crispy1978]

My weekend started on Friday as I took the train from Scarborough and checked in to my hotel around 9:30, a couple of beers in the hotel bar and bed for 11ish.

Saturday, woke up feeling awful - pounding head, sore throat and finding it so difficult to concentrate on anything.

Board 6 was my poison, and we had:

Round 1
Colin Lloyd (12) 6-2 Matt Clark
Darren Webster (21) 6-5 Kevin Dowling
Nigel Heydon 6-1 Max Hopp

Round 2
Colin Lloyd 6-4 Ian Moss

That's all I could manage before Mark, the board official got the floater in as could see I was struggling and making stupid errors as I was really struggling to concentrate.

I watched a few matches while getting plenty of caffeine in to me. I left the venue 3:45ish and back to the hotel for an hours kip and some medication.

That seemed to do the trick and I ventured out in the pouring rain for some tea and a couple of beers in Sams bar with the markers. I managed to clear the pool table of all challengers too! Halloween party was at the bar as well, with John Henderson choosing the winner. A bit of pool doubles action followed, with Tris and Sean taking 10 minutes for one shot!! Then we watched

Sunday - felt 100 times better.

Venue just after 10, board 3 was my allocation:

Round 1
Gary Anderson (8) 6-4 Paul Amos
Mick Todd 6-5 Dennis Smith (25)
Matt Clark 6-4 James Richardson

Gary was typical Gary, scoring great, doubles were slightly suspect, but he did enough.

Mick and Dennis' game was, by their own admission not the greatest, and lasted 46 minutes.

Matt did just enough to beat James, the first time I'd marked either player.

Round 2
Gary Anderson 6-4 Mark Lawrence

Ditto round 1 re Gary.

Round 3
Gary Anderson 6-3 Mick Todd

This was a good game to mark. Contrasting styles, but good scoring from both.

Round 4 (board 1)
Gary Anderson 6-3 William O'Connor

Another very similar game to the previous ones of Gary's.

A bit of a wait, so time to grab some food before:

Semi Final (board 6)
Ian White 6-0 Gary Anderson

I wouldn't have predicted this one before it started. I got the impression Gary was quite tired, which his darts landing low and averaging 85 might suggest.

Sunday night was the same food stall, and back to Sams with Anne where we watched the darts with the PDC guys. A quick wander in to town where not much was doing and we bumped in to Jyhan Artut and Max Hopp and spent an hour or so with them. Bed by 12ish.

Monday, and the GSOD qualifier. Only 7 markers plus Daz and Mark on PDC duty.

Board 5 was mine, with the following:

Prelim Round
Mark Barilli 4-1 Andy Firth
Joe Cullen 4-3 Robbie Green
Daniel Jones 4-3 David Atkins

The match between Joe and Robbie was a cracker - shame one had to go out in the prelim

Round 1
Chris Aubrey 4-2 Ronnie Baxter (5)
Mark Barilli 4-1 Andrew Gilding
Joe Cullen 4-1 Daniel Jones

I've marked Chris a few times and know what he is capable of, Ronnie admitted he didn't play well.

Round 2
Martyn Turner 4-1 Chris Aubrey
Mark Barilli 4-2 Joe Cullen

Not knowing much about the two winners here, I wouldn't have picked them at the start of the day, but they definitely deserved their victories.

Round 3
Martyn Turner 4-2 Mark Barilli

A good scoring game, played at a good pace - just the way I like them!

Round 4
B8 - Martyn Turner 4-2 Arron Monk
B6 - Brendan Dolan 3-4 Vincent van der Voort

Got to mark both 'semi finals' as I had a quarter of the draw essentially to myself. Martyn was slightly the better player in his match, despite a 158co from Arron, and Vincent and Brendan's match swung both ways and came down to the final double - both having match darts.

Couldn't stay for the finals as had a train to catch, but a thoroughly enjoyable weekend - I must do it again sometime, oh yeah in 3 weeks time!!!

[Booji Boy]

Good stuff. Always enjoy reading these.

[Lee Taylor]

Yep, well done - especially making the effort on a Monday.