Shotley Club 4 – 6 Chelmsford

Pictured : Practice shot from Michael of Shotley Club

At last a win to report. Shotley were a little off colour tonight, and uncharacteristically missed a few of their doubles, but at least we kept ourselves in the games to take advantage.

We slipped to trailing 2-0, but six consecutive points from us secured the win. Peter and I won our Doubles game, followed by Willie and Roger winning theirs. Singles wins for Alan, Mark, myself, and Peter put us in the lead, but unfortunately Willie missed out before Roger lost the final game of the night to Michael to leave it 4-6 on the night.

Man Of the Match this week goes to Mark, who played well in all three of his games. This is the type of performance we really need in this team, and it's not just as simple as totting up who won the most matches.

A very good result for us then, and we'll be having a special Team Night next Tuesday when the League is resting over the Festives. I'll try to get some pictures of the stupid games we play to amuse ourselves during this “down time”. There'll be darts, doms, corks, and all sorts :o)

Chelmsford 4 – 6 Shotley Club

Pictured : Practice darts

This is becoming a common scoreline for us at the moment. We were well beaten in the opening 1001X Team Game and got nowhere near a finishing double. If memory serves we had 270 points left, and we were throwing with the darts (shooting first).

They took a 0-2 lead and were looking comfortable before Roger & Alan and then Peter & myself won our Doubles games to equalise at 2-2.

Sadly we only scored two more points, courtesy of Roger and Peter in their Singles games, making it yet another joint Man Of The Match award to them.

I had the chance to gain a 5-5 draw in the last Singles game of the evening, but I was beaten by their 16 year-old wonder kid Michael Taylor. I was against the darts and fell a little behind before pulling back into contention with a 125. We both had 20 left, and Michael finished first.

Michael has recently damaged his eye while pulling his darts from the board and was wearing an opaque protective shield over it. All the very best to him in his forthcoming operation to hopefully repair the damage.

We had a good evening with this team and are looking forward to the return leg next week when we make the very short 2-mile trip up the road.

Smelters 7 – 3 Chelmsford

Pictured : A view from The Lounge

Yet again, the score line doesn't look too good, but we had to really graft just to get 3 points from The Smelters tonight. None of us were trounced, but they just seemed to hit their finishes when it mattered.

By losing opening the Team game and the 3 Doubles games we found ourselves 4-0 down and looking at a whitewash. Thankfully, Willy, Roger and I won our Singles games to get 3 valuable points on a night where we were missing a few players (Peter, Mark, Jean) but we held together reasonably well. Joint Men Of The Match awards to us three then, and that is fitting with such a team effort.

Nerves a plenty for me yet again. I think it was seeing the League table earlier in the week that did it for me, because everything else was so relaxed and pleasurable. I try my hardest to just enjoy it, but I was desperate for the points tonight, and I'm disappointed we only got the three.

League Table, 14/11/2006

Pictured : Christmas darts config

It takes a long time for the league table to filter down to me for blogging, but here we finally have the first update of the season. It doesn't make great reading for The Chelmsford, and there is plenty of room for improvement :

1) Cricketers (88)
2) Delves Club (80)
3) Coach & Horses (72)
4) Chopwell Central (68)
5) Wheatsheaf (59)
6) Castleside Inn (56)
7) Leadgate Cricket Club (54)
8) Smelters (48)
8) Shotley Club (48)
10) Derwentside (47)
11) Commercial (43)
12) Chelmsford (39)
13) Black Diamond (34)
14) Jolly Drovers (34)