Chelmsford 3 - 7 Delves Club

Last Thursday's board

It may not look a good result for us but I really thought we put the Away leg behind us and competed well tonight. We can even look back on a couple of oher points that were in the balance.

Phil Borthwick looked to be at his usual best but their other players showed a few vulnerabilities which allowed us to snatch three points and make this a more respectable score-line following the 9-1 defeat on the 10th of March.

I was happy with my own game and I thought I got my mental game right despite a few nerves in the Singles game. The Delves games were a bit of a low point for me last season, but i think I showed them my better side this time around.

Derwentside 3 - 7 Chelmsford

The Derwentside main Bar

These were good points to collect against The Derwentside. I'd seen Mark and Alan play a superb game up at Blackhill Club on Tuesday (Doubles Cup night), and despite not winning they looked in great form (loads of 100+ shots). Also Norman threw a 180 in the warm up and looked to be back to his best throwing his 12g "wasps".

We lost the opening 1001X Team game to take us under a 50% success rate in this point for the season. We really need to do better in this. We then won our Doubles games to take a lead and the Singles games went reasonably well for us. Willie treated us to a D1 marathon though!

Graham and Collie don't play for The Derwentside anymore, but there's still a strong backbone in the team and I thought their two new players contributed well.

The throw at The Derwentside has been changed from last season, with the board now in the side room adjoining the main bar. There are a few more distracions in the preipheral vision when throwing, but I still prefer this new oche to the previous one where a wall to the left of the player made for a more tight feel when throwing.

Delves Club 9 - 1 Chelmsford

The Derwent Walk at Ebchester Station [credit]

This was our worst result for a while, and we did nothing to push Delves out of first gear. It's very disappointing when you don't push the opposition and let them canter through the game. In most of the 10 games we weren't even near a finish.

At least we avoided a whitewash, and I finished on the 68 (S20, S16, D16) that Alan P left for me in our Doubles game.

I put last year's nightmare game against Davey Crawley behind me and played a reasonably steady singles game against the throw, but had 88 on the board as my opponent sunk his double. I reall enjoyed it though and wanted to keep on throwing, so at least the mental game was right.

The return leg is in a fortnight's time due to the Doubles Cup next Tuesday, and it'll be a chance to show we can compete to a higher level than in this game.

2009 Whyte & Mackay Premier League Darts

Many thanks to Steven Dawson of Blackhill Club for arranging a great night out at the Metro Arena Newcastle for the PDC Premier League darts.

I've been to a few events before, but this was by far the largest and the most polished. The atmosphere was great and I'd love to do this again next year.

Its not a cheap night out when you're drinking greedy sized 2 pint cups of Arena priced beer, but worth every penny - and the sore head!

Chelmsford 6 - 4 Leadgate CC

We lost the opening 1001X Team Game due to some poor finishing after building up a small lead, but from that point the games swung between the two teams quite evenly.

Peter Mc played the game of the night, getting down to a D1 finish in 15 darts and then taking it out with the last dart of his next throw. Alan Brunskill from their team again played a good game and won his Singles match.

I used my newer set of Unicorn Hero 27's in the game after taking both sets out with me to try. I think I'll stick with these ones now as they threw quite well for me.