Chelmsford 7 - 3 The Turf

Tennis balls, food, and drink - or "the holy trinity" as Bracken calls them.

Both teams played a bit below par compared to last week, but I thought we just did enough to keep our noses in front, and we made a solid start by going into a 4-0 lead. We really needed this, as the six Singles points were shared.

 There were still a good number of high shots, but way too many "Less Than 40" shots from many of us. Tommy from The Turf seemed to be the only player who took it forward from last week's game and he won a Singles point for his efforts.

It was a quiet night up at The Chelmsford with many of the regulars staying at home while we endured a month's worth of rain in a single day - and not for the first time this year either! Still, a good turn out in The Bar for the darts.

I'll hold back on a Man Of The Match for this week as the good performances within our team were fairly well spread.

The Turf - 4 - 6 Chelmsford

We played The Turf on Tuesday night, using their other board in the main Bar as opposed to the one in side bar which we used to use. There were a few changes in their team from previous seasons and they seem stronger for it. A high number of ton plus shots were being thrown by both teams, and the game was very closely run. We certainly improved from the opening two games of the season, and I hope we can maintain this.

We won the opening team game, but The Turf pulled it back by the end of the Doubles game and the scores were tied at 2-2. They won the first Singles game to take a 3-2 lead, but we then had a good showing in the remaining Singles games, winning three in a row at one point.

Quite a lot of players from both teams played really well, but I'll give Alan the Man Of The Match for his 17 darter in the final game of the night, finishing on 52. Roger would have got it but one of his two wining doubles was a D1 Marathon - the only long game of the evening!

Chelmsford 1 - 9 Blackhill Club

Bracken : Still bored with darts!

Blackhill Club were never forced to play their A game on Tuesday, and we made the cardinal sin of missing the small number of shots at doubles that came our way. We seemed to be heading to the dreaded "whitewash" until Michael won the penultimate point of the night in his Singles game. That gets him the Man Of The Match for us because it has saved me having to write about anoter absolute drubbing on here!

Alan gets a Brownie Point for his "Baby Ton Eighty" shot of 177 to leave him 42. That leaves an inviting target of either Single 10 or the adjacent Single 6 on the next throw, but it wasn't to be despite this strong finish to his game.

Davey Gill seemed to be getting some consistently high scores for them, with his team mates always seeming to get far more of the ton plus shots. For us though it just seemed to be getting the odd good shot here and there, and we didn't score well enough to win points.

Two very enjoyable games against the Blackhill Club crew as always though. If we can tighten up on the end game we should be OK, and we have a larger squad of players than last season.

Blackhill Club 7 - 3 Chelmsford

The new season is underway and we played our first game up at Blackhill Club on Tuesday night. After our 10-0 thrashing in the corresponding fixture in 2010 (a night where we actually played a decent game) I was really hopeful for some early points to remove the possibility of another whitewash.

Early points indeed appeared for us. Despite losing the opening Team Game we took a 1-2 lead with two Doubles wins, and then a 2-3 lead after the first Singles game. Sadly that was our last contribution to the score and Blackhill steamed away to a 7-3 victory by winning the last five consecutive Singles games.

Kris was our Man Of The Match, with winning doubles in the Doubles and Singles, with Peter getting our only other point in the Doubles. Still, a big improvement on the 2010 result!