Thursday 15 October 2009

Trent Vegas 2009 - A wolfman howls as the full moon shines bright!

After a nervous finish to the group stage relying on other results to go his way, the Wolfman goes on to beat Bigfoot 5-3 in the final to claim his first SDA title. With Bigfoots absence from the matchplay, a finish of no worse than 6th will see Wolfman end the season as the world number two. 'The Gent' having failed to reach an SDA final for the very first time, will be looking to get back to winning ways at the matchplay on home soil!

Wednesday 30 September 2009

Grand Slam 2009 Champion

James 'The Gent' Pinder continues his dominance at the Coppice Club and takes his second SDA title, consolidating his position as the SDA's world number one. With just 2 events left of the season and the announcement that Brownrigg will be absecent from the Matchplay event on 28th November, Pinder is virtually assured of claiming the 2009 Order of Merit too.

Thursday 2 July 2009

Southern Masters Champion 2009 - Ian 'Bigfoot' Brownrigg

Well, after an eventful weekend Riggmatronica became the 2009 Southern Masters Champion, well done Riggs. The Chairman and Vice-Chairman have worked extremely hard to pull the stat packs together and these have been sent out and will be with you all shortly. There's some pics of the event on Tom Bailey or John Rowleys facebook profiles so ask em to be your friend if (they're not yet and if they'll let you) so you can see em.

Anyway, there's little time to dwell on that, with the grand slam just over 3 weeks away. I need walk ons for all the new players (Jonboy, Will & one other TBC as I'm not sure if Adam's playing or not yet) and if anyone wishes to change their current walk ons then you need to let me know by the 10th July. The Fixtures for the Grand Slam are on a blog further down the page. We'll send out reminders of any tournament specific rules and what everyone needs to bring within the next week or 2.

Monday 15 June 2009

Less than 2 weeks until showtime!

With only 12 days to go until the 2nd SDA event - The Southern Masters, numerous rumours have been coming out in the press over recent weeks.

Firstly, the SDA world number 1 has just returned from his honeymoon in Sicily, congratulations to 'The Gent' on being the first husband on the SDA tour, i've heard it was a beautiful ceremony.

Will a week in the sun have left 'The Gent' with sunstroke (believed to be one of the biggest causes of dartitis) or will his relaxed get away leave him fresh and re-energised ahead of his first host event?!

Along a similar sort of line, congratulations to 'The Con' on his engagement to his beloved. Although not playing at the Southern Masters (much to his disappointment, though his lawyers are still working hard to try and gain a last minute wildcard and a new role is also being negotiated for 'The Con' within the SDA), he says he will be ready for battle come the Grand Slam of Darts.

'Blind Jonny' has been in todays papers following his first 180 over the weekend. He has been quoted as saying "yeah it felt good, really good, i wouldn't mind a bit more of that. I've been working on my game these last few weeks and i'm seeing a definite improvement. I think i can probably do some damage, though, all i really actually play is round the clock so...". Blind Jonny has moved out of the utensil position with the bookies.

After another crushing exhibition defeat to 'Bigfoot', the Wolfman is still confident that he can pull some kind of form out of the bag on the day and push his competitors all the way. With 2 180's in the last week his scoring's been good however he's got major double trouble. 11 days practicing and they'l be good to go (out in the first round maybe).

Despite his demolition job on 'Wolfman', 'Bigfoot' is going through a stage of mental doubt within his own game. Quoted as saying "i'd be better if i played left handed" after a recent slump, on other occassions rumours of record number of 140's and a few 180's having been coming out of his camp. 'Bigfoot' will be hoping to lead the northern charge and bookies odds have just changed this week to make him the 2nd favourite.

A similar thing can not be said for 'The Robber' who has struggled to make many darting headlines recently. Rumours of power scoring and quality finishes have been few and far between in The Robber's camp. Other than an audacious 72 checkout against Wolfman in a recent exhibition match, 'The Robber' has not been seen at an oche since the Premier League. 'The Robber' could produce absolutely anything on the day and has BIG scores to settle, he's not to be overlooked!

Finally bringing us on to the 2 new players, making their SDA debuts at the Southern Masters - Gary 'The Chucker' Rogers and Tom 'The Gambler' Bailey . Having come into the event through regional qualifiers these 2 men will be ready for everything that's thrown at them.

'The Chucker' has been throwing some solid arrows in the last couple of months, even beating 'The Gent' on the odd occassion, however his practice facilities have gone into turmoil as he has lost his home practice facilities. Now relying on games with 'The Gent' and the odd game in the pub, 'The Chucker' will need to put a lot of faith in his own natural ability come tournament day.

'The Gambler' on the other hand has started off slow and is steadily improving. Having purchased a new board, new darts and with all that a new mindset, he is rumoured to be throwing solid arrows in practice. However word on the South-East London pub circuit is that he can't score under pressure. 'The Gambler' has rejected these claims and believes that he could be a darkhorse.

Here's just some of the latest bookmakers odds currently available:

Northern Winner: 7/2
Southern Winner: 1/3

'The Gent speciality Bets:
'The Gent' to be world number 1 after the southern masters: 1/50
'The Gent' to win without losing a leg: 9/1
'The Gent' to win without losing a match: 2/1

Blind Jonny speciality bets:
'Blind Jonny' to win the utensil prize for last place: 7/2
'Blind Jonny' to be sucking off a kitchen utensil at sundays presentation ceremony: 1/100
'Blind Jonny' to mention Jenson Button/Team braun all weekend: 1/1000

all southern Final: 10/3
all northern Final: 33/1
northern-southern Final: 3/2

'The Robber' to be in the worlds top 4 following the southern masters: 2/1

'Wolfman' to make it through the group stage: 1/2

'The Con' to turn up unannounced: 5/1

'Bigfoot' to present the presentation ceremony: 1/20

'The Gambler' to be seen making bets on his blackberry mid game: 1/3

'The Chucker' to break something in a rage: 3/2

'The Robber' to get beaten 2-1 in all his matches: 2/1

'Wolfman' to stick with the same technique all tournament: 100/1

'Bigfoot' to crack under pressure: 1/2


The tournament host - 'The Gent' will be sending out something regarding all the specific tournament rules shortly and confirmation of the tournaments sponsors.

May the darts be with you!

Tuesday 9 June 2009

Latest Newsflash

With less than three weeks until the next event, members of the SDA are anxiously counting down the days until the tungsten flies for the second time this season. With his disappointing third place in the 2009 Premier League, Bigfoot is looking to make amends and pick up further ranking points this time round.

The following is a run-down of information I have picked up on regarding tour members.

Wolfman
Word on the grapevine is that the Wolfman has a new technique similar to Bobby George. Thankfully, Bobby has never won a major event in his life, pointing out the obvious flaws in this technique.

The Gent
Darting pundits throughout the world have commented on The Gent's newly found lack of balance. Many think that this has been caused by the large piece of metal that seems to have appeared on his left hand. Could this affect the world number 1's throwing ability? We'll have to wait and see.

Blind Jonny
With the recent acquisition of his dream motorbike, Blind Jonny has not been practicing as much as he'd like. Apparently the bike needs a lot of work but he'll need to dig out the razor in order to complete the Tom Cruise "TopGun" image! Luckily, Wolfman has offered the other Northern residents a lift to the venue.

The Robber
This pro has kept a fairly low profile over the past couple of months. However, he was recently spotted scaling a mountain in Wales with another member of the SDA. Could this be part of a new training regime to get him match fit?

Bigfoot
Bigfoot's main concern is the difference in both culture and climate that the Southern Masters brings. Having not travelled south of Birmingham for years, he is worried about the language barrier! How will he cope? His darts seem to be temperamental, one minute he's phil taylor and the next he's that guy from the pub that can't even hit the board. Hopefully things will settle down before the big day.

Wednesday 27 May 2009

Countdown to the 2009 Southern Masters

In one months time the top players in the SDA will meet and compete to be crowned the first ever Southern Master.

The preparations of the players have been mixed. One of the new additions, Gary Rogers has had a frustrating time losing consistently to Pinder over recent weeks although he did get a 5-2 legs victory. This was preceded by a 5-0 loss and followed by a 5-3 loss. His preparation has also been hampered by the removal of his dartboard and the changing of his darts. It waits to be seen how costly these changes are.

Not much has been heard of the other new player, Tom Bailey, although rumours have been surfacing that he has bought new darts and dartboard in order to get some much needed practice. His only recent outing was a humiliating 10-1 defeat to Pinder.

Talk coming from the Riggs camp is that he is hitting 140 scores for fun in practice. However he been unable to get much game time practice as he has been preoccupied with study and it will be interesting to see whether he can take his form from the practice board to the match board.

Hitchen's build up was thrown into chaos this last weekend when he was only able to get 5 legs in with Barnett of which he lost all but one. Hitchen will have to hope that those long nights spent on the soft tip board can help him when it comes to the real thing.

Barnett claims that he has now found his ideal technique, throwing like the great Bobby George, although this may have changed by the time people read this. Unlike Riggs his practice was not affected by study and he has even had time to invent a Golf practice game and is working on a Snooker version.

There is absolutely no word from the Blind Jonny camp and is unknown whether he is busy practicing or just knocking one off over button with one hand and playing the harmonica with the other.

As for the Pinder camp, things are looking good with several 50 plus average games and several convincing victories. The one fly in the ointment is that practice time has had to be given to writing a wedding speech and general wedding organising.

Friday 22 May 2009

Brief overview of the 2009 SDA Premier League

Talks of the SDA first began to surface around the time of the 2009 PDC World Championships. The talks intensified in February 2009 when the two driving forces behind the Association, Lawrence “Wolfman” Barnett and Jimmy “The Gent” Pinder got together at the Coppice Club. After these talks it was announced that the SDA Premier League would take place in March 09.
The original line-up for the event included Gorgeous Gavin Simons and Jon “The Don” Croft had to pull out/bottled it. Luckily Lol and Jim were joined by Ian “Bigfoot” Brownrigg, Rob “The Robber” Hitchen and at very short notice Blind Jonny Rowley.
The group stage was shrouded in controversy and aggro, particularly in the match between Jim and Rob when a call by the scorer possibly cost Rob the match. Later on in the group stage, when victories were essential for qualification, Rob became embroiled in a row with Ian over some over enthusiastic cheering.
At the end of the group stage Jim came out on top with a 100% record, followed by Lol, Ian, Rob and bringing up the rear Blind Jonny.
The semi-finals kicked off with Jim in inspired form hitting the first 180 in SDA history in a convincing 4-0 victory. The second semi-final saw Ian rue the missed doubles as he was defeated 4-1 by Lol.
The final looked like it was going to be a one sided affair as Jim raced into a 4-0 lead, but Lol showed his courage as he fought back to 4-2. However the recovery was short lived as Jim took the next leg, the match and the 2009 Premier League title with a Double 8.