Tuesday April 1st for some of us was All Fools Day and this year was no different as fifty or so darts fools gathered at Las Gemelas for the annual darts presentation night.
After a grueling and exciting season of darts the competing teams gathered to celebrate a close finish to the season. Never have so many highly tuned (darts) athletes been gathered in one place since the London Olympics. Trophies and medals, amongst other achievement awards, were presented during the evening for the winning teams and individual winners in various categories. In true darts fashion plenty of beer was consumed and excellent food provided by the hosts for the evening, Lydia and Isidro from Las Gemelas.
The season and championship went to the wire as it wasn’t until the final week that Las Gemelas were crowned champions for the second year, winning the Aden Penn Memorial Trophy, closely followed by Royal Turkeys and CD Eloys. The strongest team in the league holding everyone else up and winners of the ‘Cuchara de Madera’ were Pavo Real. (That’s last place to the uninitiated but I tried to make it sound good.)
As alluded to earlier, not only were winners’ prizes awarded but special achievement prizes were also handed out. As I’m sure most of you know, the idea of darts is to score as many points as possible with three darts up to the maximum 180 and thus score 501 in as few darts as you can. Thus, special recognition was given to a very skilled darts player who managed something spectacular and rarely seen. No, not a finish with 9 darts, the least amount possible but a score of precisely zero with three darts, missing the board completely. A pair of oversized comedy glasses were presented to her in honour of this achievement. However, not only did this person manage it once but actually repeated the feat. Hence, Liz Bland walked away with two pairs of comedy glasses and directions to Specsavers in time for next year.
Trophies and medals were presented in individual categories as follows:-
Best Bar Food
Pavo Real
Maximum 180 Scored
Phil Stockton x2,
Colin Jeffrey,
Sam Fulleylove Dave Dawson
Checkout of 100+
Paul Burgin 131,
Colin Jeffrey 131
Stuart Bland 107
Most 100s Scored Female
1st Jenny Nicholson 4,
2nd = Liz Bland & Kath Morgan 2.
Most 100s Scored Male
1st Colin Jeffrey 18
2nd Alick Howard 17,
3rd Paul Watson 14
Most checkouts Female
1st Lydia Fernandez Martin 12, 2nd Kath Morgan 11 3rd Liz Bland 10.
Most checkouts Male
1st Steve Napier 25, 2
nd = Alick Howard & Paul Watson 24
This year the male checkout trophy, presented to Steve Napier, was in memory of our darts colleague, Geoff Etheridge, who sadly passed away last year after his battle with cancer.
So after an exciting 2013/14 season let’s hope next year will be just as close and eventful. Maybe Liz Bland can get her spectacles sorted at Specsavers and perhaps we will have a new team to crown as champions. A much earned rest for all the darts players before the new season starts in October. Prior to that I’m sure there will be pre-season beer drinking training camp whilst still being able to throw three darts at the board. Some can clearly only manage one or the other. To do both requires a special type of athlete.
