song and dance

Hello and welcome to the match report for the 6th Feb.

This week, through the magic of modern technology, the match has added sound. Each player, as well as the team as a whole, gets a theme-tune to walk in to. Left, Dave helps the United bods out on the sound desk.

Thanks to the long-awaited return of selecta star-player bendelayo, this evening's team is 8-strong. A bully-off sees psyche excluded from the singles due to landing his dart beyond the doubles outer-orbit. Above right, the playing order is worked out.

sixes

psyche, houses, bendelayo, devastating, gigolo & bags stand up for Selecta. The team enters to the strains of craig david: "the crowd says 'bo, seleeecta!". The rivals, United, have 'some track from a trance compilation' as their theme.

Early on in the game houses manages to back-end his own dart. Remarkable, but it doesn't count towards the score due to some pithy technicality about the dart actually having to be in contact with the board. 35 scored. boo.


With consistent high-scores from devastating and a mid-game 100 from bendelayo, selecta is soon down to 3 to finish. houses fluffs his opportunity, busting with a premature D1 with his first dart. ben gets the 1, leaving a madhouse finish which gigolo gets.


doubles

bendelayo and psyche:
1st leg: A fast game, this: down to a 16 finish in 4 darts. pscyhe clinches the game with a D1 finish.
2nd leg: the guys don't hang about this time either. Selecta is quickly down to D2, and again psyche obliges.

bags and houses:
1st leg: starts badly with a 10 thrown by houses. Further poor darts leave the selecta boys still on 102 when united checks out.
2nd leg: houses likes the number 10 this evening; he scores another 10 to open this leg. Despite some recovery work by Bags (another 100 scored mid-game) this one goes to United too.


warrior and rampage:
1st leg: game proceeds swiftly down to 16, then 8: warrior finishes it with a D1followed by a D3.
2nd leg: rampage checks out on a D4. He modestly protests "I fucked around a bit [on the way down]".

triples

psyche gigolo bendelayo:
The match reporter was largely distracted during this
game by some Very Important Questions:

Which station name occurs in both the london
underground and the paris metro (with the same spelling)?
Which london underground station has six consecutive consonants in its name?
What is the rudest station in brussels?
Which two football players have played in the 4 biggest uk derbies?
(answers will be posted on this blog sometime)

they lost the triples.

devastating warrior rampage
dave makes a healthy start with a 72.

Another Very Important Question:
Which two uk hit records sold over a million but never got to no. 1?

Warrior checks out on madhouse to win the triples game. Says it only took them "about 300 darts".


singles:

houses
Plagued by low scores all evening, the singles match proves troublesome for Houses. Quickly falling behind, he perseveres, getting down to a D20 finish, but his opponent checks out first on a D2. Houses blames his poor performance on the accidental purchase of a disablingly strong beverage earlier on in the evening: the guest ale "A over T" weighs in at a scary 9%.


bags
bags loses! opponent checks out with a smart, two-dart, 19 D19 combination.

rampage
close finish - victory to rampage in the end with a D4 check-out.

devastating
close finale in this game. dave almost checks out with 60 to go, getting 20 and 20, but just landing the wrong side of the D10 wire. The tension is heightened by the drum and bass playing in the background. Dave manages to overcome distractions to check out on D2!!!

warrior
ted's opponent has a chance at a 133 finish, but hits 140. The game is eventually lost with a D14 check-out going to the opposition.

we're 6 games to 5 up at this point.

gigolo
the match is lost to the ginger bloke from united.

Now it's 6 all. It's all to play for.

captain's match:

dave loses both legs. que pena!

..and the match is lost :-( But selecta doesn't go home empty handed! A recent change in the rules means the losing team gets a bonus point if they lose 6-7. Huzzah! (BTW, despite what it looks like, I'm not wearing a party-hat in the photo below.)