Good Old Ferghal.

There ya go Ferghal. There is your mention. Haha. Ferghal is the manager and probably future owner of my local back in Tramore. Although he is a crap player like most others in Tramore you couldn't question Bohany's admiration of the game of darts. His loyalty is unquestionable too as he has been behind the sponsorship of many tournaments locally and has also run, along with his brother Niall(Poland's current number 1), a few exhibitions with the world's best. Early this year he and Angela ran a singles league which lasted 14 weeks and was won by Ken Coffey. A league table will never lie. Knockout tournaments lie the whole time if ya know what I mean. The new weekly darts tournament starts next Friday i think. Tramore darts makes me laugh and always has to be honest. It seems people there are content to be crap. Not all, but most and the few young lads who may be capable are scared shitless to develop their individual game. They stop playing when the tourist season comes in, drifting in and out of concentration when they do decide to play. The new players get to play one league game before being dumped out and are forced to wait a few months to play again in a competitive league. That probably explains the concentration drift. Having done research on national leagues throughout Ireland 2 years ago I found out that the Tramore league was one of only 3 leagues nationwide that are run on a knockout basis. Hardly a base for a league. Waterford and Tramore leagues never merged and that has been reflected on the county showings in the past 10 years but I cant blame Tramore for not getting involved with the Waterford board as they are nothing short of a joke at best. Positives to come out of Tramore are few and far between but they do exist. Angela is a positive. The Waterfront is a positive as it does try to promote. Three players under the age of 26 stand out and they probably know themselves who they are. Time is running out though lads if you wanna take the game seriously outside of the Thursday night 1001. One of them made a great showing in an underage national tournament already this year and without question has ability but that ability will just remain stationary if things remain.
A new season is approaching now and a big one for Tramore Darts. Good young players are coming through and the old ones still playing but not dominating anymore. Not even coming near to dominating in fact. Your Monopoly is gone lads so change your teams as much as you want, as it doesn't matter anymore. Lets get things going to the next level this year and start supporting darts in our local pubs etc and give these young players a chance to realise what they can do. A bus ran to the Citywest last year for the first time ever for the Grand Prix - shows the interest that is there in the game at the moment so lets use that interest and be constructive with it and stop relying on Angela to do everything.
Tramore darts is close to my heart and i would love to see it develop as its been "just there" for years now so hopefully as I say this year we might have more tournaments(seed them if necessary),give the poor teams more than one game per league or they'll never improve, more pubs coming on board, more competing outside of Tramore as I know the interest is there so lets use it and move with the times.

Never Rains But It Pours

Never rains but it pours. Cork venue on to me today looking for Jamie exhibition Friday 15th and Saturday 16th September. As I said yesterday though he’s in Oz living the life of Reilly. Not to worry though as we’ll re schedule for later in the year. Harvey is very popular with The Irish so he is. Does a lot of work over here and he is always brought back to venues to play in a repeat performance. Other players are too of course but none to the extent of Harvey. England however he does not appear as often. Maybe it’s the Scotland/ England saga but that’s the way it is. Jamie is on the verge of retiring so he is which will be a great shame if he does. I spoke to him about it in May gone but we’ll have to wait and see. The World Championship at Christmas may be his last farewell but we’ll have to monitor that one.

Also pondering retirement is Irelands Tom Kirby. I know his arm has gave him problems in the last couple of months which means he can’t practice which has the knock on effect of retirement. He is however going to the qualifying heat for the Grand Prix in 3 weeks time but if he fails there that could be it. That would mean that Kirby’s last outing will have been at the Reebok Stadium last June where he was defeated 8.7 by 2004 surprise Super Andy Callaby. Kirby’s arm acted up that day. How else could Callaby beat the legend that is Kirby. Only Joking Andy. I know ya can play. I owe a lot to Kirby to be honest. When I started getting involved in the game in the 2000 he was only coming back from a few years break and it all escalated from there. I live just outside Maynooth now which is where he is from. You may find Kirby in any of Maynooth’s bookies winning money as he is the luckiest person on the planet. When he retires from the game he can become a professional poker player or horse tipster as he seems to have an uncanny knack for it.Jammy Git.

Newcastle - Darts in Australia

First of all I must apologise (not). Had a text yesterday from a fella telling me to stop slagging off united. Some crack isn’t it. That’s what Rio thought anyway.

An unranked tournament took place in Newcastle on Sunday last. Wozza had a good showing this time out beating Lee Palfreyman, Andy Smith, the 2006 World Matchplay runner up James Wade, David Richardson and Kevin McDine before going out to 3 x 12 dart legs a 14 and a 15 to Lloyd. Lloyd won the game 5.3 hitting a 170 to win it. Over 500 played and it was a good showing to get to the last 8. It was won in the end by the Flash. Wozza has been putting the work in of late and that is good and hugely important. He had a bad 18 months prior to that which certainly cut short his practice hours but we all know what he can do so hopefully this may put him back on the comeback trail to the top 5 in the world which is where he is use to being in the last 15 years being World number 1 on 5 occasions. Priestley went through a torrid 3 years where he almost packed it in and now he is well established in the top 10 again and that’s what we have to do and aim for.

Heading off to Australia today is Jamie Harvey. Jamie is travelling over with Deller and Ritchie Burnett to play in an invitational tournament down under. Joining them from Orlando will be Bob Anderson which is the reason why he’s risking his place in the Citywest. The Aussies are mad for darts and although the price difference for the 4 lads to play is slight they are all well paid. 3 World Champions Anderson, Burnett, the flash in the pan and Harvey. They’ll have a good crack anyway and the result won’t matter in this instance but its promoting the PDC and that’s all that matters. They have stocked up on VB and Carlton cold for Jamie for I hope they know what hits them when they see the Jock coming.

Good news for the Aussies on the darts scene at the moment though. Anthony Fleet has beat off the challenge from Barry Jouannet to qualify for the PDC World Championships and the Wizard Simon Whitlock who defeated Taylor earlier in the year qualifying for the BDO one means the signs are certainly looking up for them. They also hosted the World Cup last year so they must be doing something right.

As I write this I have a horse going in the 5pm at Sedgefield so I’m going off to look at that.

Back from Italy

Back from my holidays in Italy now and what a great time we had. Took it easy as it ranged between 35 and 40 degrees so tough enough to handle that.No rest to be had though as 14 of us are heading to Stuttgart this coming Friday morning for the Germany V Ireland game and we are all hoping for a backlash from that dismal showing against the Dutch.Bound to find a dart board somwhere in Germany.The Germans have made slide strides up the rankings in the darts world over the past year what with the German number one Thomas Seyler improving day by day.If i do see a board myself and my mate Tripe are going to have a head to head for the crack.Tripe is getting Married in November and although the 14 who are going to Stuttgart see it as a mini German Stag his official stag is the 7th October in Cannyland which i will miss as i'll be in England so what i've done is for his stag i've got him a Barney shirt as a gesture for not being there.I dont feel good for missing it but sometimes these things cant be helped.Tripe is a big Barney fan and spoke to him after Barney defeated Taylor in the last 8 at the Reebok back in June.Barney is good like that whereas Taylor may dwell on talking to his fans between rounds.
New to Darts exhibitions in the next 3 weeks will be the dude with attitude Alex Roy and we will be doing a tour with Alex in December.Although he looks like a boxer on roller skates Alex is a decent lad and always does his bit for charity too.A Liverpool fan, what would you expect.He along with Ritchie "PDC" are respresenting the PDC in a charity football match to be held at Luton Town FC on Sunday 25th September which involves Luton Players, cricket players former Wales internationals (who are bound to lose) and some fellow from Eastenders and Never mind the Buzzmickeys.
Going back to Italy briefly it is not that unusual when you go away with your girlfriend that you meet another couple who live just down the road from you back home and that happened us while away. We had the honour of meeting Mark and Dolores Cleary on our opening night and spent every night thereafter chatting in the bar about our days adventure.Mark , an Alan Kelly lookalike ,a big Liverpool fan also but a bad singer, a good laugh but a worse DJ then singer but he likes Pizza. Have you got all that. Dolores, a good looking Blonde, Frankie from Coronation Street lookalike, an upbeat character with lots to say which we liked.Lads all joking aside thank you both for making our even more holiday enjoyable.We had a great crack talking about washing machines and whipped cream.We were greatful for your company and we all had a good laugh and we knew each other greatly when leaving so i hope all goes well for ye. In the 1990 film Ghost, Who played the part of Karl?
Good win for the Pool yesterday but how Lucky were the manks.
Todays NAP Chelsea 1/2, Louth 4/7 and Leeds 5/4. Get on it.
On a sad note though. While i was away in Italy a good friend and former work mate of mine Joe Rodgers back in Waterford sadly lost his Girlfriend of 15 years Breda. Breda only 36 tragically died suddenly from a brain haemorage. I met Breda first back 1996 and regularly met them for years after at dinner dances and parties through work etc,etc and straight away could relate to her big smile and frienly nature.She was great for Joe and he was for Breda also and they were lucky to have met each other.Awful news to get and i would like to take this chance to offer my deepest sympathy from all at darts exhibitions to Breda's family and of course big Joe on their tragic and untimely loss.

Steve Maish

After my nap went down on SUnday due to Mayo cocking me up i went off and got drunk for the laugh so hopefully the Dubs and co. will sort them out between now and September.
Went on a cruise today and got me farmers tan all browned up but i also brought my darts rankings folder with me and while i was studying this i noticed something significent.
Steve Maish may or may not know this but because he is in 25th position in the world at the moment but he needs to be in the top 24 in the world to qualify for the Grand Prix in the Citywest. That he knows i'm sure but while i was looking at it today i saw that Bob Anderson is currently in the 24th spot and in pole position for the citywest automatically. However the ranking system is based on 2 year stints so basically you defend in 2006 the points you won in 2004 so this means that in order for Steve to qualify in 24th he must do it with one tournament to go. The Irish Open in Castlebar in 2 weeks is the cut off point.I saw that Steve must get to the semi and Bob cannot go further than the 2nd round......good news Steve. Bob will be in Florida and has GAMBLED HEAVILY on you not doing that so now i make it that the Quarters will do you so it'll go to the wire i think....Literally.
Last year after the Irish Open 3 players were tied in 24th Spot. Mason,Williams but getting in on a 6 tournament count back was Wes Newton and this year could be that close too.
Although i deal with Bob a good bit i would not begrudge Steve the spot. Although i dont deal with him now he was involved in the very first Exhibition i ran which was with Wozza and raised over a grand for charity so i do like to see him do well even for that. I do think Bob's gamble might come back to bite him in the ass though coz Maish is very capable and a different player on the floor than on TV.
I'm home on Friday morning though sure i'm sure i'll have had loads of crap through my letter box.
Liverpool for the champions league again.

Mayo Bums

Got myself up out the scratcher at 1.45am Friday morning. A crazy time to get up. Got to the airport at 3.15am and was at our gate at 5am only to be told we had a delay because "one of hostesses rang in sick". What a bag of shit that was. Kept getting delayed by half hour here and half hour there and we eventually boarded at 9.15am. Absolute madness. My aggro with Mayo continued some more this week too. When we were called to board these plonkers with Mayo jerseys on started singing,MAYO,MAYO,MAYO. What a bunch of bums. Its Sunday here now and i'm going down to the pub later and i hope Laois hammer the shit out of Mayo as this week they have drove me around the bend.The only thing they are good for is hosting the Irish Open in TF Royals.
It was 40 degrees here yesterday and i'm certainly not able for this but we'll battle on and see how we do.Had a few drinks Friday night and i knew i was alive yesterday. These Mosquitos have my balls chewed.
No darts stuff the last few days though as its a break i'm on. Poor result for Liverpool yesterday. Should be seeing off those fellows. Arsenal slipped up too though so hopefully the Manks and Chelski will today as well and we'll be back on a par with the other big three.
The Hotel manager over here is the living spit of Pat Hearne back home. I text Coach to tell him that so i've taken a photo of him so he can see for himself.
Todays NAP Kerry in the handicap to do Cork, Laois to do Mayo and the Manks to draw with Fulham as they are shite.

Great Day Today

Great day today. Got a few tips from my usual dodgy tipster that for once came in. Had a €15 double on King Rama 4/1 in the 6.50 in Tramore with another horse an hour earlier called jawad at 13/8 so my returns will be just under €200 so ya gotta be happy with that although i did have 2 losers earlier in the day.
Small bits of info today darts wise was info on the Bob Anderson classic which was to be held in October is cancelled. It was cancelled some weeks back but only got write up on it today. Bob, in fairness worked hard on trying to keep on track but the "money putter uppers" seem to back off and thus anyone who had hotels are anything booked or entry fee's paid may be only slightly out of pocket.Bob would love to have kept that going but such is life. He got to the final of his own tournament some years back but lost 8.1 in the final to Terry Jenkins so that tournament was good to him....until now.... Next year please Bob.Bob is heading to Tokyo in November with a Unicorn tour so that makes him well pleased.
On about people out of pocket and so forth. I know one top player who will not be out of pocket in the future.Heard today that one of the worlds top 2 ranked players(not Taylor) has increased his appearance fee with immediate effect.Laughable really when ya stop and think about. With the competitive prize money next year expected to exceed £2 million (sterling) increasing exhibition fee's by a couple of hundred is a tad bit on the greedy or taking the piss side to be honest and we'll see how that developes in the future.
If he was at the peak of his career i'd say something but he's not so thats what makes it laughable.Maybe beating Taylor on TV would warrant something like that.
Anyway, i'm off on my holidays tomorrow and i have to be up at 1.30am as our flight is at 5.25am. We are going to Italy so if i see Materazzi while there i'll be sure and head butt him in the chest. A big hello to Materazzi from Zidane and Diarmuid Mc Carthy.

Make a wish foundation

After that 4.0 drubbing I've just witnessed at the hands of Van Basten and co I'm glad to write this and get away from the TV screen. A shocking showing and we'll know we're alive in Germany in 2 weeks time if we play like that. Yesterday though I got a letter in the post related to a charity raffle a few weeks ago. The O Reagan family in Waterford city suffered great loss when a fire struck their home killing the Mam, Dad and the baby of the family leaving just 2 small kids behind. Like many others in Waterford my local pub back home decided to run a raffle to donate what they could to the cause so in Bolton at the UK Open I handed around a shirt and the top 32 players in the world including tournament winner Barney signed it for me for the charity which was a price that raised €155. Yesterday in the post came a thank you letter to show some of the players, the newspaper cutting of the raffle etc,etc and the lodgement slip of the money for the O Reagan account so well done everyone on that. It was a huge cause and very much appreciated as every penny counts in a situation like that.

Alan Byrne rang me yesterday too. Alan is one of the head men in Dublin with darts as he runs all the winter/summer leagues and he too has a charity event coming up soon that will be well appreciated. Alan has great involvement in the Make a Wish Foundation and in October (no exact date yet)he is going to play one leg over a 16hour period for charity with anyone who wants to play having a few throws throughout. By my calculation a 16hourleg of amateur darts will mean probably one leg of 100,001 which should befun. It's a unique idea and one that is well worth it. Make a Wish foundation requires an average minimum of €5000 per wish to make these sick kids dreams become reality so if anyone needs a sponsorship card for this one please let me know. Some of the pro players might play in this providing it falls on a weekend that no tournament but I'll keep you updated on this when Alan informs me.

Idiots

It’s amazing really. Had a call last night from a bar in Castlebar, Co. Mayo which is where next months Irish Open classic is on. It is a category 1 tournament which has been won by Taylor in the last 2 years so as you can tell all the top players will be there. This guy rang me last night about an exhibition for Harvey and Warriner on Friday 8th. (Which is the day before the tournament starts). This jolly old fool was a chancer. When I gave him the price which was discounted because the players would be hear anyway for Jamie, Alan and both together he says “shouldn’t it be cheaper considering they are hear anyway”. What an idiot I thought. Must have thought I came down in the last shower. I’m sure when he got off the phone to me he was onto someone else to see would they play for the shameless price he was offering and you know what? I bet you he’ll get a top 32 player to do it. Not any of my players though as this fellow is a joke. He sounded like he was about 90, an old fashioned publican afraid of his life to pay for something. I’ve made a €5 bet with my girlfriend that he’ll have a top 32 player on this night. Some dart players are mad like that. Every penny counts. What they don’t realise especially in Ireland, if you drop your price once word travels around the small country that it is Ireland and the next offer he’ll have from here will probably be less so I’ll wait and see who plays there that night…..I know who my money is on. This guy bored me so much I went back to watching Wales V Bulgaria which was oozing boredom of the highest degree. It finished 0.0 so that says it all. Before I go just tell you one more thing about the publican. When he realised he wasn’t going to get any of my players his brass neck tightened up and he offered for myself and Wozza to “drop in” (to his pub I presume)on our way back from Ballina from our Thursday exhibition for a cup of coffee/tea and a sandwich….on him.So he can get a photo to hang on the wall with the other player he said he had. I’ll say it again…..What an idiot. Anyone reading this from Ireland can get a great picture of this guy because I have my own picture of him. Should have another bet. €5 that this guy will be up in Croke Park on Sunday for the Laois V Mayo replay with a lump of Mayonnaise on the side of his jaw after one of his infamous sandwiches up on Hill 16.


On a lighter note. Spoke to Sid Waddell on Monday night last and he was asking about my mate Nailer (see picture). Nailer came to Blackpool with me last year for the World Matchplay and to sample the Candy Floss. One night in particular he had a few too many and decided to get Sid to sign the cast on his broken arm which Sid did no problem. Since then though Nail has been annoying poor Sid and even went out and twisted his ankle a few weeks later on purpose so he could get Sid to sign his bandage.

The picture (attached) is up in the players bar at all the tournaments now and Nailer has been barred until further notice. He should be re instated though before the Grand Prix 2006 providing he behaves himself and conducts himself in an orderly fashion.

First Blog - Japan - Part - Warriner

Hello everybody and welcome to our new darts blog on darts exhibitions. From here on in I’ll be filling everyone in on the in’s and out’s of what’s happening in the world of darts on a daily basis in between our travels for tournament, exhibitions and presentations etc,etc giving you all the funny stories that always follow us around on the way. Firstly I’m delighted to have signed John Part up to darts exhibitions. He is a great entertainer and a great friend so its going to be good to have him over from time to time. Because John is from Canada he obviously has a lot further to travel so he won’t be over as often as others to the UK and Ireland so my advice is to come out and catch him when ya can. Just to let you know at a recent tournament, the Bobby Bourn memorial John Part was drawn against Alan Warriner in the last 32 in a rehearsal for our exhibition on the 19th October coming and what a game it was. First to 3 sets. John had the throw in the 1st set which he won 2.1. Alan had the throw in the 2nd set which he won 2.0. John with the throw took the 3rd set 2.1 Alan the 4th 2.0 and John took the final set on the last leg 2.1. So all in all Alan won 7 legs to John’s six but as darts is a funny old game John won by 3 sets to 2. Cruel for camp Warrriner but at least it was at the receiving end of Part. Myself and Wozza got some great news during the week that we have an exhibition trip in January in Japan. 18 days in Japan shall be good and I’ll certainly be up for that. Japanese food doesn’t agree with my bowels though so I may have to pack my sandwiches and crisps so I can add another inch to my ever expanding waistline. I wonder what the Japanese “orange” tastes like. I’ll be keeping you updated on this so keep an eye from here on in on my blog.