All Over Now

What a 10 days it was for myself and a few others during the Sky Bet Grand Prix in the Citywest. The 3 Part exhibitions went great so they did. Party hit a 150 with 3 bulls on the Wednesday and the Friday either side of his 6.5 victory over Wozza in Edenderry on the Thursday. I have to say the Venue in Edenderry was absolute class and I would like to think we'll be back there soon. Slight bit of hassle directed at myself and John at the Friday night exhibition but nothing i had not seen before so it is hardly worth mentioning.

The PDPA tournament went well on the Saturday with Taylor claiming victory before Barney turned up on Sunday to claim the Budweiser UK open qualifier. Put the 2 big guns in good shape for their week ahead that did.

The Free exhibition was fantastic also. Picked up in style, fed drink and food for the night before being returned to our hotel at a very reasonable hour. Manley and Phil Jones bounced off each other well and a great night was had by all and we managed to raise a couple of hundred euro for 11 year old Lewis Edmundson who has a terminal disease. Lewis has had alot of help from the dart players of late as a fund raising exhibition was held in the Belroy hotel, Blackpool last July on the eve of the Bobby Bourn tournament. I have met Lewis and his story is a heart breaking one so I'll save that for another time.

Ya know it was amazing before the first dart was thrown in the Grand Prix it had already being hectic and things were not about to ease off. People always looking for the free passes. The radio interview for Newstalk etc etc and to be honest i was looking forward to not drinking for once but that is very hard to do at these events. In the players bar on Monday were Vinny Jones, Jimmy Magee and "finchy" from the office who i must say was a tremedous laugh. Part going out when he did was a shock. Walshie going out was not too much a shock as he is currently plagued with Dartitis and he may get worse before he gets better. He doesn't deserve to have got that so i hope he comes through that and starts to threaten again. If anyone read my NAP of the week they would have seen that 3 weeks ago i said Callaby would beat Painter 2.0 at 7/1. That came in with ease in fact and i must say i had a very profoitable week beginning with Super Cally.

Anyway everyone saw the tournament on the box so i'm going into a night by night review. Wozza unlucky versus Barney i thought and we almost had an icident with Wozza and the Power in the players bar that night but it was prevented if you will. All in all Taylor was not overly impressive throughout the week and will have to up his game for the Worlds. I'm delighted to see Terry Jenkins get into the league. He deserves it and will do well in it when it kicks off in Feb.

Board assignments out for this weeks PDPA and UK's in Scotland and interesting participants for the UK's are BDO's Gary Anderson ( no.1 in the "world" apparently) and Dutch men Michael Van Gerwin and Vincent Van der Voort. Of course it doesn't mean anything but maybe you can read things into that yourself or of course maybe you cant.

Thanks to all who made the week great. You always have a laugh with the same heads you always see on the circuit. Keith, Sue ,Kelly and Cally along with Ritchie and Diane. Vic and Sal. The tarts with the darts, Viv and Julie of course. All the boys from Tramore had a good laugh too. Great time to. Thanks to 3 out of 4 of the exhibition venues leading up to it. We'll do it all again some time.