Did anyone watch the final tonight between Barney and The Power?
Fooking amazing stuff, the standard was immense and the drama was spectacular.
Some of the checkouts were fantastic and the tension was quality at the end.
I’m not messing; it was some of the best sport you’ll see all year.
As Sid Waddell says, ‘What athletes!’
Was tempted to text Bandage for a running commentary but refrained. Was keeping myself updated via teletext and Sky Sports News. Sounded like wonderful stuff. Barney missed two or three double tops before winning it apparently? Thought he had blown it but delighted to see him prevail.
Got a call from thepiedpiper when it came down to the last leg so found myself watching it as well. Cracking finish I suppose but I didn’t really get emotionally involved in it.
You must be nearly ready to enter the fray Bandage? The physical conditioning you’ve been concentrating on for the last few months should stand to you. Go toe to toe or jowel to jowel with the power.
Standard is superb, but is it a sport? Really I hae me doooots.
Have been a massive fan of the darts since Taylor won the BBC one in 1992 beating Mike Gregory in a final set play off. Have never had the luxury of Sky Sports but would keep up to date with it through radio commentary and often found myself going to public houses to watch certain games. Was too fucked last night to go anywhere but I could imagine that it was top class
The BBC one will be shite this year with Barney gone. He was the one everyone wanted to beat. Now you will probably have Martin Adams chav winning it with his beer guzzling wife and pregnant grand kids dancing to ‘Rockin all over the world’ by Status Quo
Barney is apparently a huge sportsd star in Holland - something similar to Ken Doherty here
I started watching it at 4-3 to Taylor. I quickly between emotionally involved such was the standard and I was well up for Barney as I have never liked Taylor. It was a cracking night’s entertainment though and Waddell adds so much to it - the chip comment was priceless. It was a bit surreal seeing Sylvia Barneveld cheering on her husband in The Circus Tavern when we’re so used to watching her and Martin Adams’ wife Sharon sitting beside each other in The Lakeside. The BDO championship just won’t be the same.
You’re spot on Steamboat Sam…forget your soccer, GAA etc., this was the essence of real sport. The tension, the drama, the sheer quality.
When you see Barney going for double top to win and hitting a single 1, such was the pressure he was under. Then, the shot that finally won it for him, confronting that self-same double top again and nailing it…it brought tears to my eyes, a little lump to my throat, and the hair was standing on the back of my neck.
We are less than two days into 2007 and already I know that the sheer quality of sport I witnessed last night simply will not be surpassed…anything else will be confined to the realms of mediocrity in comparison. An honour and a privilege to have witnessed it.
That final was the best game of darts I have ever seen. I doubt I’ll bother watching the BDO shite, the standard is embarrasing compared to the PDC.
Flano - these guys are pretending to be your darts mates now - never forget how they ridiculed you when you brought up the topic of the Citywest darts. These guys aren’t real fans so treat them with the scorn they deserve.
Dya know what Rock. The moment I saw this thread the first thing that sprang to mind was the hostility shown towards my post about the Citywest darts
Flano, did you get a bus on Dawson Street yesterday? If so I’m claiming it as a celebrity spot.
Fraid not Clarkey, wasnt anywhere near Dawson street, must be that bloody imposter again
I never criticised the City West Dart thing
Anyway Flano’s comment about the BBC competition being inferior to Sky’s is rubbish
Barnaveld won four titles in the BBC one in about 10 years, switched to Sky and beat the lad that won 13 out of the last 14 titles
No need to be paranoid it was Bandage who made the comment.
Out of interest and by-the-by do you consider Ken Doherty a “huge star?”
Notice use of the word ‘they’ and ‘these guys’
I don’t consider Doherty a huge star. I feel he has performed consistently at the highest level of his sport for 10+ years and that has to be applauded
What was the comment I allegedly made? No recollection of poking fun at the darters but not denying it either.
Farmer, I look at 3 dart averages when I’m watching darts. The 2 boys the other night were averaging above 100 and it was a superb standard. That’s the reason why people had been clamouring for Barney to join the PDC and indeed why he had the unification match with Taylor a few years back, was because he’s the one player from the vastly inferior BDO that actually had the ability to challenge Taylor.
The rest of the BDO is, quite frankly, appalling. That fat hun Fordham won it a while back and then had to concede a walkover during a unification match with Taylor because the heat of the lights was too much for the fat, sweaty bastard. Even this year that Martin Adams lad is the #1 seed! These lads are no more than pub players.
http://www.thefreekick.com/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=37&topic=155.0 - 'twas more self mocking than anything really.
But where is it specific to you? If you didn’t criticise the Citywest thing then I’m sure Flano wasn’t offended by you. Apologies for any confusion.
Was just wondering on the Doherty thing - think we were talking about it before in the Harbo and you seemed to be implying he was a huge star in your post earlier. For the record I’m not sure how consistent he has been - he didn’t win a ranking tournament for 5 years until this year.
That big hun Fordham has had to pull out of the BDO championships this evening and has been rushed to hospital with breathing difficulties.
Sunday Tribune article by Sid Waddell
RAYMOND VAN BARNEVELD and Phil Taylor, the greatest match of them all? On reflection, I’d say yes. Certainly when you’re looking at the class of the two players. Here is Barney losing the first three sets, averaging 87 and not having hit a 180. Everyone has written him off. But what he did from there on was phenomenal. He’s so good the situation never worried him. He threw 21 180s from there to the end. Taylor was winning a set in eight minutes but Barney didn’t panic. Everyone forgot this guy threw a nine-darter in the Premier League Of Darts just to show everyone how good he was and he showed everyone again last week.
The thing is, neither of these guys are the most demonstrative and it’s why there have been great games for the wrong reasons. I’ve been watching darts for television since '72, from the time that Alan Evans and Leighton Rees were top dogs and an Irishman called Tommy O’Regan captained both Ireland and England. And the first truly great match was when Evans played Eric Bristow in '79.
That game put our viewing figure up to 7.3m because they both were cockbirds as we say in Geordie-land. Cocks of the walk, strutting their stuff.
They hated each other.
Drink was taken by Evans.
Bristow was never really a heavy drinker, he’d have two or three pints of lager but Evans used to stoke up on much heavier stuff. He was a really aggressive Welshman but what a player. What a player.
He started waving his arms at Bristow and telling him, ‘I’m going to smash your cockney face in’. This was on BBC2 for God’s sake.
A couple of years later was the next great game with Evans again. This time it was against Jockey Wilson who would often have half a bottle of vodka and five or six pints of lager. Again there was a war. Jockey had a lighter that was as big as a suitcase and Evans was a non-smoker.
Every time Evans went for a double there was a sudden clink and eventually Evans turned around and said quite clearly, ‘I’m going to break your f**king jaw’. Greats in a different way, but not like the sheer standard the final proved to be last week.
It’s why it’s such a great bonus Barney has come over from the British Darts Organisation, to the Professional Darts Corporation. People often talk about the two coming together but there is not a chance of that ever happening.
I’ve got a degree in modern history from Cambridge and my particular area of study was the clashes of the great powers. Today the way power is structured is democracy.
The guy who started the BDO, Ollie Croft, never understood that. He wanted to be the Alf Ramsey of darts. If Ramsey told Jack Charlton he was the goalie or the corner flag for a day, then Charlton was just that. That might have worked in 1973 but in 1993 it wasn’t doing the game much good.
The split began thanks to John Lowe, whose father was in the National Union of Mineworkers. They were the strongest trade union in the free world when Mrs Thatcher decided she’d hire the forces of the state to destroy us, but in '88 Lowe was talking about worker power in darts. But there was an autocracy, which disappeared everywhere else in the Magna Carta. So the players loosely formed a body representing them, the World Darts Council. In 1993, a ban was issued saying anyone who played in or who associated with the WDC would be thrown out of the BDO. What happened was a fella stopped putting a door on Phil Taylor’s house because he was afraid he was going to get kicked out of his darts team. In Geordie-land, there was a bloke up a ladder spotting the crowd at exhibitions. I’m not saying Ollie Croft ordered a witchhunt, but take it from Sidney, that’s what happened.
The likes of Taylor, Dennis Priestly and Rod Harrington mortgaged their houses and came up with £100,000 to go to court in '97 but each side pulled out at the last minute.
It was a de facto win for the WDC which became the PDC.
So the BDO had outgrown itself. Croft wanted to run world darts from a semidetached house in London like a character from Dickens. It could never happen.
Now, it’s not about who has the better championship. It’s about a title that came about because some guys put their livelihoods on the line. Last week, we saw the greatest game ever to decide that title.