Did something or somebody, sporting or otherwise, ever randomly pop into your head from seemingly absolutely nowhere? Now read on…
For what has felt like an age, I’ve wondered what ever became of Willie Boreland. A lanky, languid Scottish darts player who exploded into the bigtime when winning his first ever outing at Alexandra Palace by burying a 9-darter to edge past another youngster who quite evidently had the machinery to go very far in the game as well, Bradley Brooks.
Anyone who does remember Willie does so, like me, more for him going completely berserk – though not to Damon Heta levels against Luke Woodhouse, having pulled off the darting equivalent of Golf’s hole-in-one or a 147 break in Snooker.
Turns out, very poignantly, that big Willie, for a period at least, parked his career to care for both his mother and grandmother. He was quoted quite recently as saying “Mum is currently undergoing tests for Alzheimer’s, so I parked the darts to look after her. Hopefully the tests don’t show and I’ll be back on the road soon”. You might be thinking ‘well it’s his mother, of course he would’, but, for me, as someone who knows all too much about care needs and carers, it’s still a wholly admirable and frankly inspirational thing to do. So, hopefully if and when he does make it back to the oche, things go well for him.
Regardless of who you are, though, no matter who may be out of a given picture, you’re always waiting to see who will be next to enter the big picture. In sporting terms or otherwise. There was certainly no shortage of contenders putting their hands up during both sessions at the Ally Pally on day four of the battle for the Sid Waddell Trophy.
Right from the minute soon to be retired legendary MC John McDonald cleared his throat for the for first as Ritchie Edhouse and debutante Jonny Tata of New Zealand took to the stage. Like everyone from the land of the two islands, the All Black dartist has something of an aura and mystique about him. Not to mention the fact that he’s built like a Panzer tank and you could very easily visualise him packing down at scrum time with Cody Taylor et al.
Most importantly in this context however, he’s a cracking good darts player too and would surely have caught more than the one seeing optical organ in this seat. Elsewhere, there was no problem spotting the rapidly burgeoning Dom Taylor as he looked every bit to be star taking the same trajectory as Boreland and Bradley Brooks and, no doubt, dreaming of one day being somewhere like the same stratosphere as Mr Littler.
He certainly has the ‘game’ to go along with the height and the hype. And, as the affable Glen Durrant – worlds better than the bore fest that is Mark Webster on commentary – astutely observed, while he may not be the biggest 180 hitter on the circuit, he certainly has the knack for big scoring and big checkouts and there should be nobody over excited at tackling the one called The Tower.
Mind you, it was a day for big men making big impacts on the biggest stage in the sport. Firstly there was the Tower Taylor in the afternoon, but, there were even more significant happenings in the same bracket during the evening session.
Principal among which was the demolition job inflicted by the man mountain that is Wesley Pleisir on the hitherto impressive young German Lucas Venig. The latter having looked highly impressive at the Players Championship Finals at Butlins just a fortnight beforehand.
Even that was only to cause the viewers to lick their lips as the thunderous turn-ups continued in the very next match with Ally Pally newcomer Darren Beverage proving as Ice Cold as his nickname in obliterating the very popular dancing Belgian Dimitri van den Bergh.
The Dreamaker did, as the wonderful Wayne Mardle said in commentary, have “A darting disaster” but as the legend formerly known as Hawaii 501 rightly pointed out, that the diminutive dart dispenser made it back to the big stage at all this year is a tremendous credit to him and indicative that he still has plenty to offer at the highest level.
Now, if the emotions were highly charged in an upset sense at seeing Dimi drop out so tamely, a few hours previously, the hysteria was of the ebullient positive kind as the great Nitin Kumar of India made history by becoming the first player from the most populated place on the planet to win a World Championship match.
And just to put the ice-cream atop the apple tart, he did so whilst surving five tonne-plus checkouts from the gutsy Dutchman Richard Veenstra.
However, as the old saying goes, what goes up must come down. Thus, after being absolutely spoiled for the vast majority of a darting Super Sunday to rival anything of the same name in soccer, there was always going to be a degree of payback!
However, what us mere mortals had to endure in the last match of both Sunday sessions would make paint drying seem like a PTO shaft at 1800 revs. Firstly as narky, needly Joe Cullen had surprisingly little bother in disposing of the attentions of Bradley Brooks.
Then, in what resembled a cross between an advert for insomnia medication and Prozac, James Hurrell shuffled past the (very) colourful American Stowe Buntz.