The Cheshire Open

Posted: 29.08.11 in Anthony Urmston-Toft Blog category

BDO player AJ (Anthony Urmston-Toft) reports back from the Cheshire Open!

Hello once again my friends.

Hope you are comfortable, we shall begin.

I woke up on Sunday feeling a bit tired; the day before we had a lovely day at Chester Zoo. Sarah, my little boy George and I were accompanied by my mum and her partner. After a discussion we decided that the 3 of us should go to the Cheshire Open, I was the first one there at about 9:30. The set up was excellent and I entered on the day and went through my practice routine. The competition didn’t start until 12:00 so I broke up my practice with a bit of relaxing.

My first game was a nice quick game 3-0, nothing too special but a win is a win. I was into the last 64 and I started to make things complicated for myself. I was 2-0 then I could not find a treble for 2 legs and this was only best of 5. Then all of a sudden I was hitting the treble 20, just at the right time and a 3-2 win. Onwards to the last 32.

This time it was 2-0 and my opponent had chances of winning, but I won again 3-2 and was into the money winning positions. George was his usual self, flirting with the ladies, especially Lorraine Farlam. I don’t think Dean Winstanley was too worried though. Speaking of Lorraine, she had an excellent run to the last 16 beating Stephen Bunting along the way 3-2.

My last 16 game was thankfully a quick one, 3-0 and into the last 8. It was the quarter-final and once again I came from 2-0 down to win 3-2 and was now into my 2^nd semi-final in as many weeks. My form and luck are both on the positive side for a change. It was semi final time, this time on stage and I got a warm reception. It was a very good game I had a dart to win the game 4-2 but my luck and nerve both deserted me and I got beaten 4-3 by Dean Winstanley who went on to win the competition and it was a well deserved victory. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the Cheshire Darts Organisation. It was a great day of darts and one I will come to regularly.

This weekend is the Winmau World Masters; sadly I’m not playing in it but I will be giving you all an insight as to who I think are the players to look out for and who, out of the 8 seeds, has the better chance.

Also this weekend there is a charity competition for a great friend of mine who sadly passed away. Ian Royal was a player on the football team with me in the Swinton League. He was big friendly guy, with a desert dry sense of humour. This season has been very different without him; may you be playing on the oche in the sky big man

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