World Series of Darts Finals, Amsterdam
I kicked off what will be nearly two months of work with no horse racing by hopping on a plane to the orangiest of countries, The Netherlands! I teamed up with James and Jack for the World Series of Darts Finals, and from our perspective the job couldn’t have gone much better. Jack is a relatively new recruit but settled in seamlessly; he and I shared scoring duties - a new role for me - under James’ guidance, and we both performed flawlessly. It’s a different world to snooker scoring - it’s much faster - you barely have time to blink in between shots!
The tournament delivered some entertaining matches, with Day 2 in particular giving us a bit of everything. The standout moment was Dave Chisnall’s admirable collapse from 5-2 up (and 13 match darts) to losing 6-5; I’m no darts aficionado, but ‘bottling it’ is a universal language across all sports! The home crowd wasn’t as boisterous as I’d expected, but they had something to cheer in the final, as unfancied Dirk van Duijvenbode (A.K.A. The Aubergenius*) took on world no. 1 Gerwyn Price. As DvD had done throughout the tournament, he and his thumping techno intro refused to go quietly into the night, and it took a deciding 21st leg for Price to down the brave Dutchman.
I managed to do some exploring before sessions, but my both my time and clear skies were limited; I contented myself with wandering around in the drizzle, getting a feel for the place, and recognising a few landmarks from the one weekend I’d previously spent here roughly twenty years ago. Shit, I felt old writing that.
* DvD is known as ‘The Aubergenius’ because he works for an aubergine company - I was alerted to this fact when I saw a questionable emoji on his shirt collar…I was not buying that story from my colleagues and had to check Google before I accepted it!