DURBAN West Darts Association reports that the Chirpers Cup brought about a sense of deja vu at Yellowwood Park Sports Club last Tuesday, 8 March.
The drawn doubles event, where partners are randomly paired together in a blind draw, seemed to duplicate several pairings from earlier draws this year.
Among these duplicates were both finalists, Rakesh Gayanchand and Maureen Van Niekerk who previously partnered in the LCI Sports drawn doubles cup, and Mike Strydom and Buffy Bischoff who were previous winners in the pre-season drawn doubles competition. The pairs faced off in a 701 best of five leg match that went down to the wire as each pair won alternating legs to force a deciding fifth leg to be played. The decider had Rakesh and Maureen slightly in the lead – but it’s the double that wins a game – and after a couple of misses by both teams, Buffy hit ‘baby shoes’ (double two) to close the final. A well fought for 3-2 win for Mike and Buffy – well done.
The open singles competition produced an explosive final between fellow Yellowwood Park teammates Tanya Thomas and Tyrone Jordaan. Tanya had been on top form all night, raking in four maximum scores of 180, and Tyrone was making a convincing comeback after struggling to feature in previous weeks. But Tanya’s consistency held strong and didn’t give her opponent a gap as she claimed victory in three straight legs to 0 in the best of five leg derby.
Tuesday, 15 March is the Olympic singles at the Queensburgh Club.
Children play darts too. On Sunday, 6 March, Tanya Thomas hosted a youth darts workshop as part of a new DWDA initiative to raise awareness of the sport of darts among boys and girls aged between 13 and 18-years-old.
On rather short notice, 12 eager U18s – five girls and seven boys – attended the workshop and enthusiastically learnt the fundamentals of playing darts such as how to stand, how to hold a dart, how to throw, how to count and score and how to play 501.
Soon the time was up and thanks to a generous donation by Phillip Snyman, the association provided the children with a light lunch and juice before they were collected by their parents.
