BOBBY’S REPORT 18/07/2011

Ballingry teenager Brendyn Donnelly was in action for his country once again for the second successive week, this time he was down at Blackpool representing Scotland playing in the UK Youth International Challenge between the home nations. The team pictured included those who played in the Europe Youth Cup the previous weekend and features from the left; Brendyn, Liam Duguid, Louise Duncan, Emily Davidson, Gordon Hastings and Bradley Weston.

In their first match of the day, Scotland were up against England and Bradley was on first. Unfortunately Bradley met Jake Jones who won the set four nil with an average which would see off a few players in the senior side with 26.37, with Bradley having 20.92. Brendyn was next up and his set with Thomas Chant went to the wire and he held his nerve to win the set 4-3 ending up with a 21.56 average and levelling the math at 1-1. Next up was Gordon, whose set also went to the deciding leg but English player Josh McCarthy took the seventh leg with a 21.55 average, while Gordon wasn’t far behind with 21.23. The last set was won by Liam who squared the match at 2-2 with a four legs to two win over Craig Brown with 21.56, Craig’s average was 22.36. Onto the girls match and the Scottish girls were up against the two girls who had beaten them in the final of the doubles at the Europe Youth Cup. First up was Emily and her set against Fallon Sherrock went the distance and was decided in the fifth leg which Fallon won to put England one up. The two averages were 19.98 for Fallon and 18.72 for Emily. The second set saw Felicia Blay win three legs to nil against Louise with 19.51 and 17.28 their respective averages.

In the next match, Scotland met Wales and the first set featured Liam against Ryan Jones which Ryan won 4-3 with 21.21 and Liam’s average was 21.10. Bradley was next up and he lost out 4-1 with 20.08 against Rhys Griffin who recorded an average of 24.31. Brendyn was the third player for the Scots looking to pull one back but he lost his set 4-0 to Huw Ware who won with 21.78 against Brendyn’s 19.76 to put the Welsh three nil up. Last man for Scotland was Gordon who was unfortunate against opponent Sam Cankett as they were pretty evenly matched but Sam took the set 4-1 to win with 26.84 while Gordon was only 0.5 behind with 26.34. The Scottish girls had a reversal of fortunes this time around and both Louise and Emily won their respective games. Louise won 3-1 (16.68) against the Europe Youth Cup Girls Singles winner, Alannah Waters (16.90), and Emily won 3-0 with 18.79 against Gemma Bowen (12.16).

In the final match, England boys won 3-1 against Wales and their girls won 2-0. This result saw team England crowned as the inaugural UK Youth International Champions. The final table saw England in first place with 13 points, Wales were runners-up with 7 and Scotland were in third place on 4 points.

Week six of the Cleikum Inn’s competition saw Brian Notman and Tony Churchill win their way through to Final’s night and there are only now four places available to complete the line up. Week seven is this Friday.

The CISWO’s Summer Open tournament has reached qualifying week five and the two winners from last week’s entrants were Colin Nicoll and Jeff Wardlaw. There are three weeks remaining to qualify for their Final’s night.

This Saturday the 3^rd annual Rab Donnelly Invitational Challenge Cup will be held in the Craigie Bar and invites have gone out to all teams and a few have already confirmed their participation. For those teams who haven’t yet done so, or are unable to come along, would they please inform the organisers Gordon Donnelly or Bobby Adamson as soon as they can please? The draw will be done around 12.30 before a 1.00pm start. Bobby would ask all members of Lochgelly A’s Super League winning team to be in attendance even if their pub haven’t entered a team as he would like to discuss the transport arrangements for the Champions Cup. If any member cannot come along, can they let him know so he can inform them what will be happening as well?

Anyone wishing to propose any rule changes or changes to playing format etc for Lochgelly & District Darts League are reminded that the Annual General Meeting will be held two weeks on Wednesday and all such letters/proposals should be in the hands of the Secretary, Wullie Ford, within the next week.