Bobby’s report 26^th May 2010

This Thursday sees the last round of fixtures in both the men’s and women’s Super League be contested and in the men’s, newly crowned champions Lochgelly A have a home tie in the Auld Shank where their opponents will be Lochgelly B. The B team will be out to follow up their win over Glenrothes and remain off the bottom of the table, but the A team will be looking to keep up their unbeaten run and end the season without having lost a match so it should be a good game for all.

In the other ties, the two Dunfermline teams meet at Jokers with the A team being the “home” side and in the remaining match, Glenrothes await the visit of East Fife at the CISWO. Cowdenbeath have the bye this time out and are hoping Glenrothes do them a favour by winning against East Fife to keep them in second place as they are only three points ahead of the Methil throwers.

In the women’s league, the CISWO are leading the way going into the final fixtures and any win for them on their travels against the Railway Tavern will see them crowned as champions. Shardys will be out to try and win back the top spot which they held for so long during the season and a win against Dunfermline at the Barley Sheaf will be sufficient if the CISWO slip up so there is all to be played for with the title not being decided until the results from these matches are known. The other tie in this round sees the Royal Tavern at home to the Clansman with Kennoway Bowling Club having the bye.

The missing result from the last round was a 4-1 win for Kennoway against the Railway Tavern and this secured third place for them. The league table going into Thursday’s matches is as follows; 1^st CISWO (64pts), 2^nd Shardys (60), 3^rd Kennoway BC (51), 4^th Dunfermline (31), 5^th Clansman (24), 6^th Royal Tavern (20) and 7^th the Railway Tavern who are also on 20 points but are behind the Royal on leg difference. The best stats for the penultimate round saw Alison Duncan (Railway Tavern) with the best average (17.16), Frances Wood (Kennoway BC) had the fastest leg with 22 darts and the highest checkout was by Pearl Scott with 88.

This weekend, two players from the Craigie Bar will be representing their country at Under-21 level as Scotland play the other home nations in the Friendship Cup in Aberdeen.

James Scougall was selected some time back for his efforts on the youth tournament front and Brendyn Donnelly was recently called up as well so the two Ballingry boys will both be involved at some stage over the weekend. It has been a lot of years since a player from Lochgelly league has represented their country at national standard and for it to be two players at this level is an achievement second to none and shows that the future of darts in the area is definitely something to be proud of.

Best wishes and good luck goes to both players from all in Fife Darts for the weekend and if Scotland are unfortunate not to win, then hopefully James and Brendyn will enjoy the experience. This will be James’ first and last effort being picked for the youth squad as he turned 21 last week but Brendyn is still only 14 so has a lot of years ahead of him to gain more caps at this level.

Last Saturday, Fife Darts held their qualifier for the Scottish Masters at the CISWO. The top four men and top two women in the county squad had been rewarded for their efforts during the season with a place at the Scottish finals and the same amount of players would be joining them from the qualifiers.

Following the large entry at the Scottish Singles recently, numbers were down but the qualifiers in the women were Jayne Melville and Margaret Hatton, while the men’s winners were Tam Miller (Dunfermline), and three Craigie Bar players from Lochgelly league claimed the other spots with Colin Feeley, Alan Small and James “The Birthday Boy” Scougall all winning their board finals.

Fife Darts have rescheduled this Saturday’s WINMAU World Masters qualifier and next Saturday’s Gold Cup singles and doubles due to other commitments elsewhere and these will now go ahead on Saturday 12^th June – along with the Lakeside 2011 qualifier.

The women’s Gold Cup Singles and Doubles were played on the last couple of Tuesday evenings and this year’s Singles Champion is Sheena Fotheringham (CISWO), following her 3-1 win in the final against Sharon Wightman (Dunfermline). Frances Wood (Kennoway) and Mandy Mitchell (Shardys) were the losing semi-finalists. In the doubles the champions are June Innes and Margaret Hatton, who won the title courtesy of a very close final where they edged out Moira Murray and Gillian Hepplewhite 3-2 in the final. The losing semi-finalists were Lynn and Lauren Torrance and Frances Wood and Susan McRae.