Thursday September 20th 2012

Controversy rules as the 2012-13 St. Albans district Darts league season kicked off last Thursday for the Rose & Crown. Drawn away to the White Lion “b” for the first week of the campaign the Rose had the bare minimum of six players (or seven if you include the self-styled “Director of Darts”) needed now that the league had voted on a new format of 3 doubles and 6 singles. Club secretary John Goode however had other ideas and was insistent that the format was amended to only include 5 singles thus enabling the draw. This did not go down well with the home team and set the scene for the remainder of the evening with the home team’s skipper feeling particularly disgruntled. Discussion followed debate and the situation was given hope of avoiding the decent into a mockery when John gave in and called “Foggy”. Two minutes later “Foggy” confirmed what everyone else in the pub already knew and that six singles were to be played.   The Rose quickly raced into a 3-0 lead, I say quickly, each going the full three legs with the home side wasting opportunities to reverse the score. They didn’t have to wait long however before chalking up their first legs of the season as they took the spoils of the first two singles. By this stage the clock was ticking and it was gone 11 o’clock and concerns were raised as to the format greatly lengthening the evening, concerns that were well founded as the last Dart rattled in to double eight securing a 7-2 victory and two points for the visitors at 23:50.