Darts Diary, with Alan Towe

Sep 24 2008 by Ken Montgomery, Birmingham Mail

THERE were mixed fortunes for Warwickshire and West Midlands in their Division One curtain-rasier to the Kaliber BDO Inter Counties Championship season.

Warwickshire went to Hertfordshire and their match did not get off to the best of starts as the ladies ‘B’ side finished 3-3 and the men went down 7-5, with Wendy Adams (18.16) and Trevor Frost (26.00) taking the respective match awards.

Sunday was a different story as the ladies romped to a 5-1 win, Trina Gulliver leading the way with a 25.49 average, and the men chalked up a 7-5 victory with Nigel Heydon their top player with a superb 31.31 average.

The final score was 20-16 to get the campaign off to a fine start.

That was not the case for newly-promoted West Midlands, who travelled to County Durham.

The ‘A’ and ‘B’ ladies teams shared the spoils in 3-3 draws.

Unfortunately, both the men’s teams lost, the ‘A‘ 8-4 and the ‘B’ 7-5.

But that is exactly what Ian McFarlane has done in the Brook Meadow Individual Double Top League.

He rounded off his season with a 3-0 victory over Jason Evans to give him a total of 111 points, 13 more than second and third-placed Mark Birch and Matthew Gallett.

Birch may not have won the title but he more than made up for that by winning both the singles and doubles crowns.

His opponent in the final was last season’s league winner Trevor Frost. Birch dropped his first leg of the competition but went on to clinch the title 5-1.

In the doubles, he teamed up with Mark Elkin and they beat Keith Kelly and Jason Evans 4-2 in the final.

Congratulations go to Bob Nixon who, with 81 points, is the new champion despite losing his final game of the season 2-1 to his nearest rival and league organiser Andy Hutchings, who finished on 74 points.

At the other end of the table, congratulations to Ralph Nunn who, after 30 consecutive defeats, recorded his one and only win of the season 2-1 against Tim Lowe.