Behold! The 2018 Lakeside Howlers Thread!
Posted: Thu Dec 07, 2017 9:48 am
Pre-Tournament
- Ratajski wins the Winmau World Masters at a canter (beating the top two seeds) in front of a rapidly emptying Bridlington, wins a Lakeside spot, and then promptly sticks two fingers up to the BDO by declining the spot and choosing the PDC version which he hadnt even publicly qualified for at this point
- The above means that NONE of the 2017 BDO TV event winners are at Lakeside as Machin (who won the WDT) didnt even bother coming over to try and qualify.
- Ex Lakeside finalist Jeff Smith also sticks two fingers up by choosing the PDC event in favour of sitting at home and being loyal
- The draw not being done until over two months after the field has been finalised
- The draw not ending up on TV, despite talk of it being and Winmau even Tweeting this fact
- The draw not even done live, Richard Ashdown claiming it was done earlier the same day despite Fordham needing to be at an exbo in Torquay that day also. Hmm...
- The BDO (or Des) announcing from Tenerife that the draw was to be released onto the Channel 4/BDO websites at 7pm, hilarity ensuing when Channel 4 put it on their website at 4.45pm causing massive seething from numerous people including Ross Montgomery
- The draw featuring at least 4 players who had their names spelt incorrectly (Darryl "Daryl" Fitton, Chris "Gilliand" Gilliland, Umit "Uygonsozlu" Uygunsozlu and Vicky "Prium" Pruim)
- Belgians being shown as Dutch in graphics at the end of the draw, despite them being shown with the correct nationality during the drawing of the balls..
- Auntie Sue writing a ridiculous War and Peace write-up on the draw only minutes after 7pm (proving it must have been written ages back), claiming it was a "draw and a half" (at least it wasnt fucked up this time like her husband did last year), and claiming Paula Jacklin, who has never won a TV match in a major event, is in "form"
- Absolutely no mention of the other broadcast partner (BT Sport) during the draw, either visually or verbally.
- Still about 200 tickets left for the final as of the 7th December.
- Playing contracts reportedly withholding prize money from players for a "significant period of time"
- In addition, the players being made to sign not one but TWO contracts as a revised one was sent out after they had the first lot all sent back in.
- Lakeside still not able to confirm actual session times as of the 7th December.
- Still no sign of the drawn matches in text form on the BDO site, only the video clips, 5 days after the draw.
- Prize money reportedly at a standstill again, all tiers unchanged since 2014 (Prelim losers have never seen an uplift) with the winners cheque not increased since 2010. (confirmed prize money standstill by BDO FB on 12th Dec)
- Defending Champion openly stating he will switch to the PDC should he not defend his title.
- An order of play still not available 6 days after the draw.
- The initial order of play shows Chris Harris as being from Northern Ireland, when he is in fact Welsh
- Furthermore nobody is still able to spell Vicky Pruim's name right, again featuring as "Vicky Prium" on the order of play.
- The BDO on Facebook saying that the Youth final is part of the ladies first round
- The BDO using the worst possible picture quality known to man for Tricia Wright
- The BDO release the full 9 day schedule which contains a multitude of howlers: “Scottt” Baker, “Derek” Telnekes, Michael “Uterbuchner” and “Gert” de Vos all feature as typos, Andy Baetens is Dutch (again), there is no Day 8 and two “Day 7” listings, they can't be bothered inserting the names of the two Youth finalists despite them being known for months, and the 1st mens semi final in the afternoon session is listed as starting at 19:00.
- Partner of board member using their shared FB account to abuse the partner of Darry Fitton and Bob Anderson, as well as the Cheshire county chairman, in a discussion about one of the howlers above.
- FB post from the BDO claiming the event is the "world's biggest darts tournament", attracting some bemusement in the comments.
- A little bit of nepotism as the wife of a board member (who has never won a TV match in a major event in her life) is given plum free to air slot on TV for her first match, whilst top seed Deta Hedman is lumbered with evening session tucked away on a pay TV channel
- Viagogo selling Lakeside tickets with a large picture of PDC player Raymond van Barneveld emblazoned at the top of the page
- Lakeside proudly declaring on Twitter that the event contains the "world's best 56 players", 16 of them are women and that's before you even point out the obvious. They also missed out the two youth players from the total...
- The Lakeside darts site has decided to spell a players name a different way twice on the same page: 'Pengiran Mohamed" and "Pengiram Mohamed"
- Rhian Griffiths claiming on a Gofundme begging page that Lakeside, other than on Channel 4 in the UK (missing out BT Sport which is a howler in itself), will be shown on "various other broadcasters around the world", when the event (at the time of writing) has no TV deal outside of UK/Ireland/New Zealand and will solely be on Youtube elsewhere.
- The BDO taking three attempts to deliver a Happy Xmas message whilst promoting Lakeside at the same time, riddled with spelling/grammatical errors, a squiggly spell check line, and the line that "fancy dress is encouraged"
- One of the top seeds at the event going onto the BDO FB page to encourage the fans to watch illegal streams of the event rather than pay for the coverage the BDO have secured on TV.
- BDO Twitter issuing a Tweet more or less hoping the pesky foreigner Darius Labanauskas loses to Scott Mitchell, which was hastily deleted.
- BDO Twitter issuing a Tweet claiming Ross Montgomery won the Jersey Open...when it was actually Scott Waites.
- Sharon Prins having her name changed to "Sharon Prinns" on the awful PowerPoint thing on the BDO site/FB page
- Paul Hogan (not qualified) and Jeff Smith (twice, also not qualified) featuring in the C4 promo
- Wayne Warren (Welsh) having his nationality changed to English on the awful PowerPoint thing on the BDO site/FB page, the latter with links to "page not found" on the C4 website.
- The quality of some of the pictures being used of players on the BDO website: the one of Edwards looks like a photo of a photo, the one of Day looks like Jabba the Hutt, and some of the others have horrific stretch/cropping issues.
- BDO Twitter issuing a Tweet claiming that the "Angry Turk" (a howler in itself) hasnt practiced. Hardly selling the game.
- Top BDO player Ross Montgomery slags Lakeside and governing body off in Scottish newspaper over consecutive days, 2/3 days before event starts
- As of 2 days before the event, sales are 900 tickets down on last year and the final still has 100 tickets unsold.
- BDO preview listing a player as "Conan The Whitehead"
- BDO preview suggesting Jim Williams/De Vos/Aileen de Graaf will be recording "sky scraping averages"
- Jamie Hughes giving an interview where he claims Lakeside has been the home of darts for "more than 40 years", a venue that has only held the event since 1986
- Second seed gives interview to the BBC where he admits the PDC is the future of darts and he will be switching at some point in the future.
- the BDO deciding that Northern Ireland is in a different country to the United Kingdom when announcing broadcast details.
-Three of the evening sessions not even selling 50% of tickets (one of them not even 40%) by the morning of the opening day
Day One
- the international YouTube feed having the word "Chamionship" instead of Championship
- Talking about the PDC final 1 whole minute into the broadcast
- Rob Wakers intro at the start of the program, the sound spewing from his mouth was not synchronised with the actual video.
- Nicholson claiming that Lakeside “doesn’t have to change” and that the man on the street associates darts with Lakeside
- Rob Walker claiming the best players in the world have graced “this” stage for 40 years
- Bobby George saying that he rates Kyle Mc uhh uhh but he couldn't actually remember what his name is.
- Break for ads before the first match
- Evil alcohol sponsor sign on the stage
- Interviewing fans in fancy dress, the same fancy dress Sue Williams insists the BDO don’t do.
- Seema Jaswal down in the crowd, interviewing a teacher named Colin from Motherwell who's dressed as a wolf and howling nicely. Seems didn’t listen to a word the wolf said. “I am down from Glasgow” the wolf said. Seema then asks “where have you come from?”
- break to show one advert between walk-ons and the match starting
- The noise of the dartboard! Apples hitting a Transit van.
- McGeeney on 164, hits a score of 23.
- Deano reveals that Adams had issues with his belt. Walker mentions that Wolife is carrying a lot of "timber these days"
- 53-dart set, McGeeney wins it 3-0. Wolfie averaging 77.
- Since coming back from the first break they seem to have stopped updating the scores after each individual dart.
- Set 2 Leg 1, Wolfie throws 7 scores under 100 and McGeeney breaks him in 19 darts
- Comms reduced to bringing up a 100 average Adams hit 16 years ago.
- Shot of crowd with woman playing on her phone paying no attention to the darts on stage.
- Vassos saying of Adams "He's just persuaded his average north of 80"
- "if you only watch darts one week a year you won't know what a great year McGeeney has had", totally ignoring his pathetic TV appearances. "McGeeney has had a spectacular year", apparently.
- Rawling excitedly on Adams: "106 for a break of throw", smacks first dart a mile into single 5
- Took ten legs for the BDO #1 and the "legend" to muster a 180 between them.
- stone cold silence from the crowd when McGeeney wins the 3rd set
- Adams with a scoring visit of 21
- 23-darter for Adams to break in set 4, both spraying them all over. "In terms of scoring it's been a bit scruffy" says Rawling.
- 1 x 180 in the whole first 13 legs of the Adams/McGeeney match
- Adams throwing for the match starts with 22
- Vassos needing to have the tie-break rule explained to him!
- Wolfie wins the leg to go up 2-1 in the fifth set, comms "Wolfie seemingly inspired" as Wolfie throws a 22 to start the next leg.
- Match of the tournament according to the comms. It is the first fekkin match.
- Twat in the crowd cheering as McGeeney ferrets up and hits a double by mistake.
- Rawling again calling Adams a "Lakeside legend", as he throws 26.
- Adams wins the bull to go first in the sudden-death leg, then gives away the advantage immediately by scoring 41,45 and 28 in his first 3 visits.
- Walkers attempts at pronouncing "Penigram”
- Nick Kenny coming out to "Freed From Desire".
- O'Shea: "I think we have a classic already". Spoken at the end of the first bloody leg.
- Rawling: “The averages, you can almost forget them"
- Kenny giving it the Mensur. After an 18 darter.
- Rawling thinking 90-30 is 40.
- The PDC wasp makes an appearance, Mandingle chasing Nick Kenny around with a flannel.
Toplad with a smashing quip about the Wasps 'B' team.
- Comms tiptoeing around Ratajskis absence. O’shea reasonable happy it let Jobbo in because he is “in form”.
- Paul Nicholson referring to "great players" like Geoff Wylie and Keith Rooney
- Comms cutting out
- Griffiths going T10 on 66 with two in hand, Ashton on a theoretically simple finish
- Ashton with a scoring visit of 7
- A 140 by Griffiths totally missed by the cameras as they were on Ashton the whole time
- Deta thinking the Ladies 1st Round should be best of 5 sets
- Nicho: "The ladies' competition for me is the highlight of this year"
- No mention of who’s actually playing Gary Robson.
- Rob down in the crowd calls it "a carnival atmosphere" and that he can't believe they're halfway through the first afternoon after the third match. What's half of 4?
- According to the taped interview Mohamed started playing darts in his teenage years, and that was 32 years ago. Cut to the info graphics which list him as 56 years old.
- Comms saying that Robson threw a great average...8 years ago.
- Finton monging about in the crowd with some Dutchman who brings him pies
- Ex employee saying the place hasn't changed in thirty years
- Pingu hits the d11 going for d8 . Robbo nicks it with a 28-darter to win.
- First afternoon over, and there's been more legs won in ten visits than in four.
- Nicholson mentioning the Robbo/MvG game from years ago and how he 'stuffed' him "a few years ago". 11 fekkin years ago.
- YMCA playing followed by D.I.S.C.O!! Pissed up clowns dancing around their handbags.
- Mason: "It's called the World Professional Championship, but it's more of a family event."
- Justin Thompson introduced as 'a two time Geelong Darts Open champion'
- Vassos calling the Gilliand game a "Darts equivalent of a ultra marathon"
- Gilliand missing 8 match darts by a country mile
- the score graphic reads "PRELIM. ROUND" even though there's plenty of space to spell out the word.
- Comms looking at Thompsons Wiki page and reading stuff from it even though it has clearly been vandalised, including such lines as "Justin also won the 2017 Budapest karaoke competition and has a vast array of fidget spinners which he uses to dazzle the ladies"
- Nicho’s commentary of the Thompson game including chat about the traffic situation around Melbourne and the trials and characters of the Melbourne darts league
- "Lisa Ashton looked wonderfully good winning her game earlier". She averaged 74.
- Rawling: "The crowd's at capacity - many of them staying on from the afternoon's entertainment." Possibly because it's all on a single ticket...
- Top Lad thinking T West won masters in 2004, the final in which he lost to King..
- 22 minutes to play the first 4 legs of the Hedman/David match
- "David has improved her scoring".. 10 scored.
- David, with 100 left, inexplicable hits T19 first dart.
- Rawling lying about Detas final average of 64 by claiming it was 74.
- BT Sport graphics labelling Joe Chaney as English instead of American.
- First two matches of the evening taking almost 3 hours to complete, meaning Chaney doesn’t take the stage until near 10pm
- Chaney’s walk on music
- Nicholson obsessing over wrestling
- Commentator calling Noppie a good looking player
- Noppie leaves himself on D1 and goes inside it on two consecutive turns with his first dart, loses leg.
- Nicholson stating you need to hit 2 trebles to finish 128.
- More insights into the Tennessee wrestling scene from Nicholson. ...and on Liz Taylor's hat collection, all while darts thud into the board without attracting comment.
- Nicholson: "the Gulf of Mexico is not far from Tennessee". About 550 miles at its nearest point, Paul....
- Grease Megamix, Agadoo
- Comms going nuts over one set of darts at high standard, both match averages will end well below the mythical 100 barrier
- Mitchell roaring and fist-pumping in front of Labanauskas after winning the third set on D1, following an embarrassing pull into single 10 when aiming for D6.
- Mitchell scoring 64 (t20, 1, t1) and leaving 392 - "Three good darts for 64"
- "I tell you what, it's half past eleven at night at Lakeside and not a soul is leaving" , as camera shows loads of empty seats.
- Mitchell hot-footing it off the stage after he won, as he needed the toilet, despite there being a break less than 10 minutes before the end of the match.
- Nicholson issuing a Tweet saying the highlight of his day was the “wrestling banter” with John Rawling.
Day Two
- Ad break after FIVE MINUTES of coverage.
- Rob Walker claims Darius's nickname is "Big D".
- Channel 4 "highlights" ignoring the first set of Darius and Mitchell, despite it likely to be the highest quality set of the whole tournament
- Jobson necking about half a pint in the background of Mitchell's interview minutes prior to his match with Durrant
- Durrant not missing a chance to bring up Boro FC right at the top of the interview.
- Durrant: "Sometimes I'm pinching myself when I'm playing players like Darryl Fitton"
- Duzza correcting himself in interview: "becoming world champion…Lakeside champion"
- Nicho: 'Robson played really well yesterday'. He averaged 84
- O'Shea: "We make a lot of jokes about Robson's top. Looks more like the Barton bridge than the Tyne bridge"
- Vassos forgetting Robson didn't play here last year, as he hits a scoring visit of 5 to leave 300 (S1, S1, S3)
- Durrant has to turn to his left to tell someone to shush. Now Robbo's doing it too.
- Durrant boldly turns down the bull with Robbo on 167. Then Robbo get down to a shot at the bull, and misses even the outer ring by an inch, landing halfway up the 20 segment.
- "There's not many who would want to face him on that sort of form" says Vassos. 95 average for Durrant….
- Rob Walker: "Durrant avoids the curse of the defending champion" alluding to first time winner not defending the year after, forgetting Barney and Bristow managed it anyway.
- O'Shea bigging up the BDO conveyor belt
- Big Robbbo saying he'd have liked a day off between matches, almost certainly for reasons alcohol related.
- The Turk on shanghai, hit the T20 and then planted a dart into S1.
- Comms: "I know from personal experience, Turkey has exploded with darts"
- Rawling bored off his skin reads a long, long explanation of the origin of the darts term 'Shanghai' while the 'action' crawls along to Double 1 drama in the background
- Comms going quiet for extended portions of the Dodgy Harris vs Angry Foreigner. The comms sound absolutely bored about the whole affair.
- Rawling subtly hinting at the absolute drag of Uygunsozlu - Harris by asking how long the match has been going. "It's got a feeling of a match that's already been going a fair old time and still has a fair time to go". O’Shea replies its only one set all.
- Score is 1-1 in best of 5. Comms: "Potentially four sets to go"
- Harris with a scoring visit of 22
- O'Shea on comms: "Is this the first time Harris has been in front?" John Rawling replies "Er no Tony, he won the first set."
- "We can pretty much forget about averages from here on in" says Rawling, as they stand at 77 vs 79 going into the decider.
- O’Shea: "You get a feeling even the bull up would take 20 minutes"
- Coral joining Bet365 in taking the piss out of the world's biggest darts tournament
- back to back 23 darters.
- Umit takes a quarter of an hour trying to work out what's left, eventually deciding it's 24 then hits a Single 9.
- Turk throws 21 darts without getting a dart at a finish.
- Rawling at the end of the match with the Turk cant believe the winner won "With an average of, yes, listen to this, it happened, with an average of 75.22, effectively admitting the match was utter shite.
- Nicho explaining that Harris averaged 75 because of the pace of the Turk. Also "Sometimes you have to play continental players with different cultures as they play the game differently"
- Adams in the bar in his darts shirt despite being eliminated the day before
- Lady interviewer to Harris: Lady: "Why do they call you the noisy Welshman? Reply: "Uhh well I don't know really uhh"
- Deta on Comms: “Fallon Sharock”. No Deta, its Sherrock.
- Fallon requires 170.Comms 'this would be some way to win the first leg'. Fallon scores 40.
- Deta: “Fallon looks OK”, said at the point she was averaging 51
- Fallon’s second leg of the match: 41, 41, 41, 41, 60, 41, 40. Loses leg with a leave of 130.
- Another scoring visit of 5
- Good to see Sherrock seems to be over her medical issues and has managed to shed the weight again. Except in the picture they're using for the on-screen graphics...
- Deta still banging on about the women being as good as the men.
- "Top quality darts" according to C4 comms. Both averaging low 70s.
- Deta talking about the way Fallon's darts "come across her face"
- Corrine required 25. Single 14 then single 17. Bust.
- Another cracker of a leg from Sherrock, starting 56,22, 55 and 41
- Deta: “I'd like to see a women do the 9 darter, me hopefully”.
- Rob Walker calling the Hammond/Fallon game “a game worthy of the final”
- Nicho says that Ross "showed the world that he is a world class player" at the Grand Slam.He beat Joe Murnan and that’s it.
- Waites showing how serious he takes darts: "for a week, darts is my priority"
- During all the walk-ons you can hear the commentators chuckling and coughing off mic
- Monty doing the air guitar during his entrance and generally acting like a tit, taking longer than Wright and Gurney combined to eventually stop.
- Rawling trying to drum up a bit of needle as Waites and Monty share a joke with each other pre-match.
- Monty begins with a scoring visit of 30
- Rawling describing what Waites was up against at the GSoD he won as "the very highest level", which included Wade having a mental breakdown
- Monty hits a 180 after being miles behind in the leg and goes ballistic.....Waites sat on 60 and cleans it up. T
- Waites takes out 133 after Monty missed 2 darts at D19 for a leg, to which Monty's reply is a wave of the hands under his chain.
- "Top quality darts from both men" says Walker after set 1. 94 v 87.
- BDO official FB page not deleting a little bit of casual racism to describe the Turkish player
- Camera picks out some bloke in the crowd who starts coughing.
- Vassos: "it's the ones he has missed that have hurt"
- Ross throwing at tops for the set, director cuts away before you see where the bloody thing even landed.
- Waites down to 429 after 6 darts
- Rawling and Vassos blatantly taking the piss out of the Harris Umit match. "What do you want me to say about it?" says Rawl.
- Monty bouncing around screaming his head off. Waites has put approximately 6 match darts in the wall.
- Monty wins a set to get the game back on throw. Changes his darts for reasons utterly unknown. Loses the next set 3-2 on his own throw and with it the game.
- “Thats it for the opening weekend” according to Rob Walker, despite 4 matches in the evening session to go.
- Coverage ends seconds after game shot
- Danny Crates refering to Fallon Sherrock as Sherron (he almost did it a second time too when talking with her family).
- Rows of empty seats for the evening session
- Vassos pre-game: "Jeffrey Sparidaans is the latest Dutch prodigy to make his Lakeside debut." O'Shea adds: "It might be his first visit to the Lakeside, but he's seen plenty of stage action and he's a top player, this young Jeffrey."
- 6 legs in, SPARIDAANS averaging under 70.
- Nillson on 77, Toplad suggesting he will go for 15s first.
- Sparidaans, throwing at tops to stay in the match to complete a 120 finish, nearly hits the "1" on the surround.
- Nilsson landing on 162 and Sparidaans on 166 in the same turn in set two...
- A Sharon Prins bounce-out has ended up in the lightbox below the board. Fun whilst they try and retrieve it
- Vassos: "Prins is 60 in front plus these" Prins throws a 60, scoreboard clicks over showing Prins and O'Brien level on 241.
- Telnekes' walk-on music doesn't start until he's partway to the stage and then it stops altogether.
- John Rawling claims Keith Deller won Lakeside in 1993.
- 23 darter to kick off the Telnekes match
- Landman blowing a 161 opportunity by dragging his dart at T17 into small single 2 and then managed to bust 80 by hitting single 20 followed by treble 20
- Rawling and Nicholson so bored with the game that they've talked about Ricky Evans, Kenny Neyens and Dimitri Van den Bergh in just the last few minutes, closely followed by Mark Webster, Robert Thornton and Simon Whitlock's management.
- Nicholson referring to "Anne Marie Potts" holder of the Lakeside Women's high checkout record.
- Interviewer claims Harms has lost in the first round 3 years running despite making the quarters two years ago.
- Nicholson said Derk is not the only Dutch player called Derk. He said there is a Derk van Duijvenbode. Except its Dirk, nor Derk...
- Warren mouthing "shit" twice after missing the bull for a 61 attempt.
- Wayne Warren’s daughter. Shrieking her way through the whole game.
- Ratajski wins the Winmau World Masters at a canter (beating the top two seeds) in front of a rapidly emptying Bridlington, wins a Lakeside spot, and then promptly sticks two fingers up to the BDO by declining the spot and choosing the PDC version which he hadnt even publicly qualified for at this point
- The above means that NONE of the 2017 BDO TV event winners are at Lakeside as Machin (who won the WDT) didnt even bother coming over to try and qualify.
- Ex Lakeside finalist Jeff Smith also sticks two fingers up by choosing the PDC event in favour of sitting at home and being loyal
- The draw not being done until over two months after the field has been finalised
- The draw not ending up on TV, despite talk of it being and Winmau even Tweeting this fact
- The draw not even done live, Richard Ashdown claiming it was done earlier the same day despite Fordham needing to be at an exbo in Torquay that day also. Hmm...
- The BDO (or Des) announcing from Tenerife that the draw was to be released onto the Channel 4/BDO websites at 7pm, hilarity ensuing when Channel 4 put it on their website at 4.45pm causing massive seething from numerous people including Ross Montgomery
- The draw featuring at least 4 players who had their names spelt incorrectly (Darryl "Daryl" Fitton, Chris "Gilliand" Gilliland, Umit "Uygonsozlu" Uygunsozlu and Vicky "Prium" Pruim)
- Belgians being shown as Dutch in graphics at the end of the draw, despite them being shown with the correct nationality during the drawing of the balls..
- Auntie Sue writing a ridiculous War and Peace write-up on the draw only minutes after 7pm (proving it must have been written ages back), claiming it was a "draw and a half" (at least it wasnt fucked up this time like her husband did last year), and claiming Paula Jacklin, who has never won a TV match in a major event, is in "form"
- Absolutely no mention of the other broadcast partner (BT Sport) during the draw, either visually or verbally.
- Still about 200 tickets left for the final as of the 7th December.
- Playing contracts reportedly withholding prize money from players for a "significant period of time"
- In addition, the players being made to sign not one but TWO contracts as a revised one was sent out after they had the first lot all sent back in.
- Lakeside still not able to confirm actual session times as of the 7th December.
- Still no sign of the drawn matches in text form on the BDO site, only the video clips, 5 days after the draw.
- Prize money reportedly at a standstill again, all tiers unchanged since 2014 (Prelim losers have never seen an uplift) with the winners cheque not increased since 2010. (confirmed prize money standstill by BDO FB on 12th Dec)
- Defending Champion openly stating he will switch to the PDC should he not defend his title.
- An order of play still not available 6 days after the draw.
- The initial order of play shows Chris Harris as being from Northern Ireland, when he is in fact Welsh
- Furthermore nobody is still able to spell Vicky Pruim's name right, again featuring as "Vicky Prium" on the order of play.
- The BDO on Facebook saying that the Youth final is part of the ladies first round
- The BDO using the worst possible picture quality known to man for Tricia Wright
- The BDO release the full 9 day schedule which contains a multitude of howlers: “Scottt” Baker, “Derek” Telnekes, Michael “Uterbuchner” and “Gert” de Vos all feature as typos, Andy Baetens is Dutch (again), there is no Day 8 and two “Day 7” listings, they can't be bothered inserting the names of the two Youth finalists despite them being known for months, and the 1st mens semi final in the afternoon session is listed as starting at 19:00.
- Partner of board member using their shared FB account to abuse the partner of Darry Fitton and Bob Anderson, as well as the Cheshire county chairman, in a discussion about one of the howlers above.
- FB post from the BDO claiming the event is the "world's biggest darts tournament", attracting some bemusement in the comments.
- A little bit of nepotism as the wife of a board member (who has never won a TV match in a major event in her life) is given plum free to air slot on TV for her first match, whilst top seed Deta Hedman is lumbered with evening session tucked away on a pay TV channel
- Viagogo selling Lakeside tickets with a large picture of PDC player Raymond van Barneveld emblazoned at the top of the page
- Lakeside proudly declaring on Twitter that the event contains the "world's best 56 players", 16 of them are women and that's before you even point out the obvious. They also missed out the two youth players from the total...
- The Lakeside darts site has decided to spell a players name a different way twice on the same page: 'Pengiran Mohamed" and "Pengiram Mohamed"
- Rhian Griffiths claiming on a Gofundme begging page that Lakeside, other than on Channel 4 in the UK (missing out BT Sport which is a howler in itself), will be shown on "various other broadcasters around the world", when the event (at the time of writing) has no TV deal outside of UK/Ireland/New Zealand and will solely be on Youtube elsewhere.
- The BDO taking three attempts to deliver a Happy Xmas message whilst promoting Lakeside at the same time, riddled with spelling/grammatical errors, a squiggly spell check line, and the line that "fancy dress is encouraged"
- One of the top seeds at the event going onto the BDO FB page to encourage the fans to watch illegal streams of the event rather than pay for the coverage the BDO have secured on TV.
- BDO Twitter issuing a Tweet more or less hoping the pesky foreigner Darius Labanauskas loses to Scott Mitchell, which was hastily deleted.
- BDO Twitter issuing a Tweet claiming Ross Montgomery won the Jersey Open...when it was actually Scott Waites.
- Sharon Prins having her name changed to "Sharon Prinns" on the awful PowerPoint thing on the BDO site/FB page
- Paul Hogan (not qualified) and Jeff Smith (twice, also not qualified) featuring in the C4 promo
- Wayne Warren (Welsh) having his nationality changed to English on the awful PowerPoint thing on the BDO site/FB page, the latter with links to "page not found" on the C4 website.
- The quality of some of the pictures being used of players on the BDO website: the one of Edwards looks like a photo of a photo, the one of Day looks like Jabba the Hutt, and some of the others have horrific stretch/cropping issues.
- BDO Twitter issuing a Tweet claiming that the "Angry Turk" (a howler in itself) hasnt practiced. Hardly selling the game.
- Top BDO player Ross Montgomery slags Lakeside and governing body off in Scottish newspaper over consecutive days, 2/3 days before event starts
- As of 2 days before the event, sales are 900 tickets down on last year and the final still has 100 tickets unsold.
- BDO preview listing a player as "Conan The Whitehead"
- BDO preview suggesting Jim Williams/De Vos/Aileen de Graaf will be recording "sky scraping averages"
- Jamie Hughes giving an interview where he claims Lakeside has been the home of darts for "more than 40 years", a venue that has only held the event since 1986
- Second seed gives interview to the BBC where he admits the PDC is the future of darts and he will be switching at some point in the future.
- the BDO deciding that Northern Ireland is in a different country to the United Kingdom when announcing broadcast details.
-Three of the evening sessions not even selling 50% of tickets (one of them not even 40%) by the morning of the opening day
Day One
- the international YouTube feed having the word "Chamionship" instead of Championship
- Talking about the PDC final 1 whole minute into the broadcast
- Rob Wakers intro at the start of the program, the sound spewing from his mouth was not synchronised with the actual video.
- Nicholson claiming that Lakeside “doesn’t have to change” and that the man on the street associates darts with Lakeside
- Rob Walker claiming the best players in the world have graced “this” stage for 40 years
- Bobby George saying that he rates Kyle Mc uhh uhh but he couldn't actually remember what his name is.
- Break for ads before the first match
- Evil alcohol sponsor sign on the stage
- Interviewing fans in fancy dress, the same fancy dress Sue Williams insists the BDO don’t do.
- Seema Jaswal down in the crowd, interviewing a teacher named Colin from Motherwell who's dressed as a wolf and howling nicely. Seems didn’t listen to a word the wolf said. “I am down from Glasgow” the wolf said. Seema then asks “where have you come from?”
- break to show one advert between walk-ons and the match starting
- The noise of the dartboard! Apples hitting a Transit van.
- McGeeney on 164, hits a score of 23.
- Deano reveals that Adams had issues with his belt. Walker mentions that Wolife is carrying a lot of "timber these days"
- 53-dart set, McGeeney wins it 3-0. Wolfie averaging 77.
- Since coming back from the first break they seem to have stopped updating the scores after each individual dart.
- Set 2 Leg 1, Wolfie throws 7 scores under 100 and McGeeney breaks him in 19 darts
- Comms reduced to bringing up a 100 average Adams hit 16 years ago.
- Shot of crowd with woman playing on her phone paying no attention to the darts on stage.
- Vassos saying of Adams "He's just persuaded his average north of 80"
- "if you only watch darts one week a year you won't know what a great year McGeeney has had", totally ignoring his pathetic TV appearances. "McGeeney has had a spectacular year", apparently.
- Rawling excitedly on Adams: "106 for a break of throw", smacks first dart a mile into single 5
- Took ten legs for the BDO #1 and the "legend" to muster a 180 between them.
- stone cold silence from the crowd when McGeeney wins the 3rd set
- Adams with a scoring visit of 21
- 23-darter for Adams to break in set 4, both spraying them all over. "In terms of scoring it's been a bit scruffy" says Rawling.
- 1 x 180 in the whole first 13 legs of the Adams/McGeeney match
- Adams throwing for the match starts with 22
- Vassos needing to have the tie-break rule explained to him!
- Wolfie wins the leg to go up 2-1 in the fifth set, comms "Wolfie seemingly inspired" as Wolfie throws a 22 to start the next leg.
- Match of the tournament according to the comms. It is the first fekkin match.
- Twat in the crowd cheering as McGeeney ferrets up and hits a double by mistake.
- Rawling again calling Adams a "Lakeside legend", as he throws 26.
- Adams wins the bull to go first in the sudden-death leg, then gives away the advantage immediately by scoring 41,45 and 28 in his first 3 visits.
- Walkers attempts at pronouncing "Penigram”
- Nick Kenny coming out to "Freed From Desire".
- O'Shea: "I think we have a classic already". Spoken at the end of the first bloody leg.
- Rawling: “The averages, you can almost forget them"
- Kenny giving it the Mensur. After an 18 darter.
- Rawling thinking 90-30 is 40.
- The PDC wasp makes an appearance, Mandingle chasing Nick Kenny around with a flannel.
Toplad with a smashing quip about the Wasps 'B' team.
- Comms tiptoeing around Ratajskis absence. O’shea reasonable happy it let Jobbo in because he is “in form”.
- Paul Nicholson referring to "great players" like Geoff Wylie and Keith Rooney
- Comms cutting out
- Griffiths going T10 on 66 with two in hand, Ashton on a theoretically simple finish
- Ashton with a scoring visit of 7
- A 140 by Griffiths totally missed by the cameras as they were on Ashton the whole time
- Deta thinking the Ladies 1st Round should be best of 5 sets
- Nicho: "The ladies' competition for me is the highlight of this year"
- No mention of who’s actually playing Gary Robson.
- Rob down in the crowd calls it "a carnival atmosphere" and that he can't believe they're halfway through the first afternoon after the third match. What's half of 4?
- According to the taped interview Mohamed started playing darts in his teenage years, and that was 32 years ago. Cut to the info graphics which list him as 56 years old.
- Comms saying that Robson threw a great average...8 years ago.
- Finton monging about in the crowd with some Dutchman who brings him pies
- Ex employee saying the place hasn't changed in thirty years
- Pingu hits the d11 going for d8 . Robbo nicks it with a 28-darter to win.
- First afternoon over, and there's been more legs won in ten visits than in four.
- Nicholson mentioning the Robbo/MvG game from years ago and how he 'stuffed' him "a few years ago". 11 fekkin years ago.
- YMCA playing followed by D.I.S.C.O!! Pissed up clowns dancing around their handbags.
- Mason: "It's called the World Professional Championship, but it's more of a family event."
- Justin Thompson introduced as 'a two time Geelong Darts Open champion'
- Vassos calling the Gilliand game a "Darts equivalent of a ultra marathon"
- Gilliand missing 8 match darts by a country mile
- the score graphic reads "PRELIM. ROUND" even though there's plenty of space to spell out the word.
- Comms looking at Thompsons Wiki page and reading stuff from it even though it has clearly been vandalised, including such lines as "Justin also won the 2017 Budapest karaoke competition and has a vast array of fidget spinners which he uses to dazzle the ladies"
- Nicho’s commentary of the Thompson game including chat about the traffic situation around Melbourne and the trials and characters of the Melbourne darts league
- "Lisa Ashton looked wonderfully good winning her game earlier". She averaged 74.
- Rawling: "The crowd's at capacity - many of them staying on from the afternoon's entertainment." Possibly because it's all on a single ticket...
- Top Lad thinking T West won masters in 2004, the final in which he lost to King..
- 22 minutes to play the first 4 legs of the Hedman/David match
- "David has improved her scoring".. 10 scored.
- David, with 100 left, inexplicable hits T19 first dart.
- Rawling lying about Detas final average of 64 by claiming it was 74.
- BT Sport graphics labelling Joe Chaney as English instead of American.
- First two matches of the evening taking almost 3 hours to complete, meaning Chaney doesn’t take the stage until near 10pm
- Chaney’s walk on music
- Nicholson obsessing over wrestling
- Commentator calling Noppie a good looking player
- Noppie leaves himself on D1 and goes inside it on two consecutive turns with his first dart, loses leg.
- Nicholson stating you need to hit 2 trebles to finish 128.
- More insights into the Tennessee wrestling scene from Nicholson. ...and on Liz Taylor's hat collection, all while darts thud into the board without attracting comment.
- Nicholson: "the Gulf of Mexico is not far from Tennessee". About 550 miles at its nearest point, Paul....
- Grease Megamix, Agadoo
- Comms going nuts over one set of darts at high standard, both match averages will end well below the mythical 100 barrier
- Mitchell roaring and fist-pumping in front of Labanauskas after winning the third set on D1, following an embarrassing pull into single 10 when aiming for D6.
- Mitchell scoring 64 (t20, 1, t1) and leaving 392 - "Three good darts for 64"
- "I tell you what, it's half past eleven at night at Lakeside and not a soul is leaving" , as camera shows loads of empty seats.
- Mitchell hot-footing it off the stage after he won, as he needed the toilet, despite there being a break less than 10 minutes before the end of the match.
- Nicholson issuing a Tweet saying the highlight of his day was the “wrestling banter” with John Rawling.
Day Two
- Ad break after FIVE MINUTES of coverage.
- Rob Walker claims Darius's nickname is "Big D".
- Channel 4 "highlights" ignoring the first set of Darius and Mitchell, despite it likely to be the highest quality set of the whole tournament
- Jobson necking about half a pint in the background of Mitchell's interview minutes prior to his match with Durrant
- Durrant not missing a chance to bring up Boro FC right at the top of the interview.
- Durrant: "Sometimes I'm pinching myself when I'm playing players like Darryl Fitton"
- Duzza correcting himself in interview: "becoming world champion…Lakeside champion"
- Nicho: 'Robson played really well yesterday'. He averaged 84
- O'Shea: "We make a lot of jokes about Robson's top. Looks more like the Barton bridge than the Tyne bridge"
- Vassos forgetting Robson didn't play here last year, as he hits a scoring visit of 5 to leave 300 (S1, S1, S3)
- Durrant has to turn to his left to tell someone to shush. Now Robbo's doing it too.
- Durrant boldly turns down the bull with Robbo on 167. Then Robbo get down to a shot at the bull, and misses even the outer ring by an inch, landing halfway up the 20 segment.
- "There's not many who would want to face him on that sort of form" says Vassos. 95 average for Durrant….
- Rob Walker: "Durrant avoids the curse of the defending champion" alluding to first time winner not defending the year after, forgetting Barney and Bristow managed it anyway.
- O'Shea bigging up the BDO conveyor belt
- Big Robbbo saying he'd have liked a day off between matches, almost certainly for reasons alcohol related.
- The Turk on shanghai, hit the T20 and then planted a dart into S1.
- Comms: "I know from personal experience, Turkey has exploded with darts"
- Rawling bored off his skin reads a long, long explanation of the origin of the darts term 'Shanghai' while the 'action' crawls along to Double 1 drama in the background
- Comms going quiet for extended portions of the Dodgy Harris vs Angry Foreigner. The comms sound absolutely bored about the whole affair.
- Rawling subtly hinting at the absolute drag of Uygunsozlu - Harris by asking how long the match has been going. "It's got a feeling of a match that's already been going a fair old time and still has a fair time to go". O’Shea replies its only one set all.
- Score is 1-1 in best of 5. Comms: "Potentially four sets to go"
- Harris with a scoring visit of 22
- O'Shea on comms: "Is this the first time Harris has been in front?" John Rawling replies "Er no Tony, he won the first set."
- "We can pretty much forget about averages from here on in" says Rawling, as they stand at 77 vs 79 going into the decider.
- O’Shea: "You get a feeling even the bull up would take 20 minutes"
- Coral joining Bet365 in taking the piss out of the world's biggest darts tournament
- back to back 23 darters.
- Umit takes a quarter of an hour trying to work out what's left, eventually deciding it's 24 then hits a Single 9.
- Turk throws 21 darts without getting a dart at a finish.
- Rawling at the end of the match with the Turk cant believe the winner won "With an average of, yes, listen to this, it happened, with an average of 75.22, effectively admitting the match was utter shite.
- Nicho explaining that Harris averaged 75 because of the pace of the Turk. Also "Sometimes you have to play continental players with different cultures as they play the game differently"
- Adams in the bar in his darts shirt despite being eliminated the day before
- Lady interviewer to Harris: Lady: "Why do they call you the noisy Welshman? Reply: "Uhh well I don't know really uhh"
- Deta on Comms: “Fallon Sharock”. No Deta, its Sherrock.
- Fallon requires 170.Comms 'this would be some way to win the first leg'. Fallon scores 40.
- Deta: “Fallon looks OK”, said at the point she was averaging 51
- Fallon’s second leg of the match: 41, 41, 41, 41, 60, 41, 40. Loses leg with a leave of 130.
- Another scoring visit of 5
- Good to see Sherrock seems to be over her medical issues and has managed to shed the weight again. Except in the picture they're using for the on-screen graphics...
- Deta still banging on about the women being as good as the men.
- "Top quality darts" according to C4 comms. Both averaging low 70s.
- Deta talking about the way Fallon's darts "come across her face"
- Corrine required 25. Single 14 then single 17. Bust.
- Another cracker of a leg from Sherrock, starting 56,22, 55 and 41
- Deta: “I'd like to see a women do the 9 darter, me hopefully”.
- Rob Walker calling the Hammond/Fallon game “a game worthy of the final”
- Nicho says that Ross "showed the world that he is a world class player" at the Grand Slam.He beat Joe Murnan and that’s it.
- Waites showing how serious he takes darts: "for a week, darts is my priority"
- During all the walk-ons you can hear the commentators chuckling and coughing off mic
- Monty doing the air guitar during his entrance and generally acting like a tit, taking longer than Wright and Gurney combined to eventually stop.
- Rawling trying to drum up a bit of needle as Waites and Monty share a joke with each other pre-match.
- Monty begins with a scoring visit of 30
- Rawling describing what Waites was up against at the GSoD he won as "the very highest level", which included Wade having a mental breakdown
- Monty hits a 180 after being miles behind in the leg and goes ballistic.....Waites sat on 60 and cleans it up. T
- Waites takes out 133 after Monty missed 2 darts at D19 for a leg, to which Monty's reply is a wave of the hands under his chain.
- "Top quality darts from both men" says Walker after set 1. 94 v 87.
- BDO official FB page not deleting a little bit of casual racism to describe the Turkish player
- Camera picks out some bloke in the crowd who starts coughing.
- Vassos: "it's the ones he has missed that have hurt"
- Ross throwing at tops for the set, director cuts away before you see where the bloody thing even landed.
- Waites down to 429 after 6 darts
- Rawling and Vassos blatantly taking the piss out of the Harris Umit match. "What do you want me to say about it?" says Rawl.
- Monty bouncing around screaming his head off. Waites has put approximately 6 match darts in the wall.
- Monty wins a set to get the game back on throw. Changes his darts for reasons utterly unknown. Loses the next set 3-2 on his own throw and with it the game.
- “Thats it for the opening weekend” according to Rob Walker, despite 4 matches in the evening session to go.
- Coverage ends seconds after game shot
- Danny Crates refering to Fallon Sherrock as Sherron (he almost did it a second time too when talking with her family).
- Rows of empty seats for the evening session
- Vassos pre-game: "Jeffrey Sparidaans is the latest Dutch prodigy to make his Lakeside debut." O'Shea adds: "It might be his first visit to the Lakeside, but he's seen plenty of stage action and he's a top player, this young Jeffrey."
- 6 legs in, SPARIDAANS averaging under 70.
- Nillson on 77, Toplad suggesting he will go for 15s first.
- Sparidaans, throwing at tops to stay in the match to complete a 120 finish, nearly hits the "1" on the surround.
- Nilsson landing on 162 and Sparidaans on 166 in the same turn in set two...
- A Sharon Prins bounce-out has ended up in the lightbox below the board. Fun whilst they try and retrieve it
- Vassos: "Prins is 60 in front plus these" Prins throws a 60, scoreboard clicks over showing Prins and O'Brien level on 241.
- Telnekes' walk-on music doesn't start until he's partway to the stage and then it stops altogether.
- John Rawling claims Keith Deller won Lakeside in 1993.
- 23 darter to kick off the Telnekes match
- Landman blowing a 161 opportunity by dragging his dart at T17 into small single 2 and then managed to bust 80 by hitting single 20 followed by treble 20
- Rawling and Nicholson so bored with the game that they've talked about Ricky Evans, Kenny Neyens and Dimitri Van den Bergh in just the last few minutes, closely followed by Mark Webster, Robert Thornton and Simon Whitlock's management.
- Nicholson referring to "Anne Marie Potts" holder of the Lakeside Women's high checkout record.
- Interviewer claims Harms has lost in the first round 3 years running despite making the quarters two years ago.
- Nicholson said Derk is not the only Dutch player called Derk. He said there is a Derk van Duijvenbode. Except its Dirk, nor Derk...
- Warren mouthing "shit" twice after missing the bull for a 61 attempt.
- Wayne Warren’s daughter. Shrieking her way through the whole game.