2000-10-01

The Belgrave Sports and Social Club, Tamworth was the setting for one of the regional finals of the BDO British Champions Cup. Two of the Midlands local rivals West Midlands and Warwickshire took part in the competition and in the men’s event met each other in the final.
West Midlands had recorded 5-4 wins over Northamptonshire and Nottinghamshire to reach the final while Warwickshire had taken out Leicestershire and Norfolk, again with narrow 5-4 wins. Playing at their home county venue Warwickshire went one up with a 3-2 win from Ian Murdock against Tom Aldridge. Dave Robbins levelled the scoreline with a similar result in his tie with Mark Kane. Dave Pritchard gave West Midlands the edge when he defeated Pat Koyce in three straight legs only to see Steve Cain produce a 3-0 success against Lol Frazer to square the match a two each.
Colin Fowler (Warwickshire) inflicted a rare defeat on Ian Jones to put his team 3-2 up and with the remaining four games being shared Warwickshire took the match 5-4. Steve Parkes and Mick James had wins against Carl Steadman and Trevor Frost for West Midlands, Andy Smith and Carl Betteridge replying for Warwickshire at the expense of Gary Taylor and Carl (Zippy) Davies.
The draw was kind yet again in the ladies knockout as the two local sides featured in the opposite halves of the event. Warwickshire beat Nottinghamshire 5-2 and followed that with a 4-3 win over Lincolnshire to reach the final. West Midlands meanwhile had a 5-2 win over Leicestershire but then made their exit by the same margin in their tussle with Cambridgeshire.
Sue Deery gave Warwickshire the ideal start by beating C.Ramsey 3-0. Then the southerners stormed into the match with wins from D.Greatbach and B.Gosling. Carol Weston (Warwickshire) erased the opposition’s lead when she won 3-1 against L.Gilbert only to see her team mate Julie Liddell go down 3-0 to S.Greatbach.
In the penultimate encounter Jane Coffman won a hard game with J.Judges 3-2 knowing that it was all in vain as her team were a player short and the last game was awarded to Cambridgeshire to give them a 5-4 verdict.
Both winning teams will now go forward to the last eight play off, which will be played off at Trentham Gardens, Stoke on Trent on Sunday 5th November.
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In addition to changing their home venue to the “99” Club, Tat Bank Road, Oldbury, the West Midlands County have also added strength to their men’s teams in the shape of new signings Andy Bastable, Clive Francis, Paddy Johnson, Fred Parsons and Jamie Parsons. The ladies have lost Dawn Holdcroft and Penny Hooley but replace them with Leanne Jennings, Claire Hobbs and Janet Hubbard.
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