Derbyshire v Cambridgeshire
Derbyshire’s latest fixture in division one of the Riley’s BDO Inter County Championships was a home tie against high riding and promotion hopefuls Cambridgeshire. It was always going to be a tough encounter for the hosts and not making any less difficult was the adverse weather condition which was the cause of no less than five Derbyshire players being unable to reach the venue.
The ladies ‘B’ were not looking to repeat their previous 5-1 defeat suffered in their tie with County Durham, but they didn’t get off to the best of starts when Karen Stanhope and Sandra Greatbatch in turn defeated Rachel Ayres and Joy Aston to put the visitors 2-0 up.
Michelle Phillips, playing her first game of the season stopped the rot with a 3-1 success against Kerry Brown before Nicky Fletcher, the sole winner in the previous outing, clinched her second consecutive match award beating Debbie Melton 3-2 with a 16.20 average.
Cambridgeshire went within an ace of victory when Amy Grant beat Louise Rawson 3-0, but the day was saved and the points shared when last one on Sarah Quinn beat Wendy Ickin 3-1 to finish the game at three all.
The men’s ‘B’ side were hoping to go one better than in their match with Durham whereby the finished all square, but as in the ladies game they didn’t get off to a very good start. Jim Whelan, one of the five players drafted in at the last minute opened up and lost his game with Martin Purell 3-1, Frank Davis failed to get going against Thomas Stevens and went down 3-0 to put the away side 2-0 up.
At number three was Derbyshire’s John Grace, who after a number of years was making a come back to the county stage and a successful one it was too. Playing against Adam Cousins Grave won a nervy encounter 3-2 with a very creditable 24.05 average. Rick Gray had finishing problems against Darren Cotterill, he wired double top in the first, bust a 100 finish in the second and did the same off 111 in the third and lost 3-0 to give the away team a 3-1 lead.
Then came Derbyshire’s best run in the match, two wins in a row from Keith Cooper and Danny Thomas. Cooper, a committee man who erects the boards, puts them away after the game and regularly stands at the darts stall throughout the games, got the nod to play and after a few years away from the stage he took full advantage of his call up. He was taken the full five legs distance by Phil Hilsden, but he won the tussle 3-2 and his 24.99 average earned the match award. Thomas, the ‘B’ teams Mr Consistency with four wins in five games chalked up a 24.35 average in his 3-1 win against Dan Whitham to level the score at 3-3.
Trevor Whitby’s 3-2 win over Ian Byard saw Cambridgeshire get their noses in front again only to see the hosts take two in a row again thanks to Ian Hannah and Alan Evans, who in turn defeated Pete Richardson and Paul Newstead to go in front for the first time in the game, leading 5-4.
The next two games both went the full distance with the away team getting the vital fifth leg wins as Steve Carrett beat debutant Richard Rawding and Kelvin Crane accounted for Dougie Walker. One game to go and requiring just one more for the win Cambridgeshire’s Simon Cassidy wrapped up the points as he beat Daz Sullivan 3-1, giving a final score of 7-5.
With the overall score at 10-8 to Cambridgeshire’s Sunday’s teams had everything still to play for and the ladies opened up with two fine wins from Kelly Dean and Jo Oldershaw. Kelly, promoted from the ‘B’ side began her ‘A’ team life with a superb 3-1 win over Sandra Greatbatch and although Jo Oldershaw had a tough game against Nadine Bentley she came out of the game the 3-2 winner.
Jane Judges (Cambridgeshire) was in fine form as she recorded a 23.86 lady of the match award average in her 3-0 win against Steph Allerton and with a further 3-0 win from Amanda Mallett over Rachel Bird, Cambridgeshire were back on level terms.
For the third consecutive fixture Jane Densley won the lady of the match award. Facing up to Barbara Greatbatch in a game that included three maximums, one for Jane and two for Barbara, Jane took the result with a fantastic 16 darts deciding leg giving her a tremendous 23.56 average and taking her unbeaten run to five.
The home side leading 3-2 and one to play, so the result now hinged on the last encounter between Tracey Johnson (Derbyshire) and her namesake Ronnie Johnson, so it was obvious to all Johnson was going to win it, but which one? It was the Derbyshire Johnson who got the all important 3-1 verdict to give her team mates a valuable 4-2 victory.
The men’s ‘A’ result was now the vital factor in the overall outcome as after the three games played the score stood dead level at 12-12.
Phil Henshaw had a comfortable 4-0 win over Gary Kilpatrick to give first blood to Derbyshire. Daz Sinfield was unable to add to that tally as he lost the deciding seventh leg to Mark Horspool, who went out in thirteen darts. Gary Fenn was another loser by the odd leg as he lost his battle with Will Harwood. Things then got worse as Stuart Ward beat Pete Slater 4-1 and Martin Adams won 4-0 against Aden Kirk to give the visitors a 4-1 lead.
Ady Asprey reduced the deficit when he won 4-1 against Darren Cotterill, only to see Dennis Harbour record a 4-0 win over Reece Spurr to make it 5-2 to Cambridgeshire. In form Dave Smith-Hayes was at number eight playing against Gary Flynn. Full of confidence after taking the match award against County Durham, Dave romped to a straight 4-0 win, his superb 31.31 average making it two consecutive awards and once again reducing the opponents lead to 5-3.
Micky Reed (Cambridgeshire) guaranteed his side a share of the spoils by beating Mel Hopkins 4-2, but Nigel Daniels kept Derbyshire in the match when he won 4-1 against Paul Wenn, however it still left them trailing 6-4 with only two to play.
Unfortunately for the hosts the last two games both went in favour of Cambridgeshire, Gary Robertson won 4-0 against Paul Bettney and Ian Withers beat Matt Padgett 4-1 to put the men’s ‘A’ result at 8-4 to the away team and at the same time giving them an overall 20-16 victory.
The result leaves Derbyshire precariously near to the foot of the table with 101 points, eight adrift of West Midlands, who are just above them and have a game in hand against Staffordshire. Staffordshire, who are bottom are 20 points behind Derbyshire and the two teams play each other next match, a must win game for both teams, should be quite an encounter.
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