The high point of the "professional" darts season comes to the fore today with the 41st BDO World Darts Championship from the "home" of world darts: THE LAKESIDE! With surroundings that wouldn't look out of place in a generic 70s sitcom, alleged top tier players struggling to average over 90, and the complete shambles known as "women's darts", it's truly arrows from yesteryear.
The BDO Worlds has no right calling itself professional in the current age, yet it still persists as being that for some ungodly reason. But there's a certain something that the Lakeside has that you don't really get with the PDC. It's not flashy entertainment, it doesn't have pissed-up mongs droning chants endlessly and actively trying to put the players off, and the boards can at least take a dart and not spit them straight back at you. Maybe if they called it the Lakeside World Amateur Darts Championship, it wouldn't be as mocked as it is.
With this being potentially the last time Lakeside is televised, the BDO have gone all guns blazing with the opening match as legendary 3-time champion Martin Adams takes on current #1 Mark McGeeney. Elsewhere this afternoon, reigning women's champion Lisa Ashton gets her quest for a 4th world title underway against Wales' Rhian Griffiths and eternal Lakeside clogger (and hoverboard enthusiast) Gary Robson plays Brunei's Pengiran Mohamed in the preliminary round. The evening features 2015 champion Scott Mitchell against Lithuania's Darius Labanauskas, last year's runner-up Danny Noppert against Yank qualifier Joe Chaney in a prelim, as well as perennial Lakeside bottlejob Deta Hedman against Norway's Rachna David.
Coverage starts at 12:45pm on Channel 4 before switching to BT Sport 3 at 6:45pm.
All matches are best of 5 sets except women's matches (best of 3 sets). Women's matches are in greentext.
>Today's matches (12:45pm - 5:30pm) Mark McGeeney (2) v Martin Adams Willem Mandigers (10) v Nick Kenny >Lisa Ashton (4) v Rhian Griffiths Pengiran Mohamed v Gary Robson (P)
>Tonight's matches (6:45pm - 11:15pm) Justin Thompson v Chris Gilliland (P) >Deta Hedman (1) v Rachna David Joe Chaney v Danny Noppert (P) Scott Mitchell (4) v Darius Labanauskas
Ian Jackson
Following his first ever PDC experience at the Grand Slam, Scotland's Ross Montgomery finally takes off the blinkers and realises that the BDO is fucked and that Lakeside is "nothing special":
>THE PDC are delighted to announce a huge 40% increase in William Hill World Darts Championship prize money for the 2018/2019 tournament, where a £2.5 million prize fund will be on offer including a record-breaking £500,000 to the eventual champion. Jesus.
And here's Rob Cross with walk-on music sharer Deta.
Ryder Walker
>With this being potentially the last time Lakeside is televised, What's happening OP?
Nathaniel Flores
>regulated size trebles >Wolfie >darts connoisseurs in the crowd Aww yisss, time for the real Worlds.
Nathaniel Miller
>86 averages aplenty
Gabriel Campbell
Channel 4 and BT Sport's deal was only for 2 years, so 2017 and 2018.
Brody Fisher
Plenty of Lakeside classics
Jacob Ortiz
How is this not a dyke?
Jason Sanchez
W O L F I E O L F I E
Oliver Walker
But who bought the rights for the years after?
Wyatt Lee
Is handy that Wolfie is going to get knocked out in the very first match of the tournament. Means that we can get the only one worth watching out of the way and then proceed to ignore the rest.
Colton Walker
She's nice.
Luis Thomas
Probably no one.
Carson Ramirez
The whole thing is streamed live on Youtube, if your outside the UK.
Uncle Bazza bamboozled the BBC into airing scripted competitions rather than patrician, orderly darts with based regulation trebles
Blake Price
Duzza is nice too.
Aaron Richardson
>mfw it's BASED wolfie time
Zachary Baker
Surely Uncle Barry will buy the BDO soon?
Last I heard he offered them £2m, with them obviously rejecting it, but the counties asking them to reconsider it. Since then Olly Croft has finally fucked off though.
Jaxon Cox
>the final words ever uttered by a BDO player on the BBC were "If I pull your chain, will you flush".
Mason Cox
It's beyond worth it now. They're destroying themselves already.
And as Bazza was quoted recently in an interview with Sports Gazette:
>“My job was to hold out the hand of friendship to them when I first took over. I said to Olly Croft, who was head of the BDO: ‘Look, I’m not party to this history. Shall we sit down and talk and see where we are?’ And he wrote me back a line and just said ‘I see no point for a meeting.’ I wrote back and said to him: ‘In that case, I will fuck you within every inch of your life.’ And I have. I didn’t destroy them but I don’t want to destroy them because they do a job. But they’re not professional and they don’t run the sport in the way that they thought they ran the sport. Sport is run by excellence."
Chase Cox
make love to me, wolf man
Joshua Brooks
>I wrote back and said to him: ‘In that case, I will fuck you within every inch of your life.’ >it's real Fucking hell, Bazza.
Brandon Bell
The BDO is still pretty much the entire grassroots of darts in the country. It'd be far easier for Barry to just take all that over rather than try to let them go bust and remake it himself.
The interesting question would be what would happen about the WDF if it happened.
Matthew Russell
lol
Jose Collins
Bazza seems to be a very petty man.
Jose Jones
>The BDO is still pretty much the entire grassroots of darts in the country. It'd be far easier for Barry to just take all that over rather than try to let them go bust and remake it himself. True. What the BDO needs is someone in charge who realises that it is no longer the top darts organisation and restructures it to benefit the amateur game. It's an absolute shambles at present.
>The interesting question would be what would happen about the WDF if it happened. I doubt much would change on that front.
Considering Croft basically said "piss off" to him and made no attempt to even start a reconciliation, no wonder he took that approach.
Caleb Cooper
Is the WDF actually anything other than a puppet government of the BDO?
Ignoring the PDC. It seems to be like snooker, where the British body organises the tournament tour including tournaments abroad, and the "World" body runs a couple of amateur tournaments won by random Indians you've never heard of.
Robert Lee
"Let's be friends" "No" "WELL THEN I FUCK YOU IN THE ASS!!!"
>Jamie Lewis >more deserving Stopped reading there, what a retarded opinion.
Noah Lopez
meant for obviously
Blake Stewart
Complete misquote but Lewis wouldn't have even been considered without that semi-final run.
Alexander Diaz
They fucked up already. YT stream is announced to start at 12:30 UK time. It's still offline. People in the chat state that it will start 12:45 or 13:00...let's see.
Jackson Phillips
Aye you're not wrong. Guy's funny when he's ranting about the BDO and the abuse he gets back from the chavs organising it though, like "popcorn teeth"(?).
Joseph Sanchez
Love how Spineless hates the PDC but cashed in his principles for Uncle Barry's coin.
Brody Peterson
popcorn teeth refers to current BDO chairwoman sue williams
pros in the BDO are just scared of being swallowed up by the PDC
they're big fishes in a little point in the BDO
Ryder Clark
Cross working on that optimal darts weight I see
James Gray
And we're on now.
Bentley Bailey
it begins.
Liam Stewart
Why do they have a separate women's draw. What kind of bigotry is this?
>Taylor in the 1991 final holds the record average for a BDO final of 97.58
Absolute state of the BDO.
James Stewart
That crowd is making far too much noise, this is supposed to be a gentleman's game. Also though making no noise at all is rude so that is also not what I want to see in my sport.
John Richardson
>wolfie BTFO in round one again
Why didn't they just rig the draw so one of their only 2 draws actually makes it some distance?
Blake Adams
His first time outside the house by the look of it.
Nolan Murphy
IIIIIIIT'SSS WOOOOOLFIE
Brandon Sanders
W O L F I E O L F I E
Daniel Flores
AWOOOOOOOOOOO
Carson Hill
>this walk-on music
Carson Cook
>called Wolfie >is Fattie
Christopher Martinez
IT'S EDGE
Christopher Cook
>0 matches played >2 ad breaks
Logan Rogers
kek, no way Baz would allow this entrance music
Noah Clark
>vassos alexander and john rawling
Andrew King
Weird hearing John Rawling do something other than boxing
Noah Sanders
...
James Davis
Camera angle on the board looks shite.
Caleb King
hi where are the streams
Jason Nelson
Hate this guy's voice
Ayden Fisher
THUMP THUMP THUMP
Jordan Foster
here lad
James Edwards
>that last dart from mcgeeney slap bang in single 1 when setting up for tops
>Pengiran Mohamed will become the first player from Brunei to compete in the BDO World Championship this year. He practices on this replica Lakeside setup - impressive!
