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Writer's pictureJo Clements

Doomed Dutch

With everything booked and paid for it was time for the Major WDF darting Platinum ranked event in Assen - Holland.

However it came at a bad time for me. I hadn't been able to do much practise due to an extremely painful left shoulder and bicep, which I could barely lift up. I had refrained from my usual practise routines, with the aim to rest it as much as possible before the big competition.


I used the pairs competition with Heather to gauge how it would hold up. With a very hot shower, couple of painkillers and pain relieving gel firmly rubbed in our games went quite well. Both scoring well and our doubles couldn't be missed initially. However that was short lived. The wheels fell off big-time and we were out of the competition.


I finally lost my infamous party tent virginity and went into the party marquee when there was music pumping from 8am - 6pm. Again there were lots of people there, some just come to the event purely for this tent. There were many, all dancing and having fun in the hot weather. It was certainly an experience.


Once the pain relief wore off I had quite an uncomfortable night sleeping before the main singles competition.


Medicated up again as much as I could I started my singles games. My first game started off very slowly. There were some Twinkles of my normal form but I was wiring every double. Frustrated, I won my first game 3.0. Was time to leave that game behind me and move on to the next.


This competition is one of the best run in the World! Despite the huge amount of darters it runs so smoothly. There are no delays, no calls for markers and no messing about.

My only slight negative would be that it is extremely hard playing then winner marks straight after for each game. Therefore there was very little respite between games, specially in a very warm venue.


Game 2 (my arm was feeling a lot more loose) went well. Solid scoring and finishing saw my romp to another 3.0 victory. I was definitely into the points being in the last 32.


On to Game 3. There were certainly some aches however I only managed to play averagely. Missing doubles and giving away far to many opportunities to my opponent. Disappointingly I exited the competition in the Last 32 position. It is still a few more points to be added to my season tally. However way lower than I had aimed for.


The Dutch Open is a fabulous and always well attended competitions. The De Bonte Weever is a gigantic venue housing its very of Ship bar at its heart. All I can say is, thank goodness for being high enough in the rankings/attended Lakeside, as it enabled me to be in the VIP players areas and away from the waves of crowds standing everywhere.

Whilst the weather was glorious on this visit it isn't likely to be the same for the Masters in December. I much prefer Sunny Holland.


Lots of fun with friends, memories made and lessons learned. Back home and carefully picking up my practising again ready for the next WDF comp in Romania.

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