Darts, Beers, & Cheers!

Archive for the ‘Rumours and gossip’ Category

PDC Walk-on girl Nicola Cowell on TV AM this morning

Just a fun bit of news today – if you aren’t watching Sky TV’s “Soccer AM” you might want to turn over, as the darts fan favourite Nicola Cowell is today’s soccerette!  That’s right – the PDC darts walk on girl is swapping darts for football this morning!

Let’s hope we see her walking the cream of the darts players on again at a tournament soon – it wouldn’t be the world championships without her!

You can read an interview with Nicola HERE.

Nicola Cowell, darts walk on girl, model, and now Soccer AM babe.

Darts Review and upcoming preview of the PDC scene

Dave Gorman interviewing Phil Taylor during the Bravo coverage of the Euro Darts Championships

Phew it’s been a busy time for a darts fan, July was packed full of televised darts goodness!  Phil Taylor was his usual regal king of darts, winning both the World Matchplay in Blackpool, and the European Darts Championships in Germany.

Results have meant some movement in the rankings – especially for Wayne Jones, who comes out of the last two weeks very nicely… some £35,000 on his rankings, plus a guranteed place at the Grand Slam of Darts for the next two years.  Once the OOM is updated I’m sure he will be in the top 16, which is a great place to be.

The Euro Champs were extra special for me, as I was invited by Bravo TV to be their ‘online darts guru’… and I took over the official @BRAVO_darts twitter duties.  It was good fun (24 hours worth of twittering mind you), and I was able to entertain and inform the darts fans across Europe.  It was quite an honour, and hopefully a reflection of how people see me now as a semi authority on all things PDC      I’m probably biased, but I think Bravo did a fantastic job of the coverage (after initial teething problems), the pundity was top notch, and it was good to see a knowledgable crowd.  I’ve seen a lot of chat in the forums hoping they will cover more darts in the future! (GALLERY of images from the Euros here).

Looking forwards August is actually a quiet time – probably to allow the darts pros to have a bit of a rest/holiday – unless they are heading to Australia or Canada! (I know Dennis Priestly will be in Canada, as he says in his recent interview he did for us).  September brings the player championships closer to home, with weekends in Crawley and the Netherlands.

I will be attending the Crawley player championship weekend at the start of Sept, as Justin Pipe’s guest (thanks mate!), and it will be great to get back to the floor, and see if Justin can continue his recent great results.  There is a rumour that Raymond van Barneveld may attend the Crawley floor tournament, which I hope he does, as I’ve not seen him in the flesh yet.

I will also be at the Bad Boys III exhibition on the 25th September – I think tickets might still be available.  Looking for to it, and meeting our competition winners (DarrenH and Nikkiboy) there too.

I’ve also had some crackings news personally from my friends at Red Dragon Darts (Winmau) – they have offered me a day at their factory, to have a custom darts fitting!  They usually reserve this for the pro’s.. so it’s another honour!  Red Dragon have sponsored many of the competitions on this site – including the current one to win a set of Alex Roy darts.  I’ve a set or two of their darts already myself, they really are cracking quality darts!

So all in all 2010 has been a great darting year so far, with a new broadcaster (Bravo TV) coming onto the scene.. and there’s PLENY more darts to come!  Good darting!

Cheers, Krispy.

BBC to show a PDC event in 2011?  Rumours fly.

I’ve heard a whisper (from a reliable source) that the BBC may have agreed with the PDC to show a PDC tournament in 2011.

PDC Darts on the BBC next year, you may have heard it here first...

If true, that would bring the world of PDC darts to bigger terrestrial audiences, and hopefully make household names of the stars.  Currently the BBC only really televise BDO darts, and only the BDO World championships at the lakeside at that (and to be honest, the coverage is patchy at best, with mostly recorded highlight shows in the evenings rather than full live coverage).

Darts is quickly starting to get back onto TV, as ITV  show the ‘Grand Slam of Darts’ tournament, which is a PDC event, which also features BDO players, and Bravo will be showing the European Darts championships at the end of July.

There is currently no indication if this BBC televised event would be a new tournament, or one that Sky currently show…

The rumour is also that the BBC did make an offer to televise the PDC WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS, taking it from Sky TV.  That would be a very interesting move – as it could have repercussions on the BBC showing the BDO Lakeside event (especially as there’s a little overlap!).  I could speculate that if this was true, that the BDO Lakeside event is in danger of losing it’s TV status in the future.

The question is, can the BBC up its game on televised darts, as many people (including myself) do not think it currently does a professional enough job of what it does now.  To be blunt, Tony Green is way past his sell by as a commentator (he makes many factual mistakes in his comments, as if he doesn’t do any research on the players he commentates on).  The camera work is also below par (below SKY and ITV’s), as the spotting seems slow, and the camera often fails to focus on the right areas of the board.  EDIT: As Andy says in his comment, I do have to say that the BBC’s David Croft is a great commentator, and many fans have often said he should be used in more darts commentary.

Also the presenter could do with being replaced (sorry but that radio DJ they used was TERRIBLE and admitted he had no knowledge of darts during the BBC coverage this year).

I will bring you more if I find out anything!  Cheers, Krispy