We drove back up to London on Boxing Day night and got back to our hotel about 10pm. All the officials bring their wives and girlfriends up for the second half over Christmas so I’m looking forward to spending time with them this second half of the tournament. I’ve never refereed the second half of the World Championships, it’s another tick in the “things I’d love to ref” box so I’m really excited to get going. I only have one match on the 27th in the afternoon – Jonny Clayton v Daryl Gurney but I make the most of it, going all seven sets as Daryl mounts a great comeback before being edged out in the decider by Jonny. The evening session is spent in the gym while also glued to my phone as Gerwyn Price and Joe Cullen slug out an amazing match which Gerwyn pips in sudden death.
I’m now in all sessions until New Year’s Day Evening session – we have a rota which we have decided amongst ourselves, the idea being that we all have two sessions off from now until New Year’s Day. Yesterday (the 28th) I’m up all night with a mild dose of food poisoning. Not ideal and naturally there’s absolutely no sympathy from my colleagues! I joke, they very kindly provide electrolytes and vitamins for me and like an absolute trooper I get on stage for Scott Williams v Ricardo Pietreczko in a fantastic atmosphere in the afternoon – it reminded me more of a European Tour atmosphere and it’s great to see the buzz and the noise from the crowd has not been dampened by the Christmas celebrations. Both players like to use the dartboard as much as they can which makes the match more of a challenge than two players going ton, ton-forty, one-three-seven all the time. For example, during the game Ricardo threw Treble 19, Single 19 which is 76, then all of a sudden throws a 25, so I would say in my head 76 + 20 = 96 + 5 = 101.
I remember in another game, Callan Rydz wanted 131. He hit a Treble 17, followed by going out the board going for tops and then a Treble 16. If someone hits a Treble 17 followed by a Treble 16 I would say the Treble 17 51 + 50 = 101 – 2 = 99. It’s also about understanding that by hitting the Treble 16, he’s left 32 (Double 16), so 131 – 32 = 99 which is what he’s scored. Refereeing is a question of counting, understanding the game and how fast you can do that and of course in the faster matches, like the match I have in the evening between Chris Dobey and Josh Rock, it requires you to be faster in doing that than a slower game.
To be honest, having a fast match in the evening helped take the mind off of the tiredness and the food poisoning and it was a great game with Chris winning courtesy of a great Double 19-Double 19 checkout. I am typing this before I need to second ref Kevin Doets v Krzysztof Ratajski and stage ref Dimitri van Den Bergh v Callan Rydz in the afternoon of the 29th. So far today I have mistaken Andrew Davies’ partner Amy for somebody completely different and forgotten to change the patches on my shirt over, so pray for how this is going to go on stage! Also in the background are plans for my new podcast coming next year! That’s all going to be finalised in January so watch this space, as well as further blogs before this tournament is over. Enjoy the darts!
