Oche's Blog

Well its been a great start to the World Matchplay. Who expected MVG, Price & Cross to be eliminated in the opening few nights? Certainly not me but you have to give credit to Whitlock, Noppert & Clemens for brilliant victories over the big trio. Wright had a massive scare against the "Special One" Jose De Sousa, His 2nd round match vs Durrant will be a fine tussle. Duzza's opening match against Jeffrey De Zwaan was the performance of the 1st round and possibly one of the best performances in Durrant's TV career, he looked untouchable, Needs to keep that level tomorrow. Ian White isn't really going to convert his floor form to TV, After getting to the Players Championship Semis last year, You thought he turned the corner (Early Days) but you have to beat the likes of Joe Cullen to set a statement in the big ones. Good to see VVDV do well, Chisnall I believe will be the latest player to fall out of the top 16, He is past his peak and Rob Cross will have...

The BDO should close down and call it a night officially. Over the past few years it has been run terribly and every "Press release" from Des Jacklin is laced with poor English, Teflonism & a good wedge of nassacistic tendencies, Its not worthy for a chairman of this once proud organisation & its deeply shameful that the end as come due to financial issues which Jacklin is blaming everyone else apart from himself. I will go on record and say he is the worst person to be involved in the great sport of Darts, Its a mystery why people think he will do a good job The sooner tri-nations and UKDA actually form a pact where tri-nations (International game) & UKDA (Amateur & County Game) can use their strengths to good effect. I hope they both thrash out a deal, And I'm glad a steady number of counties are joining the UKDA & Others should follow suit in good time. The Summer Series was successful, in its 5 events it threw up a surprise winner in Ryan Joyce...

Well the World Matchplay will not be the same this year as its moved away from Blackpool and played behind closed doors at the Marshall Arena in Milton Keynes. It will not have the same feel to it that the winter gardens has but its Darts played by the cream of the PDC & it will be a successful tournament in its own right, I believe it would have been unfeasible to suggest playing it later in the year as the calendar is full of events. This was the only solution and it seems to early for fans to comeback into stadium especially with the venue being indoors. Next week is the return of the Pro Tour with the Summer Series (5 days worth of pro tour action) with a Grand Slam place up for grabs it will be highly competitive. Aspinall was excellent in the Home Series. Would be interesting to see how MVG will play considering he hasn't played any form of darts since March. As for the BDO & Des Jacklin...… More on in another blog Football is back and things are getting back ...

Hi All, I'm on another social media site, A new site called Parler. Obviously its isn't as big as Twitter yet but i will be posting my Darts content on there (In due course) & on this blog.  Not ruling out a return to Twitter. But if you want to chat to me I'm on there, Search for "OcheBalboa1" The Premier League & Championship is back, Not the same without crowds but good to see some English Football at last. Newcastle looked good so did Crystal Palace, West Ham look doomed, Arsenal are a midtable side now. The Championship threw up some surprises with Leeds losing. People have moaned about no crowds, We all like to see crowds but with the pandemic this is how its going to be for the next few months, we will all get used to it and then the crowds will slowly come back. It's a shame we cant get Steve McManaman off commentary. Although I seen some Tennis played today with some crowds in Eastern Europe, So its back in some form already. We are ge...

The Media have been terrible with reporting the how Coronavirus pandemic in the UK, It seems currently they are ignoring the feel good stories and highlighting things that might not happen & using a nasty culture of scaring people. For example "Birmingham Live" tweeted a story  about 233 people dying in the last 24 hours (This simply isn't true) & "Fears of a 2nd wave loom" (No evidence). Yet no story of Birmingham having no new cases in the last 24 hours, Surely that's positive news for a big city right? It simply designed to scare people. People are already gripped with fear over this virus and many have hardly left their house in 12 weeks, further increasing fears of mental illnesses in the long term which will be a real evidence of a "2nd wave". I've simply ignored it and decided to read elsewhere and other twitter accounts (Yes i'm banned but i can still read Twitter) & looked into data myself Here's some facts ...

Well the Pro Tour is coming back dressed up as the "Summer Series", I can understand why players may be concerned but after the success and the 100% negative testing of the Snooker Players & the success of the Championship League, The Venue seems safe and is the ideal environment. Its good for the fans as well (Will be like a normal weekend!!). The stupid and ill thought out quarantine rules are an obvious stumbling block so hopefully these will be relaxed/changed, But for the darts players the race to the World Matchplay is on, and there will be loads of people who will be very happy at the progress. Good to see the Remote Darts League was a success and it was a shock that James Richardson didn't win this, I feel maybe they should have 2 groups of 8 going forward (If its been done again). Congratulations to Richard Veenstra for winning the event beating Paul Hogan in the final. Martin Adams seems to be like a fine wine and is maturing with age. Been playing some...

Well on Friday it was confirmed by the PDC that the World Matchplay will be played & covered on Sky Sports. This is great news and another step forward to the long road to normality. It was said that a decision on July 4th would be made to see if their will be a crowd involved. This isn't going to happen, And I wonder why the PDC are hoping for this, Experts have warned it could be 6-24 months before crowds are allowed back into sporting events especially into indoor venues where its more likely you can pick up the virus. I believe that people should not get their hopes up for a crowd. This will take place behind closed doors. Good to see the Home Tour was a success and it was a good finals day with Nathan Aspinall being the winner. Wonder if he is going to be given a GSOD Place? Remote Darts 2 league stage finishes its league stage and its been long winded but competitive and i believe the 4 ladies taking part will improve their games moving forward, Cant see anything ...