Who's Alexandra?

Who's Alexandra??? Till 2008 the PDC World Championship is played in Alexandra Palace -time to find out a little bit more about the "Alexandra".

It hadn't been planned to call Alexandra Palace Alexandra Palace. The idea always was that of a "Palace for the People". But it then happened that 1863 in the year when the park was opened a Royal wedding took place - heir to the throne Prince Edward married Princess Alexandra of Denmark and to honour her the park was called Alexandra Park and the building opened a few years later Alexandra Palace. It's not the only thing in London which is called after the very popular Princess and later Queen - for example the Hyde Park has an Alexandra Gate, there exists an Alexandra Hospital and till today an Alexandra Rose Day on which artificial roses produced by handicapped people are sold for charities.

Princess Alexandra was the oldest daughter of Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein- Sonderburg-Glücksburg, who after the marriage not really expected was nominated as King of Denmark. Her childhood was more the childhood of a middle-class home as her parents were far from rich at that time. Alexandra and her sister even sawed their own dresses.
Alexandra had a very close relationship to her own six children of whom one died early. She played with them and passed a lot of time with them. Her marriage was rather astonishing a most of the times happy marriage despite her husband having several mistresses, one of them Winston Churchill's mother who was at that time already married.

1901 Prince Albert Edward and Princess Alexandra were crowned after Queen Victoria had died. Only nine years they were King and Queen then the King died and the second oldest son was crowned King George V. as the oldest son had already died a few years before. George V. was the grandfather of Queen Elisabeth II. A little bit strange in my eyes George V. married the fiancée of his dead brother -Maria von Teck.
Princess Alexandra was related to a lot of royal dynasties in Europe - one even called her father the "father-in-law" of Europe! One of his sons followed him n the Danish thrown, another son became King of Greece and Alexandra's sister later was Russian Tsarina. One of her nephews was King of Norway. Spanish King Felipe is a relation as well as is the King of Belgium. German Emperor Wilhelm II was a nephew of Alexandra as well but she always distrusted the Germany event though her own mother was German.

Dart players from Denmark this year didn't manage to qualify for the World Championship - not even Per Laursen who already took part several times. But on the second evening of the World Championship two German players stood on the stage!!!

In the first match though we had North American qualifier Dave Richardson against Andy Hamilton at the oche. Richardson didn't play bad, but when Hamilton finally got serious he just couldn't keep up.

Then Sascha Stein for the first time came on stage to play his Preliminary round match against Finland's Kim Viljanen - a debutant as well. Those were two rather similar looking players - both slim, with similar hair and height and both with glasses. Sascha Stein was undoubtedly the better player and won 4:1 and had a second appearance against another slim player Stuart Kellett.

But before we first had walking Christmas tree Peter Wright against the muscular Gerwyn Price - a former rugby player who still looks like a rugby player. Price was another of this year's debutants and he showed a quite good performance though it was not good enough to prevail against Peter Wright.

Next the venue got even crazier then usually as Phil Taylor was expected who played against the second German Jyhan Artut. Before the match could begin a discussion started whether the dartboard hang right or not. Artut thought it did, Kirk Bevins and Taylor said it didn't and thus it was off the table and the match started. Whether this had affected Artut or he might be still suffered from flu I've no idea as I had no chance to talk to him - he was not in the mood to talk to anybody after that match.But he missed out the first two sets completely and though he played much better in set three it was too late. In this short format you can't allow a Phil Taylor get a two set advantage. Taylor afterwards was a little bit annoyed he had lost concentration in set three, but probably he had already written off Jyhan at that time.

And then Sascha Stein reappeared on stage - this time in a green shirt while Kellett wore a red Christmas shirt. It really was not a high class match - the lowest first round average so far, with both players under 80. Stein had played much better in the Preliminary Round match. The double quotes were not really good either. But all in all Stein was by far the better player in the contest and Kellett never a danger for him. So Stein won 3:1 in front of a by now almost empty venue and will return after Christmas, then Michael van Gerwen will wait for him.







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