Winmau World Masters 1

Arrival
As some of you probably know already from the blog of the Darts Performance Centre, as last year I didn't travel to the World Grand Prix in Dublin but to the Winmau World Masters in Hull. The travel there was almost without problems beside the chaos on the German train lines on the day I travelled which was the result of works at the lines, a broken down Sbahn and other things. So I more or less run through Frankfurt airport to be able to catch my flight and had some anxious minutes.

This time I arrived with enough time before the tournament to have a look around the town and thanks to a friend (thanks very much again, Lisa) I had a guided tour. Once Hull had been the third biggest harbour in England with docks far into the town centre. - just across the City Hall were you can today find a shopping centre in those years were the Princess docks. Today shipping and fishing don't play an important part in the city any longer and from where than the Whale boats started their dangerous journey today only the ferry between Rotterdam and Hull starts. The town was heavily bombed because of the harbour by the Germans during World War II. Those old building which survived were carefully restored and that Hull will be 2017 city of culture - to be sure will increase the appeal a lot.

I had already been in the City Hall to have a look at the Lakeside Play-Offs on Wednesday. On Thursday I returned there for a full day off darts. It was crowded - very crowded and it got worse later on. To be sure the City Hall was never planned as a dart venue for tournaments with high numbers of participants. The usual sports hall in which the qualifiers for the Winmau stage took place the last years was not available as it got a new floor. So one had to improvise and just changed three of the rooms in the Hall into darts venues - not an ideal solution especially as two of the rooms were too small and rather warm. As one couldn't put up as many boards as in the sports hall the events for men, women and youth had different starting times but that meant rather long hours. Beside there of course were delays - that some of the chalkers never turned up didn't help and one had to improvise again. So in the end the last men's matches were played in between the women and the youth warming up - I was astonished the men managed to focus in this surrounding.

I've no idea how many kilometres I walked taking pictures, but my feet and legs felt very tired in the end.I watched a lot of good and not so good matches, stand among the crowd when Martin Schindler won against Ted Hankey and saw when Steffi Zwitkowitsch threw her darts in the same rhythm as Casey Gallagher. I could watch how the not to impress Canadian John Noman Jr progressed under the last 32 and that Thomas Junghans produced strong performances in a row and that one of his victims was the American Jim Widmayer who's just recovering from knee surgery. He played the first real good match for some time but it just was not enough...

The everlasting Larry Butler stood at the oche every time I fought through the small room he played in. I watched two unhappy fathers with their even more unhappy sons, who lost their first matches and a very happy farther whose son progressed into the youth final. A few former PDC players were around as well I saw Alex Roy, Peter Hudson and James Richardson. Probably there were some more - I realised in the evening there were quite a few players and matches I hadn't seen at all.

One of the reasons probably was that I didn't return often into the smallest room which really was too crowded especially when the youth played there - no wonder each youth had a group of supporters cheering, the one cheering for the at the in the beginning very nervous and later getting more and more confident Nico Schlund looked like 15 people in the least.

All in all I was quite happy with the day when I returned to my hotel. But my date was not over yet - I had still to finish all the updates. Finally by 1 o'clock in the morning British time I was done, really done in... The Winmau World Masters to be sure are the most intense and demanding tournament of those I regularly visit!!!













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