No bribes, no Blatter, it can only be The Darts World Cup!
Facebook gets a lot of stick for its puerile posts, rants and sometimes violent videos! However, I am a fan of Facebook, as the one thing it can do very well is act as a journal or diary of your life without the necessity for the routine of filling in a page of book like you had to do back in the day.
The same principle can apply to regular bloggers who can look back at their time dated posts and remember what was going on in their world of interest at any given time. The World Cup of Darts is a great one for that-we have followed it and blogged about it since its inception (on the PDC circuit).
Our first blog for this tournament went live on 1 December 2010. In it we discussed how tickets had been hard to sell but predicted the tournament would eventually take off and rather cheekily suggested that inducements may creep in in order that one day the World Cup would return to Houghton-Le-Spring, the venue for this first ever event. We mentioned this as there had just been a Panorama expose about FIFA delegates taking bribes! I wonder what ever became of those allegations!
The England team for the first event was Taylor and Wade, it was a disastrous campaign for them! ). Barney and Stompe won it, beating Mark Webster and Barrie Bates in the final! Webster is still in the Welsh team but Baza has been replaced by Jamie Lewis. Co has of course been replaced by Mighty Mike and the Dutch team look the team to beat this year!
In 2012 and 2013 Lewis replaced Wade and England picked up the cup! They beat Australia (although should have lost) in a cracker that went to sudden death and Belgium (The Huybrechts brothers) respectively! Last year Team Netherlands beat Taylor and Lewis 3:0.
Champions
There are only two/three potential winners according to the bookies! The Netherlands and England are neck and neck at 7/4 for the title. If pushed I would rather have my £1 on the orange team. Scotland are a best price 4/1 but have the prospect of a semi final V The Netherlands if the seeding goes to plan. England on the other hand will face the Australian team of Whitlock and Nicholson. Or will they? Australia are number 4 seeds but both The Wizard and Nico have had a terrible time recently-it will be very interesting to see if they inspire each other or implode.
So who could come out of the pack to pinch the semi final place from Team Australia? Belgium are a great team (25/1), I like the look of Austria-The Master ( Suljovic) and the apprentice (Rowby-John Rodriguez) (80/1 at Sporting Bet). Whatever happens their matches will be entertaining!