2014 Darts Final: 26.03.14

We valiantly fought our way through the driving rain to compete in the Finals for the 2014 WI Darts Tournament tonight.  (Definitely a "book in front of the fire" night, but I don't think my suggestion of a medal just for turning up would go down too well!)

Our semi-final bout was against Newsham & Aislaby WI:

A lovely bunch of ladies who looked very professional in their WI uniform (though we were quick to flash our green Linthorpe WI rosettes!):

Linthorpe WI's 2014 Darts Semi-Final Team:  Marie, Dora, Pam, (to the rear is our scorer, Jenny), Carole and Paulene.  

We had a wonderful few games with them, a good chat and (more importantly) a good laugh.  Dora was our secret weapon for the night; scoring Double-1 in the first two games to seal our place into the 2014 Finals!

We had a break for supper, where we sat at the tables and were literally waited upon by our EXCELLENT hosts, Carlton WI.  We had a delicious mushroom soup with a choice of sandwiches (ham, egg, tuna), followed by fabulous homemade (of course!) cakes - lemon drizzle or chocolate.  All washed down with copious amounts of tea.  The conversation was lively and friendly - and a jolly good tea party was had by all!

Then it was back down to business!  The 2014 Darts Finalists: Linthorpe WI (for the second consecutive year) versus Levendale WI.  The first game was unfortunately over quite quickly: we didn't last long when our average 3-dart score was 40 and they were scoring up to 106!  Those ladies have obviously been practising!  

The darts didn't seem to want to play nicely tonight and insisted upon bouncing off the board - we had darts flying everywhere!  One very scary moment had us all palpitating when a dart bounced off the board and hit Levendale's scorer.  Thankfully it didn't break the skin, but I'm sure that I saw our hostesses reviewing their insurance policy as we continued to play!

Levendale were leading 1-0 as we started the second game, which was thankfully a lot more closely-matched.  We were both seeking Double-1 when they scored and won the Tournament.  A very deserving win.  

The 2014 WI Darts Champions - Levendale:

We were proudly presented with our second-place prizes:

We can genuinely say that we were thrilled to have made it to second place - what an achievement for two years running!  Here's a flashback to our 2013 second-place prize presentation:

We had a wonderful night, good food, a great laugh - we were thrilled.

A special thank you goes out to Carlton WI for hosting the Tournament and being such accommodating, friendly and excellent hostesses.  Now, I'm off to rummage in the attic for the kid's old dart board so that I can actually start practising for next year.....