Players Shining on the Small Stage

All eyes have been fixed on the Premier League for that last three months but there has been plenty of darts elsewhere on the Pro Tour. Here are a few players to keep your eye on away from the TV and big stage.

Jamie Lewis' recent run of form started at the Gibraltar Darts Trophy where he was the stand out performer of the weekend and made it to the semi-final stage, beating Michael Smith with a 96 average and 67% checkout rate, Andy 'The Pieman' Smith and Gerwyn Price along the way, only to be eliminated by World number 1 and eventual winner Michael van Gerwen in a 6-1 defeat. Lewis' form since that weekend has been on the up and he has accumulated £15,300 in prize money moving the Welshman up to 30th in the Pro Tour Order of Merit. The second Players Championship event in Coventry was one his most impressive tournaments to date beating some top-class players along the way, including Paul Nicholson, Adrian Lewis and Stephen Bunting, but he lost to the eventual winner  Peter Wright in the quarter-final stage 6-5 in a match that could have went either way. Jamie Lewis is a player that's improving with every event he plays and another few good weekends could see him creep up the Order of Merit (where he currently lies in 33rd) where hopefully he can show us all on televised tournaments what he is capable of.

'The Gentle' Mensur Suljovic is another player that we don't see very often on television, but when the draw is announced for Pro Tour events, I'm sure all players don't want to see his name next to theirs. The big Austrian's unorthodox style can be very outputting but effective and you can rely on him to score a mid 90 average in most matches, not to mention that his double 14 hitting is superb and he can cause any player in the world problems in a short format match.

Suljovic's run in the German Darts Championship has been the best he has performed this year beating Cristo Reyes, Michael Smith, Kim Huybrechts and Robert Thornton on his way to the semi-finals where he lost 6-1 to the fantastic van Gerwen. 

Since the turn of the year, Mensur has won £11,750 in prize money just from floor events and is 22nd in the PDC Pro Tour Order of Merit a good achievement considering he doesn't attend every event.

Consistency is key to Suljovic's game, he may be slow and look like he doesn't know what hes doing but, as Wayne Mardle said, he will 'ton you' throughout the match. Don't be surprised if you see him winning an event sometime in the near future.

Benito van de Pas is tipped by many to be a future World Champion and he is already showing people what he can do at the oche. The Dutchman has claimed the scalps of most of the world's top players (including Michael van Gerwen) in the past and if he did it again it wouldn't be a surprise. 

His recent form has been good, he reached a quarter-final in Barnsley beating Wayne Jones, Terry Jenkins, Robert Thornton and even managed to register a 9 darter in the process. In Coventry just a month before, Benito eliminated the likes of Jamie Bain and Keegan Brown to progress to the semi-final, only to come up against van Gerwen and lose 6-3. 

Despite the fact van de Pas has never won a Pro Tour event, he is still number 19 in the PDC Pro Tour Order of Merit having earned a cool £31,750 in the past year and he is slowly climbing up the rankings. He achieved his best run in a World Championships this year making it to the last 16 where he lost to Robert Thornton, although he did eliminated Dave Chisnall and Paul Nicholson, pocketing £18,000 for his work. This young up-and-coming star will want to better that run in the upcoming World Championships in December, but in the meantime, he will be looking to produce his best darts on the small stage and chase that top 16 spot.

John Henderson has had a stunning start to 2015. In April he had a great run in the German Darts Masters overcoming Cristo Reyes, Michael Smith, Andrew Guilding, Brendan Dolan and Adrian Lewis to make it to the final, only to be beaten by, you guessed it, Michael van Gerwen but it wasn't straightforward for the World number 1 as Henderson pushed him to a deciding leg but it wasn't enough to stop the runaway train that is MVG. The Highlander pocketed £10,000 for the weekend which is nearly half of what he earned during the entire 2014 calender year and he thanked "Easter Eggs" for his good form.
The good run didn't stop there, John then achieved a semi-final spot in the Players Championship in Coventry by eliminating a host of quality players including Wes Newton, Robert Thornton and Dave Chisnall, but eventual winner Keegan Brown stopped the Scotsman from achieving a 2nd final in as many months.
The rocking motion of Henderson is unique, but when he gets his sway in rhythm with his throwing arm he can be deadly, no player would like to face him on a good day, or after Easter Eggs apparently. He has taken his 2015 total earnings to £18,000 (excluding World Championship) which should set him up nicely for the rest of the year and we will see him in more televised tournaments and I think he can mount a serious challenge for some of the top prizes this year.

Should Darts be Introduced into the Classroom?

Darts is a game of skill, concentration, practice, rhythm and mathematics. Some say it is the easiest game in the world to play, but the hardest to play well. When people begin to play this magnificent sport, the majority will just aim for the bullseye to to earn the bragging right of "I told you I could hit it" to their mates, but the more they play, the more they will understand how it works and after a year and many lost matches, the newcomer will have the foundations of what it takes to be a good player, including maths skills.

Darts players, even the ones in the pub, will say that throwing arrows has improved their counting, myself included. If you had asked me 2 years ago what 17 multiplied by 6 was, it would have taken pen and paper to provide you with an answer, but after a lot of games in the pub I know that treble 17=51 and double that is 102. A lot easier than any other method, so why not introduce this method to kids in schools? 

Having worked in schools for a number of years, I know that Mathematics needs to be more than just sitting at a desk learning 'Times Tables' and completing question after question, it might work to get kids results, but I also know that 75% of the students HATE it. Darts could enable teachers to bring fun and competitiveness into the classroom in short activities which will motivate the students to learn. The option to open a Darts Club within the school could benefit students social skills, it brings them all together in a game where you can't hide in the corner. 

To the general public however, there is still a stereotype against darts. It is seen as a 'pub game' and people would argue that it still encourages alcohol consumption. Competitive darts is mostly only available in a pub situation, so in order for a player who throws only in their house to take their game to the next level they would most likely have to attend a pub on a weekly basis to play for their team, this doesn't help the image of darts but it's not as damaging as what people see on television. If a child watches darts on TV these days  they are sure to see alcohol abuse in the crowd and their parents will not like this. But not all darts fans are anti-social; in fact its sad that the public perception of darts is rowdy, drunk men when this is the minority. Most fans love the sport and want to enjoy the spectacle without any mishaps. 

Women's darts is on the rise with players such as Fallon Sherrock, Lisa Ashton and Anastasia Dobromyslova showing that they are capable of giving the men a run for their money in a match. Ladies darts has a bright future and introducing the game to girls at a young age will only up the standard, attract more commercial attention and bring through more young talent which would secure it's future. The more exposure the women get, the more the prejudice of darts being a man's sport will disintegrate.

Myself, along with Phil Taylor, Eric Bristow and Bobby George feel very strongly about bringing the game of darts into the classroom, it's low cost, fun and will improve children's maths by a considerable amount. There are still some issues with darts that may hinder its progress into schools, but it is definitely a possibility in the future and who's to say it won't produce some future World Champions in the process.

Lewis' Late Challenge For Premier League Title

After 11 weeks of marvelous darts and terrific entertainment, we are now at the 'business end' of the Betway Premier League. There are just 4 weeks left for players to cement their places in the top four and realistically, there is only one place up for grabs with Michael van Gerwen, Gary Anderson and Dave Chisnall all occupying the first three places and they don't look like they'll be moved.
So five players will fight it out for the last available place which Phil Taylor is currently occupying, but he won't be sitting to comfortably.

Adrian Lewis, arguably the best natural talent in the game, couldn't have started his Premier League campaign any better as he demolished reigning champion Raymond van Barneveld 7-1 with an incredible 113 average and he looked to be back to his best, but the next week was the start of a run which saw the two time World Champion be sucked into a relegation battle.
In Lewis' next seven matches, he only won three points with draws against Huybrechts, van Gerwen and Wade and between those draws, he was defeated by Taylor, Bunting, Chisnall and current World Champion Anderson.
On week 9 we saw a different Adrian Lewis from the one we had been watching for the past two months. With relegation staring him in the face, he pulled off a hugely important 7-4 win against Peter Wright and from that point on the man from Stoke didn't look back. He turned what looked like an early exit from the competition into a very realistic chance to get a top four spot and get a shot at winning the Premier League trophy, a piece of silverware that he has never had the honour of lifting.

Away from the League, Lewis' form has been excellent recently getting to five Pro Tour event finals and winning three of them, he also had an impressive run in the German Darts Masters making it to the Semi-Final stage but lost to eventual runner up John Henderson.

Lewis is currently one point behind Phil Taylor with a game in hand, but more importantly, the pair meet this Thursday night in a match that could be pivotal in deciding who gets fourth place. Taylor's form has been up-and-down lately, but last week he proved his doubters by gaining 3 points out of a possible 4 and looked more like the 16-time World Champion that we all know.

Jackpot's remaining fixtures are against Taylor, Chisnall, van Barneveld, van Gerwen and Anderson, with 10 points on offer you feel that Lewis will need 6 or 7 points, but he is more than capable on his day. Obviously it won't be easy and if he does claim fourth he will have the tough task of playing the World Number 1 Michael van Gerwen, but when people predict who they think will win the Premier League, you don't hear many saying Lewis, his scoring power and high checkouts cannot be overlooked and don't be surprised if he walks away at the end of the campaign with the trophy because I fully expect him to.