So I didn't get anything up past day one in Prague. If you caught me on social media you'll know I've not been great, but I think I'm on the mend now, have at least caught up with PC26/27 in the database and will be good for projections shortly.
First, World Series finals. Didn't watch a minute of it. Good for MvG to be "back" (hint - he never went away, field just got more fierce), but this has surely run its course. If the PDC want to continue to run effective exbos around the world, here's what I'd do - call them exactly that. Market it as something like PDC Live! and have each event be stand alone. This would probably make it easier to work in different players, as there's no season end tour that regulars want a free pass to. You might cry "but TV", well fuck them, half the time they didn't show these live anyway. Straight to PDC.TV.
Then, for that finals weekend, rebrand that as PDC vs The World. Pick out sixteen players that have been impressive in PDC Live, regional tours etc, and invite them over. The PDC players would be upcoming talent - we don't need the big guns for every event. I'm talking the likes of Springer, Brooks, Greaves next year, Doets, Zonneveld, Scutt, Taylor etc. Nijman/Menzies might be an upper bound. Rock, van Veen etc already too good. Friday night becomes an exbo. A blind draw pairs with each pair being one PDC/one world player would be fun, probably need to be bo5 to get it done, but that would be a huge laugh. Saturday is sixteen games with PDC against the world, the Sunday is the world against each other, played to Euro Tour Sunday format, but the kicker is the winner gets a tour card as well as the prize money. In terms of that, everyone gets, say, £2.5k - PDC players as showing up money, world players as round one losers money on the Sunday. On top of that, the Saturday games each have five grand riding on them. PDC player wins - it's theirs. World player wins - it increases the overall Sunday prize pot by five grand (500 to semis onwards 250 to R1/QF losers adds up I think), which I think would create a great "team" dynamic.
Next, we've all seen great darts tat over the years. I miss the days of Darts Corner desperately trying to sell unsold stock of Mark Dudbridge posters, I miss the Humphries/Littler half and half scarves, we've all got Snakebite practice rings or other gimmicky stuff. What else could make any pub, practice room, man cave or elsewhere complete? I have seen the future, and if anyone steals the idea, I want 20% or I'll see you in court. It is:
Your very own Werner Rankings Ladder (tm)!
We (at least those of a certain age in the UK at least) all remember those special pre season editions of Shoot, Match etc where they would have a pull out poster with each of the English divisions, and probably the Scottish Premier as well, with each spot having a little slot which you could slot in a little shirt for each team in the league given their respective position. Come to think of it, for our foreign readers I'm sure the Kicker Sonderheft still does these. Well, we do the same for darts. Have an A1/A2 size poster (struggling to think which might be best, I'm guessing nearer A1 than A2 but I think it's somewhere in the middle) with four 16-rung ladders on it, and have a whole bag full of darts players mugshots that you can then slot in as they move up and down the rankings. Have a couple of blank ones you can fill in should someone do a Ratajski, Williams (or Littler for that matter) rise from off the tour. Best drawing of the player in question that tags in Werner of the year wins an actual ladder. How would this not be an instant best seller?
Anyway, enough bollocks, we have a Euro Tour to look at. Will go short-medium-full-composite data as usual with the numbers for the "seeded" player.
Gilding/Dennant - 75/66/64/68
Menzies/Pres - insufficient data on Pres
Joyce/Edhouse - 59/56/56/57
Pietreczko/Williams - 67/49/58 (insufficient short data on Williams)
Huybrechts/Hyllgaardhus - insufficent data on Hyllgaardhus
Woodhouse/Borbely - insufficient data on Borbely
Nijman/Beveridge - 71/74/76/74
van Duijvenbode/Bissell - 69/81/78/76
Wattimena/Tricole - 71/74/74/73
Searle/Owen - 76/73/74/74
Gurney/Weber - 82/70/71/74
van Barneveld/Major - no data on Major
Veenstra/Crabtree - 47/44/47/46
Cullen/Wenig - 64/62/61/62
van Veen/Springer - 70/60/59/63
Aspinall/Sarai - no data on Sarai
So that's your picks. Only a small number of games that look moderately close, but that's what the PDC want so we will bow to their superior wisdom.
