Chatting Bull with Dan Dawson - Issue #017
Bring on the bin-men, because it’s time for the UK Open! Except, it is not really quite like how it used to be. It appears the days of the true unknowns getting to test themselves against the best in the world are over, and it has been heading this way for some time. The tournament in Minehead is billed as “the FA Cup of Darts”, where genuine amateurs can qualify to take on the world champion on the big televised stage, and indeed we have seen that happen.
Essex binman Barry Lynn produced a dream run at the 2016 event, as one of 32 qualifiers from events held in Riley’s snooker clubs across the country. He won three games before taking out for finalist Brendan Dolan, then reigning World Champion Gary Anderson, and also former BDO world number one Stuart Kellet, before his eventual quarter-final exit to Michael van Gerwen, netting him £10,000 in prize money.
Nobody had the first clue who Barry Lynn was before that weekend. Commentators were scrambling to find the brief notes all players are asked to write on themselves prior to the tournament; under the heading “Place of Birth”, Lynn had written “In a volcano”. He admitted to having had a drink at the time of writing.
It was the very same event in 2016 that Rob Cross famously launched his career, arriving as a total unknown and only going out to MvG in a high quality Last 32 tie. Just under two years later he was World Champion. The UK Open is the only tournament where these sorts of stories can happen, or maybe I should say could have happened, because it looks unlikely nowadays.
This year’s event has amateur qualifiers, but only 16 places are available - and most are determined on a league system over several events, presumably to give the stronger players a better chance of making it through. Consequently, more than half of the amateurs are former Tour Card holders, and every single one has played PDC darts in some format in their careers.
Shaun Fox (birthplace: Harwich, Essex… a disappointingly volcano-free zone) has perhaps the least experience of the bunch, and he still has a couple of cracks at Q School, a few Challenge Tour appearances and a previous tilt at the UK Open itself!
As with many aspects of darts today, the sport’s continued growth, appeal, and increasing professionalism mean there are some negatives alongside the overwhelming positives. This year’s UK Open will see players competing for £600,000 - twice the total of the event in 2016 which featured Cross and Lynn.
However, maybe some of the romance has been lost. Having said that, with the cycle of a select group of top players competing constantly against each other in the World Series and Premier League now well underway, it remains an excellent complement to the rest of the action at the start of the year.
Issue #017 Quiz Answers
1) Phil Taylor
2) Joe Cullen
3) Michael van Gerwen
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