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Stafford Christmas Knock-Out

On Thursday 27th December at the White Eagle Club in Stafford a new knock out darts competition was held. The White Eagle is a superb venue for darts competitions being situated very close to the town centre with plenty of car parking space for visitors. Plenty of seating space abounds in the large entertainments room that also has a long wall down which many easels can be placed holding the boards. The draw for the competition held on Thursday was made at 8.15pm with an 8.30pm start. The entrance fee was £3.00 and all the money collected was paid out as prizes.

Although a large club, the Eagle had a busy night with 73 players entering mostly from the Stafford area, but some come from further a-field including veteran player Jack Routledge. Jack has appeared on television several times including one appearance, on the old Jim Bowen version of the darts game-show called Bullseye, as the professional player throwing for charity.

Other notable outside entries were, Paul James, and Garreth Pass as well as a very impressive youngster called Darren Whittingham who travelled all the way from Loggerheads to enter, but unfortunately was one of the losing quarter finalists. The rest of the players that were knocked out in the quarters were, Keith Salt, Ian Rea and Marc Van Patten. In the semi final Mark “Mile High” Hylton beat Danny Allsop and Andy Chell (Another local Superstar) beat Jon Platt. Mark Hylton was the winner of the new Xmas competition held at the White Eagle beating Andy Chell 3-1 in a superb final.

Allan Carrington was one of several organisers who did a superb job on the night making the event a great success. Allan has been involved in the County selection for many years as well as being a county player, but he is no stranger to organising darts competitions either because for a number of years he ran one of the leagues in Stafford as well as running a Stafford town knock out on several occasions as did another local Superstar Ian Rhea who was one of the losing quarter finalists. Hopefully, the Xmas Knockout at the White Eagle will become a regular event as darts has a big following, both in the town of Stafford and its surrounding areas.

(Information for this article was taken from the Stafford Superleague web-site that can be found by clicking here)