BDO World Trophy- Day 1

The first day of this inaugural World Trophy tournament at the iconic Tower Ballroom in Blackpool saw 12 matches in total with fantastic darts from both the men and ladies.

The enthusiastic crowd were able to enjoy games from the qualifiers, seeded and experienced players as well as the new and upcoming players of the British Darts Organisation.

There were early exits though for former Lakeside Champion Scott Waites and Tony O’Shea whilst the Ladies World No 1 Deta Hedman met the young Oxfordshire star and current Winmau World Masters Youth Champion Casey Gallagher. Deta’s experience shone through and despite some great darts from young Casey, Deta moved on to the next round.

Scott came up against an in form Jim Williams from Wales with the game going to an exciting deciding leg which Jim took in 12 darts.



It was another Jim – Jim Widmayer from the USA who defeated Tony O’Shea. Jim from New York hit an 82 average to take the game 6 legs to 4.

There were wins for Gary Robson and Irina Armstrong before the crowd were treated to the return to the oche of Andy ‘The Viking’ Fordham who took on the Lakeside Runner Up Alan Norris. This proved to be a very high scoring game with 36 ton plus scores between the two players. However Alan proved too powerful for ‘The Viking’ winning the game in 15 darts.




Sharon Prins progressed to the next round after beating Rachel Brooks and Ross Montgomery beat the New Zealand qualifier Mike Day despite Mike breaking the throw in the first leg.

There was an all Dutch affair in the game between Remco Van Eidjen and Wesley Harms. Wesley appeared to have the upper hand but Remco won 6 legs on the bounce to win the game 6-5.

The last ladies match of the night saw pair’s partners Anastasia Dobromyslova and Lorraine Winstanley pitch against each other. This was a tight game and another one that went all the way with Anastasia just coming out on top.



At the end of the night the diehard darting fans saw an exceptional display from the Japanese qualifier who took the number 14 seed Paul Jennings all the way. Aiba Katsuya from Zushi-shi, Kanagawa Japan took legs in 14, 15 and 16 darts before Paul broke the throw in the last leg to win 6-5. They also saw Jan Dekker take on qualifier Lee Williams and yet another game went to the final leg with Jan coming out 6-5.