Down at the Lakeside

My second time at Bob Potter’s Lakeside for the BDO World Championship darts, and the second fantastic night out.

Difficult to get there because of the snow, and it meant we were 8 instead of 12, but we rocked up at 4.30 after a slow and snowy drive from Oxford. Jonny P had come down from Manchester and we got there in the car with Fran and Dave. Al Randall, Stevie G and their friends Giles and Kirk from Sky were coming in from London.

Once we’d got the car park snowball fight out of the way, and I’d taken a direct hit in the face from Dave, we got warmed up in the bar of the Continental hotel, and negotiated a twenty quid discount on each of our rooms with non other than Bob Potter’s wife. The discount was asked for on account of us being told we’d have to make our own beds. Mrs Potter took offence initially, but then did us a deal. In fact when we made it back to the bar after the darts she got one of the staff to insist we have a round of drinks on her, because she’d snapped at us earlier – very kind of her.

There were a lot of people who hadn’t made it because of the weather, so we got a table right next to Al and Steve, in a great spot, and settled down to some food and lager. I find it difficult to pay attention to the darts when I’m actually there. Its too exciting and you’re bobbing around getting pictures with the players, getting drinks in, chatting.

We got started on a drinking game which involved having to sink a shot of Baileys if the player scored 180, or a checkout of over 100, or less than 30 when not on a checkout. We followed the darts more when we were playing that, funnily enough.

Before we knew it the darts were over and we were back to the bar at the Continental for late-night drinks. On our way out of the main hall we got a picture with Bob Potter and a mayor, in all his regalia. “Where are you the Mayor of?” I slurred at him. “Surrey Heath” he replied. Jon had a chat with the mayor after that where the Mayor declared that it would be OK for him to have a few late-night drinks before driving home because “the Police’ll never be out on a night like tonight”. Nice!

We managed a game of 501 in the bar at the Continental, and polished it off in something like 40 darts. Bobby George was on the next table so we grabbed him as he tried to sneak out to the loo. As we stood in a row smiling for the camera I said to him “I watched your masterclass on the BBC website, Bobby”. “Did you get an ‘ard on?” he replied. You can’t teach class like that.

Jon and I speculatively headed out towards the lake at about 1 in the morning where they have an Indian restaurant on a boat. Amazingly it was open, and we shovelled in some poor quality curry, before heading for our beds.

Tragically not everyone made it to their beds though, and one chap fell in the lake and died. Absolutely awful, and they’ve no idea what happened to him so far.

Breakfast the next morning, and again Bobby George was on the next table from us. No pictures this time though, he wasn’t looking in the best of moods. There were lots of large blokes eating a lot of fried food in that breakfast hall.

Then homeward bound and looking forward to another night at the Lakeside next year, ticket allocation allowing.

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