Dave Ladley Austria write up
Ladders Austria write up
We were travelling from Manchester to Munich and hiring a minibus to drive to Salzburg to play in the Players Championships. With us would be Darren Johnson, my uncle Jimmy, Martin Turner, Chris Thompson, Steve Beaton, Peter Hudson, Alan Tabern and Wayne Jones. Many of these had not travelled with ‘Yorkshire Tours’ before and possibly would not do again!
We had no hold ups and managed to get to the hotel with no real problems and quickly headed out to find a salad shop to grab something to eat.
SalzburgPlayers Championship, Saturday 15th May 2010
I drew Andy Hamilton in the first round and we waited for 30 minutes to get a marker as the previous loser had left. Andy set off hitting 5 180’s in the first 3 legs and winning in legs of 12,11,12 darts and was hard to get close to at all. I won the 4th leg and had 2 darts at doubles for the 5th and 6th leg but lost the match 6-1. Andy had a run to the Quarter Finals and was obviously playing well.
Alan Tabern was unfortunate to be timed out for his game and disqualified along with his opponent. This was strange because he was in the playing area but could not be found. It’s a good venue but separate playing rooms can cause a problem. The best result for our travelling party was Steve Beaton who lost in the final to Simon Whitlock after taking Phil Taylor out in the semi finals.
We went out for a fish supper at night and were all feeling the effects of the strong ginger beer. Darren walked into the kitchen ‘Marko Pierre White style’ and checked they were cracking on with our meals. Tommo, Martin and Jimmy went out for a drink and me and Darren decided we needed to rest.
Salzburg Players Championship, Sunday 16th May 2010
Sunday morning and news was out about our flights possibly being cancelled. We all needed to be back on Monday for different reasons but if we had to stay then there was nothing we could do. Our cars were at Manchester airport so having a ferry ride was not a good option so we would have to wait.
I had been drawn in a prelim and won 6-0 in a decent standard game. My next opponent was Kirk Shepherd and I lost 6-2 after falling being 5-0 and having several shots at the double. This was not a high standard game but not below par. I was not pleased with missing doubles as recently this side of my game has been going well.
None of our travelling party did particularly well but Tabs managed to turn up for his game so it was an improvement on the previous day for him.
By 2pm we all knew our flight had been cancelled but we had to take the minibus back and check in so we could be either placed on another flight or refunded.
We checked in and was going to stop over and take the flight back on Monday night – Easyjet would pay for the hotel so it did not seem like a bad plan. Rumours were going around that the ash cloud would stop flights for up to a week so we made the decision to fly back to Gatwick that night and hire a car to Manchester Airport! Sorted....
At Gatwick we found out that we could not hire a car so we were stuck – tabs turned down a lift from Steve B and Wayne J to travel with us – everyone was suggesting different options but we eventually managed to get a mini-bus to take us from Gatwick to Manchester for £300! Considering the train costs would have been more than that it was not a bad option – only thing was that the minibus would not be picking us up while 3am! To cut a long story short, I ended up back home at 9am and slept like a baby – welcome to Yorkshire Tours Guys!!
Dave Ladley