Masters of Darts 2007

The Rooster

You may remember the 2005 version which was a PDC vs BDO encounter (when BDO players won most games, except when playing Taylor who steamrolled to victory beating Barney in the semis and Fordham in the final).

This time its a Holland v England event. Its fixed for February 10 to 17, 2007. It will take place in Holland and be screened by SBS. No UK coverage confirmed yet, but we live in hope...

Confirmed as playing for Holland are Barney, Vincent van der Voort, Roland Scholten, Jelle Klaasen and Michael van Gerwen.

Playing for England will be Phil Taylor, Colin Lloyd, Wayne Mardle, Mervyn King, plus one other to be decided.

Each of the Dutch players will play each of the English players in the group stages, with the top two from each group making the semis.

Interestingly all the BDO players mentioned above are rumoured to be considering joining the PDC shortly. Klaasen seems to be the most likely, King is the most surprising. Van Gerwen had previously said he'd stay at least another year in the BDO system but if all the other Dutch guys move it may persuade him to go earlier too.

Merv in the past has supposedly said some pretty nasty things about the PDC, and famously refused to play PDC players in the Dutch Open earlier this year. But it seems he's been having plenty of troubles in the BDO over the last few months and is considering taking the big jump. Seems hard to believe, but seeing his name linked with the Masters of Darts does give the rumour a bit of credence.

hawker27

nice info rooster,thats sounds very good.but hopefully we will get tv coverage on either sky or bbc.
hope sky get it as there coverage is excellent.

any taughts on the world championship next month?.i fancy a barney v taylor final if the don,t meet before hand.
i think if barney can get to the final he will win it.

Kingp35

Interesting change to the format of this tournament and I think it could work well. Both sides look very strong but if honest I thnk the dutch tam looks stronger than the English side at the moment. As both of you ave said, I hope somebody can pick up the rights to show this becaus I want to see it. Even Setanta might be interested as they seem to be branching themselves nto showing darts as well now.

As for the players joining the PDC, I think its pretty inevitable these days that the young up and coming players will join the PDC. There was the case where the dutch players played in the BDO because that was the organisation that was televised in Holland there is also a number of BDO tournaments in Holland but since Barney has joined the PDC there has been an increase in the interest in the PDC tournaments in Holland. The money offered on the PDC circuit is far greater than that of the BDO circuit.

As Rooster said though, its very surprising to hear that King is thinking of switching. The PDC players were very annoyed with the fact that Merv was refusing to play any of them and im sure he is not a very popular man because of it. Do you have any ideas of the problems he is facing on the BDO circuit Rooster?

So looks like an interesting tournament, I just hope it gets picked up for TV over here

The Rooster

Kingp35 wrote:

As Rooster said though, its very surprising to hear that King is thinking of switching. The PDC players were very annoyed with the fact that Merv was refusing to play any of them and im sure he is not a very popular man because of it. Do you have any ideas of the problems he is facing on the BDO circuit Rooster?

Disciplinary problems mainly! And he's not very popular as he's always moaning.

There was an event in Holland recently which was televised on Eurosport. He made the final and was playing Michael van Gerwen. It was a fairly long day, so by the final a lot of the crowd were well tanked and there wasnt "the best of order", and obviously they were all pro MvG. Instead of just getting on with it, King was stopping and starting and turning and moaning. He was clearly heard at one stage calling someone in the crowd a pr!ck.

As the game went on MvG was hammering him. MvG has a habit of often having his mouth wide open while he throws. So Merv started imitating him, and very obviously opening his own mouth wide while throwing. I thought it was very funny - because it was making King look really stupid. Not very nice of course.

The above is small enough on its own, but its typical of his behaviour. I dont know if this is true or not but I heard himself and Ted Hankey have left the IDPA (the player's body of the BDO) because for some reason they are the body that fines you if you misbehave on the BDO circuit, so if you're not in it you can't be fined! Sounds odd...

Also, despite being always one of the highest ranked Englishmen in the BDO, I dont think he gets picked any more for England teams in the internationals.

Kingp35

Tbh I have nevet liked Merv. I remember at one World Championships he got he was getting well beat when h suddenly decided to complain about the dartboard in that it wasnt straight or something. This was despite the fact it was well into the match. The crowd didnt take the disruption too well and booed Merv for pretty much the rest of the match.

There is no denying he is a very good player but there is just something about him that I dont like.It would be interesting to see how the crowd take to hm if he moved to the PDC because the PDC crowds are alot louder and more than the BDO crowds.