Well having just received an email from Edward hoping our house move went ok it reminded me that really I should put pen to paper.... or in this case fingers to keyboard and attempt my first UniBlog.
My name is John Armstrong, some of you may know me as Avalon from other forums. My wife is Irina, some of you may know her through her darts largely in Holland, and Belgium. Our life is a little complicated, 'me' being english, 'she' being russian, 'we' living in Germany, and 'us' having a business in holland. Just to add to the internationality of it all.. on our first date some 100 years ago give or take. we dined at a Japanese restaurant and ended the evening at a night club in Belgium......... anyway. to darts......... I guess I have so many stories to tell from so many years of playing this could end up as a book if I wrote about them all.
My darts actually are nothing to write about at all, at least not for the last 20 odd years, 17 of which I didnt even throw a dart. The highlight of my darts career wasnt in a tournament, it wasnt in a league match.... it was at the fairground when I was in my early twenties. A friend and I went to the midsummers fair in Cambridge. At the fair they had a number of stalls where, if you could throw under 7 with 3 darts ,( and all must score ) you won one of those picture mirrors..like a coca cola mirror, or one with a picture of Elvis ( you thought he worked down the chipshop when all the time he was posing for mirrors ). Of course under 7 meant a 1 a 2 and a 3, as you werent allowed to hit a number twice and a dart off the board counted as 5. Anyway.... off we went to the fair empty handed and had to return several times with a total collection of 57 mirrors........ I won with a total of 34 and my friend got 23. I had the full collection of cars they had. the 4 seasons.and so many others. Hey, we thought, we can go again tomorrow and maybe start selling them.. so the very next day off we went again.............but guess what.... they introduced a new rule... ONE WIN PER PERSON largely written on all the stalls. So if any of you older readers remember the days when you could win as often as you liked at the fair and then saw the rule change...... sorry it was my fault.
Now I hardly ever throw a dart as it hurts my elbow so much sometimes. so I stick to managing and training Irina. She is gradually managing to achieve everything I wanted to, wins over the best in the world, live television appearance, major name as a sponsor, her own design darts due to go on sale anyday and regular VIP tickets at dart tournaments all of this in under 6 years. She also has her bad times too though, last weekend for instance in Open Germany, probably one she want to forget. warm up couples.... lost her first round, open singles........... lost her first round...... ladies couples... lost her second round, still this weekend better we hope ( THAT time of the month being over ) at Open Holland in Schiedam. Again VIP room, and a chance to meet some of the team Unicorn members who are playing there and who are for sure sitting in the VIP room.
Well Irina is out at darts. and the baby is crying so its time to go make a bottle....... I will write another Uniblog after the weekend and report back on the tournament. Oh and by the way. Edward the house move went great, the house is fabulous, a dart lane in the cellar, one in the dining room and a dart mate upstairs. Okay off to feed the baby and then I have got mirrors to clean.