This year has been a year of mixed fortunes for the Academy; our numbers have shrunk slightly due to having lost some of the more senior members some through now being too old to continue with us and others have left us for the right reasons as they wanted to continue their darting careers by playing league darts.
2011 has seen our first inductee Harry Annals enrolled into Unicorn’s Generation 180 category. This is a great achievement not only for Harry but also for the Academy to be recognised for its support and encouragement of youth darts in the south of the country.
2011 also saw us play 2 friendly games against Hampshire Youth both of which we lost narrowly. For most of our members this would have been the first time that they will have played on a stage in front of lots of spectators and we hope that with the experience they gained through this we can organise more games against other counties in the near future.
We now have 6 members of the Academy playing county youth darts 5 for Hampshire and 1 for Sussex. We hope that we can continue to provide players for the county teams and that they have great success with those teams to which they belong.
Some of our members played on the Unicorn Youth Tour this year with mixed fortunes and we hope that 2012 will see them competing at more of the events and make an impact on the national youth game.
The presentation evening was on Monday 19th December and we were fortunate to have with us from Unicorn Darts Peter Johnson to make the presentations. With over 30 awards to make it was nice to see that this year everyone won something which, I think you would agree, shows that the darting gaps between our members is now decreasing and that everyone is playing at a much higher standard compared to last year.
Presentation evening saw the 2nd member of the Academy enrolled into Generation 180 and this year’s winner has not only showed his commitment to the Academy, but has also become a regular part of the county youth team and consistently won man of the match awards playing with a near 25 average.
He has also outside of the Academy being playing in local leagues becoming one of the top 5 players in the local Petersfield league but also a regular performer at super league as well. So the Unicorn Petersfield Darts Academy Player of the Year and Winner of the Generation 180 Award is Jack Marriner.
Peter Johnson said it was great to see the enthusiasm of the students in not only
playing darts and developing their skills, but also in learning the etiquette of the game and respect for officials, coaches and fellow players. The Unicorn Petersfield Darts Academy gives their students a wonderful opportunity to participate in a sport that will give them fun and friendships for life. We are delighted to support them.”
We look forward to everything that 2012 has to offer and with the re-structure of the committee that is planned I am hoping that this will free up my time more to concentrate on developing the Academy behind the scenes working on various ideas with the many different people we have links with.
We are in 2012 going to be holding a super league style singles league which is open to not only members of the academy but anyone else that wishes to enter it. Full details of all our events can be found on our website.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Unicorn for once again supporting the Academy this year and hope that we can continue to develop our relationship in 2012. Without Unicorns support and backing we would not be able to be in the position we are in helping the youngsters to develop their not only darting careers but their personal development away from darts.