THE CONCRETE ROUNDABOUT (TCR)

Sherrock is through to next stage as she blasted some guy 5-0 in the last 16, 99 avg.

The Hammer Andy Hamilton is through as well, real blast from the past. Another old name Mark Dudbridge of the 00's lost 3-5 so has to come back tomorrow. He made the World's final in 2005.

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Decided to come back.

I think I could average more than 36 with my eyes shut, and I'm shit at darts!

I remember an interview with Eric Bristow many years ago. He recalled how he'd go to some charity gig at a pub and the local darts top boy would play him and sometime beat him. He then stated words to the effect of "put them in front of 1000 baying people and some TV cameras and they'd fall apart. Whereas I thrive".

The geezer probably just bottled it.

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I don't need your ill-informed, half-baked, idiotic opinions. I have plenty of those myself.

That's fair, but these games are basically played in a near cubicle. The only people watching will be the scorer and the odd family member.

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Decided to come back.

Funny that, given they're both under the control of the Hearns and Matchroom.

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"I sometimes buy the Big Issue out of social embarrassment. I don't buy a fucking bank!"

I had a go at trying to play darts about a year ago, just going to the pub to practice with a mate about once a week. Stopped in the end because I don't have the time to devote to it properly. And I'm crap at it.

On a good day, I was averaging about 30. Now I know I'm almost at Q School standard, I don't feel so bad about it now.

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"I sometimes buy the Big Issue out of social embarrassment. I don't buy a fucking bank!"

All you need is a good nickname

True.
But they're both still different sports, and I hadn't realised they used such a similar format.

I'd definitely like to see the PDC introduce the minimum wage for tour card holders like the WST has. The players at the lower end of the rankings really aren't earning much when travel and accommodation expenses are taken into account.

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"I sometimes buy the Big Issue out of social embarrassment. I don't buy a fucking bank!"

Yeah, that's been a good introduction in Snooker. All players on the Tour now being guaranteed to have their earnings topped up to £20,000 if it falls below that for the season will be a real help to those in the lower third of the rankings.

There's still a lot of talk about should the prize money be so weighted towards the later stages and very little or none for those who lose early. But I think the two things are a decent compromise - I agree with rewarding players for winning not losing (Hearn's view), but the topping up of the earnings to a minimum of £20,000 at least makes it just about manageable even for those who rarely win a Snooker match all year.