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Friday evenings sports programme ‘Injury Time’ with Paul Gannon. Paul is joined by James Joyce to talk all things darts and the new Connemara Darts Federation which has been recently set up. Broadcast Friday the 25th Of October 2024 https://www.connemarafm.com/audio-page/
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Friday evenings sports programme ‘Injury Time’ with Paul Gannon. Paul is joined by James Joyce to talk all things darts and the new Connemara Darts Federation which has been recently set up. Broadcast Friday the 25th Of October 2024 https://www.connemarafm.com/audio-page/
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This program is sponsored by Kymore Abbey and Gardens. The focus of tonight's program is darts, and James Joyce, an iconic darts player, is in the studio. They discuss the history of darts in the West Connemara region and the local pub leagues. James shares how he got involved in darts after a soccer injury. He talks about his competitive nature and the time it took to fully transition into darts. This program is kindly sponsored by Kymore Abbey and Gardens 095 52001. Good evening listeners, you're listening to Injury Time, the final Injury Time program of the month of October 2024. Paul Gannon here in studio with Linda on technical. Thanks Linda for all the guidance and all the help. And the focus of our program tonight is darts, all about darts, and I'm delighted to be joined in studio by an iconic darts player from within the West Connemara region, that's James Joyce from Clifton. James, you're very welcome. Thank you Paul. Pleasure to be here. I don't want to describe myself as iconic, but if you want to say that, I'll take all the kudos. Well, I'm only saying it James based on what I've heard from various quarters over a number of years, so I think I'm justified in saying it. I will come to you in a few moments James, just to talk about how you became involved in darts and how you've progressed through it over many years. As much as prior to that, I might go back a little bit further than you James, being a little bit older than you maybe. I suppose my earliest recollections of darts would be back in the 1980s, when I would have been an active player within Renfeld GAA, and I don't think I ever participated in any of their darts tournaments, but Renfeld GAA at the time, intermittently, not necessarily every year, but probably through the 70s as well into the 80s and maybe early 90s, ran darts tournaments as fundraisers for the club, and I suppose I did become aware during that time that there were some darts players in the area that were at a very high standard. Yes, the levels around Cullamar have always been very, very high in standard. I'm sure back then you could just rattle off a couple of names there that would really ring true with people around here if they remember. Well, I only have three or four names that I know. Jack Coyne from Derry Law and John Hines were very good players. Eddie Keneally, Petty Martin from back in Arden Agriva as well in Renfeld, was another one. Obviously, Gerry Aspel was another, and Gerry is still there. He's still there, he's still in the tournament. I have probably caused offence now by not naming other players from that year, but I simply wouldn't know, but I'm sure there were many more. I was also aware at the time that, you know, there were dartboards in all the pubs, like, you know, you're talking Watsons and Tully and Diamonds and, you know, the Anglers and Petty Coynes and, you know, locally, you know, this would be within the parish of Lederfrack, Ballachill. So, I was blissfully ignorant of, you know, darts players outside my immediate parish, we'd say the Ní Fheinn an Clodháin parish, the Omi Ballandún parish where you live yourself. I was also aware that there were localised darts leagues between pubs, and I became aware that the club entity in darts, if you could call it that, was kind of a pub entity, so, you know, there were pub leagues, and that rivalries did emerge. So, would you have been aware of key rivalries between pubs going back in the day? From when I started playing, I would have been made aware of what pubs were the best out there, what pubs, you know, had had, you know, a little bit of bite about them when they were playing, and you just made for a fantastic atmosphere from a neutral standpoint. Ones that really spring to mind are Molly's in Lederfrack and Griffin's, and they used to, oh, they used to absolutely kill each other when it came to throwing darts at you. The standard they'd throw at is what you'd put on TV, and this is only from what I've heard from the past, from the likes of, you know, a big name before Griffin's would have been Benny Wallace and Tom Clancy back then, Vincent Leggett, God love him now, he's not with us anymore, and Thomas Keneally, another one that's sadly not with us anymore. But they would have regaled their stories to me as a younger player, and just for the sake of maybe nostalgia, really, is what they were doing it. But I thoroughly enjoyed listening to it, and once I became involved in it, I enjoyed it even more, being stuck in the middle of the cauldron, and... Well, just before you became involved, because you were telling me before the show what kind of theory you became involved, I was doing a bit of work at the time as sports editor of Connemara Review, and we used to publish an eight-page sports supplement every month, and I remember, I think it was 2005, covering the West Connemara Darts League final between Bulgers of Cashel and Mollies, and going down to Bulgers for the first leg, and then the second. It was my first venture into journalistic writing on the sport of darts, and I found it quite challenging, but... You really drove yourself into the volcano there, didn't you? I was kind of stepping into the unknown, but it was fascinating, you know, following all the head-to-heads in that final, in both pubs, and trying to document it, and maybe key highlights within the respective match-ups and so on, and it was an absolutely brilliant final, to the wire, and Bulgers came out on top in the end, but just by the skin of their teeth. It was my first time in Mollies at a final, and I'll tell you, it was just... It was all revved up, and it was just a fantastic atmosphere, and equally down in Bulgers as well, and Bulgers pub, sadly not with us anymore, you know, either, so I suppose we're on the boat reading this Moonshine here, I suppose, the road of nostalgia, looking back, you know, but it's great to do it, but, I don't know, I think I kind of fell in love with the sport a bit through that experience, even though I don't play, and I just felt a tremendous sense of warmth and welcome from the darts players themselves, and the darts community, and a couple of years later, then it prompted me, I suppose, in my role within Grania Wales, we were trying to raise badly needed funds, and I'd had that experience in the league, and I was, you know, also mindful of the fact that Rindvall GAA had in, you know, in the past ran darts tournaments to raise money, so I think it was 2008, then, in Grania Wales, I got permission from the executives in Grania Wales to run some darts tournaments, West Climare Open Singles, doubles, and so on, and of course it went on from there, and we'll talk about what happened subsequently, but it would have been just prior to that, around maybe 2006, would it be, James, when you started off? Would have been 2006, I would have picked up my first set of darts outside of being very very young. And just to say, before you start on that, James, that you were fully in the full throes of playing Gaelic football and soccer, particularly soccer for a man. Gaelic football, soccer, badminton, tennis, whatever sport was out there with a ball, I was playing it. So you really hadn't any plans at that time to become as immersed in darts, or even to play darts at all? Not particularly, no. So there must have been a reason. The reason really came around July, I want to say July 2007, I was playing indoor soccer just to match with friends and people I grew up with and all that, you know, a nice friendly match. But as I'm sure any football fans out there are told, never try and do something with the ball before you have it. And sure enough, what did I do? Try and do something with the ball before I had it. Ended up going over on my leg anyways and breaking my ankle in three places, which still hurts today. But that kind of put a halt to my canter when it came to really kick it forward, and you know, I had set aims on maybe trying for Salt Hill, Devon, or going out or something like that. But that would have really put a stop to my canter, and the physio since the accident and towards the end of recovery was pretty intensive, but I knew myself that I was never going to go back to playing football again, I didn't want to suffer that, so I needed to find something to really fill the void of competition really. So you had this competitive nature, Jane, I thought you knew that. It was always there, it was always there, even from a young lad, I was always, in my head I had to be competitive with everybody, I always had to be striving to be the best or striving to be up there with the best. But yeah, as I said, that accident put a halt to my canter. I presume you had a long recuperation from that injury, which gave you plenty of time to reflect on what you were going to do going forward. It would have been six months total, yeah, before I really could move comfortably again, I was comfortable with the foot under me. Some people would have suffered such injuries and recovered faster, but for some reason this wouldn't heal as fast as it should have really. So when did you launch your darts career, James? I launched my darts career, well, launched my career is probably two wrong words to use, but that's how I gave it a go, around July 2007. I was in, what pub was I in, I was in Darcy, Darcy Inn, just passing time and playing pool, just trying to fill the days while I recovered, and my cousin was there who's, he's a name in Connemara darts, a big name in Connemara darts, Darren Wallops was there, and he was like, here, give these a go, let's see if you're any good at this, and trying to wind me up as often he does, and I threw my first three darts and he was like, okay, there might be something there, try it again, and I threw my next three, and from that minute on I was playing in the Interpub League with the Darcy Inn and Darren Wallops' team. So yeah, that was a little trial by fire, really. And did you find that you became totally immersed in the sport very, very quickly, and are you very much, were you still very much down in terms of the injury in relation to the footballer? Like how long did it take, would say, for the complete, would say, transformation across into darts in your whole mindset and your psyche, did that take long? I'd say possibly two years overall, because I was very new to the game in 2007, so I was kind of just, you know, use it to fill a Friday night and pass the time and see the lads and go out and have a laugh, and I suppose once I started getting a couple of wins under my belt, probably wins against people I shouldn't have beaten, but you know, sometimes you need a bit of luck as well, don't you? Oh, absolutely, in sports. Yeah, once I started getting a couple of wins under my belt, there was a sudden break then because, you know, the league was over and there was nothing else happening, I didn't know anything about the Memorial Cups or, you know, the competitions or anything like that that was going on, or even the Connemara team back then. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, just as I was getting started, it was over, so I had that break. So I'd say after that, I would have joined the Atlantic team at the time, Tim Warbough would have had, and Steven Gannon would have had the Atlantic at the time, and they had a fantastic infrastructure set up there. So through them, I would have learned of the competitions around and, you know, time starts and all that, and I would have found out about the Connemara team as well. So I took it upon myself there to introduce myself to the grander community, for want of a better phrase, and start practising with the Connemara team. That was taking it up a level that I wasn't at yet, and the likes of Richie McMahon at the time, who was an absolute admirer of the sport then, and Eamon Manion, and Gerry Aspley would be there, Dexter Ridge, Peter Conniff, these were big, big names in the time. They were... Seasoned campaigners, Jim? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was the time, then, that around Gwanilwyd started their competitions, and I know the Atlantic was one of our venues. It would have been, yeah, yeah. Those competitions went well, and then I know that we then went into organising, I know the Interpub League had lapsed for a couple of years, so then we, as an LGFA club, then revived them as well, and they kicked off, and of course that increased the numbers and kind of got the league thing back again, and I think within 18 months then it kind of got to the stage where I realised the time was now right for the darts community itself to take complete ownership of their own product at this stage, and to set up a Cunnamara Darts Association, and it was duly set up. It was. It's been really quick as well, and we really took the ball and ran with it. I say we, like I was part of the table, I wasn't, but I was part of the players, really. I have here in front of me, James, the Cunnamara Darts Association constitution, which is quite a detailed document that was drawn up at the time, but it says that the aim was to organise, promote, develop and foster the sport of darts in Cunnamara, and the CDA official website would play a key role in the realisation of the above, and then we had like management, elections, meetings, competition, finance, partnership, and then a whole set of rules, so that was, I'm just looking at the executive committee at the time. Eamon Lanyon was chairperson of that. Yeah, he's done a fantastic job. I got a secretary, Francis Nee, who was a very good dart, he, Francis, of course, was one of the, played on that aforementioned Boulders team that treated Mollies, and that was a brilliant final in 05. Mark Fitzpatrick. Mark Fitzpatrick. Yeah, Mark was vice chairperson. Paul Hayes was vice secretary, and Paul, of course, was the administrator. He ran the website at the time. He did, yeah, fantastic player in his own right as well. And another handy thrower, and he, would he be a Darcy man, would he, well, would he be more Sweeney's man over in the strand? That would be Jimmy Canavan? Yeah, he would have been in Darcy when I started. Yes, he would have been. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was the, that was actually the executive at the time, and I know we had, you know, very regular meetings, and put a really good structure in the competitions, and so on. It became really competitive, didn't it? It did, I remember when I used to turn up to competitions, and everybody'd be kitted out in their best Darcy gear, and their Sunday best, and all that, and they were wanting to look the best, they wanted to feel the best, they wanted to play the best, and I suppose during that time, it would have been 2009, I think, 2008, 2009, so just when it all really started to explode, there was a Souls of the Sea competition run by Michael Mullen. That's right. And that was one of my first singles competitions being entered. I haven't entered even, and as luck would have it, I managed to scrape through and win one of the qualifying heats. That's as far as I got. Noel Curley, I think, was the very first person I played in it, and he put me to bed quite easily. Noel was a good scorer. He still is. He still is, it's like riding a bike, once you have it, you have it, like you're not going to forget it. Well, I remember the very first final of that was against Damon Manion and Richie McMahon, and I, to this day, I don't think I've ever seen the standard of darts like it. They absolutely threw everything and the kitchen sink at each other, and that's when I felt right, this is something I could do. This is a level I'd love to reach, and the standard I'd love to play to, even though then I felt like it was out of reach. So that was like a seismic moment for you, that, you know, you said earlier, you always had these competitive juices, and I get a sense that you've always been someone with desire to kind of strive for, you know, higher levels and really push yourself to the limit. Yes. And was this the transformative moment? That was the moment. I can safely say that was the moment. Two brilliant players, though. Oh, Paul, that final, I just, I can't find the words to describe it. It was just unbelievable. Yeah, that was a huge tournament at the time. It was, it was 80-something, 82, I think, players in it. That was a defining moment in what I would, as you said, my career. The CDA Inter-Pub Leagues at the time, James, I suppose, in some respect, the CDA was probably the catalyst for bringing in Dirk players from the south-east kind of area jurisdiction, I suppose, notably Canton and Nilan, which would become Nilan and Lechamore in the GAA and GSA world. An awful lot of really good players down there too, James. You could reach into a ditch there and pull out a really good player. There's just so much talent down there. You're looking at the likes of, you know, Marcin Gryffindor, Marcin O'Griffin, Tommy Flaherty. His son, Keane Flaherty, is extraordinary talent in his own right. The big guy down there, Joe Brandoch, he's called Joe Tiny. He's had to be tiny. Larry Keady. Larry Keady, yeah, yeah. Mike Connolly, Paul Connolly, his brother. There's just so much. You couldn't really name them all. But the CDA really brought us all together and made us much more than competitors. We'd see each other every week and we spent entire weekends together. So we were more family than foes. Even though you were competing, I suppose, that year we saw the emergence of a really strong Chap Dangan team from Bela Dangan. Yeah. And all those guys you just mentioned, a lot of them were on that team. A majority of them were, yeah. And then a massive rivalry developed, I suppose, between them and Mollies here in Letterfrack. Yeah. And there were some memorable finals. Some very, very memorable finals. Again, just like Griffins and Mollies, the standards that they throw at is unreal. I remember attending one in Mollies it was. And I was just in awe at the amount of 140s being hit. It was just every single throw was 140, 140, 140. And it was like, this can't be normal. And it wasn't just one couple of players were doing it. It was every player too. The team sheet was just bathroom. The other player is fantastic. In the midst of all that rivalry, then the CDA decided that the standards had risen over, we'll say, a three-year period. Yeah. And I suppose, it's probably fair to say, James, there's nothing to lift standards in any sport than regularity of competition. That is the main thing they say. The more you play, the better you get. And we steadily improved the infrastructure of competitions within the CDA over those three to four years. And the standard rose. And then I suppose we decided to go one step further and to put a representative Connemara team together. You did. And of course, maybe I was a bit naive. I thought that said Connemara team might be able to compete in official All-Ireland championships. But of course, that couldn't be the case. No, no. To compete in the All-Ireland championship, you have to be a recognised county in your own right. And Connemara is not. With it being in Galway, we have to play under the Galway banner. Back then, All-Ireland would have been consistent of just the top players in the county. So you have your top 16 in, say, Galway, Mayo, Dublin, Donegal, Cork, Louth, all them counties. And they'd all get thrown together as a team. They'd all get thrown together in a big venue. They fight it out and see who comes out on top. More often than not, it would have been Donegal. They are, by far and away, the best players in the country, in my eyes. But the Connemara team did go to the Olympic Invitational a few times. Now, the first time they went, I wasn't part of the team. But I heard great things about it and the great turnout and the camaraderie in the team. As a team building exercise, it would have been fantastic to get the lads to go there and really become as one. There was also the West Coast Classic. The West Coast Classic, yeah. So these weren't official championships. I think you were allowed to play in the West Coast Classic as Galway B, but it was a Connemara team, wasn't it? No, back then, no. Back then, it was Galway A only, to my knowledge. They've extended it to allow B teams in, but that's it. The top 16 back then was A team and they went to the West Coast Classic. Because the West Coast Classic was only played like two weeks before the actual All-Ireland. So it was a case of, you know, get your best teams out there, get them warmed up, get them ready for it. Because in tandem with that, you'd have the Munster Championships, the Leinster Championships all played around the same weekend. You were also saying, James, there's a Tipperary Invitational. There's a Tipperary Invitational, yeah. That's another competition. New on the calendar. Connemara could effectively enter that, I do believe. I'm going to have to double check that, but to my knowledge, I do believe they could. So at the time, obviously there was an acceptance of that, that, you know, we're not officially a county, but we can play maybe in some of these Invitational tournaments. But then a good cohort of players from within that Connemara squad, including yourselves, then went for trials. We did, yeah. So you might talk about that, James, for a couple of minutes before we take the break. Yeah, it was around 2010, 2011. Harry O'Toole had the great idea that we're playing at a very high standard up here these days. Let's test ourselves. Let's see what standard we're playing at. And it just so happened that at the time, Galway Darts Association were holding their county trials or ranking season in Galway City. So we didn't really have to travel too far to make them. So we all clubbed in together and travelled together and competed for that season, from maybe September to maybe beginning of January. So it was effectively county trials, James? Yeah, it was in a way of a knockout tournament. So you turn up, you enter, you get a draw done and, you know, you play down to your last two. But as you progress through the competition, you would have accumulated points. Like ranking points. Yeah, you would have accumulated ranking points. That would go towards the ranking table. And over the course of maybe 10 or 12 ranking weekends, so to speak, the top 16 with the familiar points would have made the county A team. And the bottom, the next 16 would have been the Galway B team. It just so happened that within the top 16 of the Galway A team were four, if not five, Connemara players. That was a great achievement. Were you one of those? I may have been, yeah. I think at that time I was positioned fourth in the table. At the end of all the ranking tournaments? You were the fourth highest ranking player. I would have been the fourth, yeah. Harry O'Toole would have been second. Gerry Follin would have been sixth or eighth. I think Eamon Manion would have been sixth or eighth. There was, you know, yeah. So you were actually in the top ten? We would have been top ten, yeah. And so you went on to play inter-county for Galway A for how many years, James? I think it was seven, eight years in total. And what was the pinnacle of your achievement within that? Did Galway ever reach an All-Ireland final? We never reached an All-Ireland final. However, we did reach, I want to say, six Limerick Invitational finals and seven West Coast Classic finals. Without ever winning anything? Without ever winning anything. Oh, wow. Yeah, it's heartbreak after heartbreak after heartbreak. And the enemy next door, Mayo, would have been the one that would have tipped us more often than not. But they were very, very tight games and the standards, again, were very, very high. It would have been 7-6 either side. D'Arcy's very well organised in Mayo, isn't it? Very, very well organised. Fantastically organised. Yeah, like I know we're in the whole Westport-Catonair kind of south-west Mayo there. I see it in the Mayo News, you know. They have a very well organised league and so on. It must have been a brilliant experience though, James, to play at that level with all of these guys and to be right in the mix and in the middle of all of that. It must have been a great experience. I will safely speak for everybody that was there. It was fantastic to be part of it. It's experience you couldn't buy. It's friendships you could never think of fortune before you delve into it. It was just fantastic overall and I really, really hope we can get back to that standard again and get back to that place. Well, we're going to be talking, you know, it's nice to look back, but we're also looking forward back to the future, James, isn't it? Something like that. Yeah, we don't need any roads. So look, you're going to introduce, this is really, this is an iconic D'Arcy song and this is your selection for this programme. You're going to introduce this now to the listeners and we'll play it and we'll return then for part two a little bit more on the CDA, one or two things we didn't touch on, and then we'll fast forward to the here and now and the emergence of a new darting organisation to cater for this wonderful support across Connemara. The song that is going to be played is synonymous with the game and anyone that has ever watched or had D'Arcy on the background during Christmas will recognise it. It is Chase the Sun by Planet Fun. I was floating in a dream, floating with the wind, like a chase the sun. I'm spinning around, tables in my mind, spinning the world around. I was floating in a dream, floating with the wind, like a chase the sun. I'm spinning around, tables in my mind, spinning the world around. I was floating in a dream, floating with the wind, like a chase the sun. I'm spinning around, tables in my mind, spinning the world around. I was floating in a dream, floating with the wind, like a chase the sun. I'm spinning around, tables in my mind, spinning the world around. I was floating in a dream, floating with the wind, like a chase the sun. I was floating in a dream, floating with the wind, like a chase the sun. I'm spinning around, tables in my mind, spinning the world around. 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Then COVID hit, James, and you were just telling me there before we came in, I had no idea. You were playing competitive darts through COVID from home, so you might have been one of the listeners. Quite an unconventional idea. The setup I had at home, well, everybody would have had at home at the time, we would have had a phone or a webcam that would have been connected to our laptop, that would have then been connected to an online scoring system server, and our opponent would have had the same thing, so we would have been able to play against them in the comfort of our own homes. We never had to stress about travelling or putting miles on the car or anything like that, or bothering people, saying, look, I'm going to be away this weekend. You play your game. If you win or lose, you're still at home. There's never any panic with it, actually. It was genius. It really was. It really kept the standard up, for want of a better phrase. It was all encompassing as to what the game really is. Like, where there's competition, we will find it. We will play it. So, what darting body was organising these competitions during COVID? There was many during COVID. There was many all over the place. The one I would have played under would have been the Galway Darts Association. They would have ran their own ones. The online county singles championship is one I remember playing in. A good friend of mine, Dimitri Zhukov, I think, won that. A fantastic player he is. He's actually from the Arnhem Islands. He competed in the BBC World Cup of Darts. Not the last one, the one before, but he would have been on Sky Sports playing for his home country, Latvia. Oh, in the World Cup of Darts. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's a fantastic ambassador to have around here as well. And then post-COVID, I suppose the memorial competitions were continuing and so on, and then some public houses then started maybe having just their own in-house competitions. I know there's one currently going on in Molly's every Thursday night, which is hugely successful. I think there's nearly 50 lads, I think, in the WhatsApp group that get contacted every week, and there's probably maybe an average of 20-plus playing, would it be, every Thursday night? Every Thursday night. I remember the first time I played there, it was 27, and I remember Dan O'Malley, who was running it, he said, this is a bad turnout, like, at 27 for a Thursday night. So it just kind of set into my own head going, okay, there's something there, like, we might be able to reignite something. And then we had the conversation, James, didn't we? Sorry, we didn't regret it. That's right, yeah. I was down collecting something for work, and you were there doing something for work, and it just struck up a conversation, and here we are today. And I suppose we're here today really it's great to look back, and I suppose it's important to give the listeners an idea of there's a strong darting heritage in West Connemara, and we're very proud of it, and across all Connemara, I suppose, and it's nice to just reacquaint ourselves with it, but ultimately we want to move the thing forward. So I suppose that conversation was maybe the catalyst, and arising out of said conversation, we now have the emergence of a new darting organisation, the Connemara Darts Federation. Yes, it's the brainchild of myself and yourself, Paul. Yeah, it was just something that was running around my own head for a few years. I remember myself and Vincent Leggett always had a conversation saying we have to get darts up and running again, and we have to do something again, and sadly, we lost Vincent five years ago. And that kind of took a back seat while we were all waiting for them wounds to heal. But I think the time is right now to bring something to the forefront. So what I have suggested we do was to bring back a league of sorts in keeping with tradition. We're going to keep doing it on a Friday night, but I'm going to put my own little twist on it, something different. We're going to do a singles league, but it will be graded, so using this parish here as an example, we're going to have the likes of Alan, James Flaherty, Dan O'Malley, Jamie Flaherty. Maybe yourself? Maybe not this year. I think I'm going to stick on the administration side. Jerry Aspel strikes the fear of God into me, so I think I'll stay away from him for another year. Then guys kind of playing in their own little league themselves. At Premier level. So they'll be able to kind of push their standard on a little bit, but then the players that would not be up to that standard yet, I have no doubt that they will be pushing for a Premier spot. They will be in a division lower than that, but standard-wise it's not going to be too much different. As the league progresses you're going to see the best players emerge from the lower divisions into the upper divisions, so that we will have promotion and relegation structure in place as well. So our goal really is to get 40 players between here and South Connemara, and even if we get players from Galway City, which I have been contacted by a couple of players from Galway City saying that they'd like to come out and give it a try. So yeah, I'd like to see this really take off and really become a catalyst to bring Connemara Guards back to where it used to be, back to where it was, back to where we were. I think it's fair to say, James, that a big influencer in this and the thinking of this is the ongoing Premier League, the PDC Premier League on Sky Sports where you have the eight guys. So I think we're looking to emulate their structure where you played the other seven guys twice, that's 14 league matches, over seven nights. Yeah, it would be an emulation of the old format of the Premier League, new format kind of I'm not in favour of the new format of the Premier League, so we're going to build it off to try and test it and take that form. Which we'll see at the end of the 14 matches you'll have a top four and a bottom four, and then the top four go into semi-finals, one against four, two against three. So we hope to have a Premiership, isn't it? If we get to 40 we'll have a Premiership, Championship we'll have League One, League Two, League Three. It's like a dream really, isn't it? Yeah, so eight, I suppose multiples of eight really is what we're looking for. We're also going to run doubles, James is that right? We're going to run a doubles league as well. We're going to run a doubles league in tandem with that as well, so there will be a blind draw for doubles that will only consist of players in a league. So say, like St. Alan Flaherty, who normally plays his darts with James Flaherty, he might be drawn with say, Gerry Oswald, but standard-wise there's not much of a difference there. Mixed for a shake of the old and we're going to do a little bit of do here. They will play together for the duration of the doubles league as well which will be run in tandem with the singles league. So each player will play three times on the Friday night, so all players will start with their doubles match, which will serve as a warm-up match. So it's six doubles matches to be played in total, you play your three opponents twice, and then after the sixth night we'll have a first, second, third and fourth in the doubles, and then on night seven we'll have the doubles semi-finals, one against four, two against three. And then on the night of the singles semi-finals and finals we'll also have the doubles finals. So you could have guys relegated because the bottom two, the two players who finish in seventh and eighth, they'll be relegated. They get relegated from say, for example the Premier Division down to the Division One or Championship whichever people want to call it. And then the top two there will be moved up to the Premiership. But in essence what you could have is the two at the bottom of the Premier Division contesting for champions of the doubles. The seventh and eighth could be partners in that initial draw. Exactly, that's exactly what I was trying to say. But it's just intriguing really. We have dates set aside the membership, of course you have to be a member of the Connemara Darts Federation to participate in this. To participate in this you need to be a member of the Connemara Darts Federation. Membership is €50, but that is a one-off payment that covers all league entries with singles and doubles that will cover any competitions that we will run and we do have a couple of ideas. One competition we have in our minds is an FA Cup style competition where every round is a blind draw and everybody within the Federation will compete in this or can compete in this, not will. But this is, as I said, something different, but again, keeping with tradition. You don't want to change things too drastically. So in that, we call it FA Cup style, it would be like the Connemara Darts Federation Open, let's say. It's a one-day tournament. It could actually happen that the eight premiership guys could all be drawn against each other in round one. And after round one, half of the premiership division could be knocked out. We hope there's a doubles equivalent of that as well, but this time you would choose your own partners in the doubles. Yes, so again, keeping with tradition. This is one where you'll bring your own partners, so no surprises there when we see James and Alan Flaherty rocking up to the archies to contest championships, but it's going to be interesting. I'm very excited about the prospect of what could happen and what could be on in the future. We also hope to secure some sponsorship and we have one or two companies interested at the moment and just if there's anyone listening in who's involved in business or involved in the company or even someone in the private capacity that would like to help us out on that site, we'd be very, very grateful and we'd love to talk to you if there's anyone out there. Don't be shy, don't be afraid to get in contact. We're using our funds, of course, to buy the Cups and so on and we would hope maybe to have a little bit of prize money as well, which is another kind of tradition in darts. Yes, there's always a bit of prize money there. But I think in the federation competitions, James, I think it's more about the prestige of winning the Cups, isn't it, really, than the money. Exactly, yes. In relation with the FA Cups style one, if you would come from, say, division two and be crowned champion of the Conor McGregor Darts Federation, people are going to take notice. You're going to be watched, you're going to be feared and nobody will ever be able to take that accreditation away from you. Now, if there are people listening in from within the radio catchment area who would like to pay the 50 euro, become a member and try their hand in the competitive darting space, who do they contact, James? You can contact myself, either on my phone or on Facebook, 0862008284 That's my personal number, so if you have any questions regarding it, by all means, do ask. We have a five-person executive committee established. It's more like an interim committee, really, to run this, to get this off the ground. And I'm sure we'll have an annual general meeting at the end of the year, you know, and that committee may become extended, may involve more people, so Dan O'Malley is our chairperson, no better man. I very, very like Dan, so he was always going to be looked at to be there. He's so nice. And then we have Joey Ridge. Joey, he's our development officer. He's a very good man when it comes to thinking outside the box. He's already thrown a couple of ideas our way. We like the way he thinks. We're not going to reveal too much yet. And then we have Dermot Flaherty in the role of public relations officer. And I'm going in as well, interim treasurer anyway, so we would hope to open a bank account when funds come in and so on. You've started a Facebook page? I have started a Facebook page. Is that going really well, moving very quickly? I set up there maybe two days ago. We're already at 135 followers, and we're getting good luck messages and best wishes from... One recent one I've seen is from Derek Quinn, who is a very good friend of mine from Donegal Darts. He's one of the best players in the country. So he sent our best wishes. We've got follows off PDC Pros. I've got followers all the way from Germany, but Stefan Ludwig is another friend of mine from Germany. We meet each other every year in Colerny. He's given us a bit of a follow. And a friend of ours as well, of darts all over Europe really, Bettina Gruber, she gave us a follow there just before I came in. So our reach is extending, and I'd like to extend it a little bit more. Dates for competitions, because we have a deadline for membership, and we may have in excess of 130 followers. That doesn't necessarily mean that we're going to get 40 people to pay the 50 and become registered members. I think we were saying at committee level, if we even got 16 for year one and had a really good premiership and a really good championship, it would be a start. There are plans over the next five years, James, to get back into representative darts, like back in CDA times. Underage academies, bring back celebrity cups. There are lots of ideas there. We're just going with a small fraction part. We're just going to go with the very beginning, first and foremost. Do it small, but do it right, is what I'm thinking. Don't push the boat out too much where we just end up in a big kerfuffle and we're running around like headless chickens trying to put fires out. I'd like to get it right the first time and have a base there that we can build off and a structure that we can implement further on down the line. Expand to other leagues and divisions and competitions as well. I suppose no different to any other sport, James. We're looking for sustainability, aren't we? That's exactly what we're looking for, yes. Something that will last and something that will grow and be there maybe long after we're gone down the road. Hopefully. What's the closing date, James, for receipt of memberships? I think we're at the end of the month. Yes, we've set for the 28th. And we hope to have the opening night of competitive action on the second Friday night in November, isn't it? The 8th, isn't it? Yes, the 8th of November is when we've penciled in to kick off. And we're running five Friday nights in advance of Christmas. And then we're allowing everyone to have their Christmas break and bed in and watch the PDC on Sky Sports. Followed by the BDON at MIAS. The other world championship. Admittedly, it's not at the same level as the PDC. No, but it's just as entertaining. And then we pick it up again then for the final three nights of competition in January. And hopefully then the one-day open tournament, what we're calling the FA Cup of Darts, to come maybe sometime in January in February, March. And I think just as well, we're satisfied as a committee aren't we, James, that we're not adversely affecting any of the Memorial Cup competitions. No, we will not be impeding on any of them. Or any of the in-house competitions in respect of. That was very important to us that we don't impinge or encroach on the work. No, we wanted to set up our own thing and be an independent, but we also didn't want to step over any other competitions that were on there. James, we're out of time. It's been a pleasure having you in and having the chat and I suppose onwards and upwards for darts, I hope. And thanks so much for coming in. Paul, thank you very much. If anybody's interested in joining our little federation, by all means, contact us. Thanks very much. That's it for this edition of Injury Time. Thanks again to James Joyce and to Linda and talk to you next month. This program was kindly sponsored by Kylemore Abbey and Gardens 095 52 001 . . . . . . . .
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