Dave Routledge

Dave is the son of Jack Routledge who has been a local celebrity for many years but never quite made the grade to the big time in darts. This father and son team dominated the Cannock league for a good number of years before Dave moved on some time ago.

I personally remember seeing Dave playing on several occasions at various venues in Cannock. For a while he played at the Central where I saw him one night before a match putting on his exhibition style finishing.

In more recent times he moved to Merseyside where he now runs a pub near to Liverpool airport.

Dave is well known on the county circuit and even has his own moniker of the Doctor arising from his Jekyll and Hyde type of game. In 2004 he beat Ted Hankey to win the England Open Singles Championship and he has played in many other big competition but last night was his first time in the BDO World Professional Darts championship at the Lakeside Country Club in Frimley Green, Surrey.

Rouledge’s opponent in the first round was John Walton with whom he is well acquainted from other matches. Walton had won the competition on a previous occasion so it was not the easiest of draws for Dave but the first set went well for him with Dave winning the second and fourth legs with the darts and the fifth against the darts. The second set also started well with the 1^st and 3^rd legs going to him. At this point his finishing was excellent and made up for his lacklustre scoring although he did hit a 180 during the match. Dave lost his way in the 4rth leg and poor finishing from both players in the 5^th finally gave the set to John Walton. The third set was Walton’s from start to finish with Dave’s average scoring of 86.5 well behind John’s 91.5. Dave made a brief attempt at a comeback in the 4rth set taking the first leg but Walton seemed to step up a gear and easily took the remaining games to win three sets to one and knocking Dave out of the competition.