Late Arrival Of Players.

(This is a re-write of an old article that I wrote for a darts league some years ago.)

We are all aware of the problems that the late arrival of a whole team can cause, but the late arrival of individual players can lead to even more unpleasantness as just one game won, or lost, can dramatically change the result of a match. It can always be argued that an alternative player may have given the same result, but of course that is not the thought uppermost in the minds of an opposition team when they have just seen victory snatched from under their noses. 

There was a match some time ago that was just such an occasion when I arrived shortly after 9pm and the singles games were well under way, as well as the Captains having been played, BUT I must point out that the doubles games had not been drawn. We were well into the third singles game with 3 more to go before the draw for the doubles was to be made. After the last singles had been played, which the Captain had won for us making it 3-3, the draw was made for the doubles. Our Captain, naturally wanted to put in what he felt were his best 4 players to go for the win and he included me. The opposition could have complained at this time about my late arrival and stopped me from being included, but nothing was said and they didn’t. We lost the first game, giving them 4 games, and one of our younger players and myself did the business after 3 very close legs that could have gone either way. It was only after we had made it a draw at 4-4 that one of the opposition started the furore. 

We did have a not dissimilar instance some years ago when I made my very first report for the league, (LINK An Unfortunate Decision.) This time was different though, because the draw had not been altered in anyway. It is quite common practice for one team to know of the potential arrival of a late player and leave a name blank in the draw, or they say, “Can we put them on last.” Sometimes a BYE is filled in with a late players name after their arrival and the match has already got under way. However, we had a full team of six players at the time of the original first half draw and none of their names were changed. I arrived quite some time before, the selection and second half draw, was made for the doubles 

As the “Discussion” raged, one player looked up the league rules on the Net on his phone and said that there was nothing in them to cover the situation and after having looked myself, I must agree. In another local league there is one point made that touches on such things; -
“Any player not present when his name is called to play shall forfeit his game.” 

It is interesting to note however, that one of the players who started all the fuss had lost to one of our young lady players 2-0 in the singles. If he had won, it would have changed the result for them, giving them a clear win and it would have been irrelevant that I played!