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Local Lad David Platt Takes On Phil Taylor
 19/12/05

David Platt plays for the White Horse in the Stafford Super League and hails from Great Wyrley. At 38 years old he is nicknamed “Baby Face” although he has many years experience as a top class player locally as do several members of his family.

Platt was drawn to play Taylor in the first round after the qualifiers in the PDC World Championship at the Circus Tavern in Purfleet. The competition actually crowns the winner 2006 champion although it has been played before Xmas 2005. Taylor is of course the master having been crowned world champion 12 times so far.

Platt opened against Taylor and took a commanding lead in the first leg but still lost it with scrappy finishing. The first 3 legs and therefore the set went to Taylor but the next leg went to Platt although it was scrappy. From then on all the legs went to Taylor and the result made him look good but Platt got to the double first on a couple of occasions and several times missed golden opportunities to take legs from him. Several times Taylor hit 180s but Platt kept up the pressure and it was only his poor finishing that gave him a worse average at 85 against Taylor’s 96. 

The match was televised on Sky while we were playing our KO match against the Plough at Libbys. Phil Taylor was actually playing on tele while I was playing my game but I finished mine before he did! A couple of times Phil had shots at 161 although he kept missing the bull to finish but even this magnificent finish, if he had got it, would have been eclipsed by our very own superstar Will Hall, who, in all 3 legs of his game, while Taylor was talking, went for 170 finishes. Will also went for the 170 start on the bull but had less success. In the first leg Will hit two treble 20’s and missed the bull hitting 19. In the second leg he hit the two treble 20’s and then a 14 leaving 36 which he got next dart and in the third leg he missed altogether and ended up on 75. However, he finished this in style with a 25 followed by a bull! His opponent thought he was taking the piss and maybe he was a little but he genuinely wanted to get the highest finish of the year which he has done before and we had won the match at this stage with a score-line of 4-1.