Pure DFC Archive

Thank you so much, Gary. Those of us Darts fans who live at a distance and who only get to see the Darts on rare visits back to Kent have found your websites invaluable for keeping us in touch - many, many thanks!

the duke wrote: ↑Wed Jul 28, 2021 11:04 pm For a bit of vintage Ryan Hayes have a quick look at match highlights of their Chatham match on Maidstone wesite , ONLY need to click on 4mins and 5 mins to see two great crosses leading to goals , just like old times !!!!!!!!!!!!

Classic Ryno skill and the first cross was with his right foot!

There was a lengthy obituary for Doug Holden in yesterday's Telegraph (with a brief mention of DFC towards the end):

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/ ... -matthews/

Happy chappy wrote: ↑Thu Feb 04, 2021 7:23 pm

Trevor B wrote: ↑Thu Feb 04, 2021 4:01 pm I would have to include Tommy Huckstepp the old fashioned centre forward who scored almost as many goals with his head as with the boot.
Joined 1958-59 season and played 51 matches that season and scored 54 goals and the 1959-60 season nearly as impressive with 41 games
and 37 goals

Like i say i saw my first Darts game is 1961 and Alf Ackerman was manager, so possibly Tommy Huckstepp had left. One forward i do remember and note i say forward as they what we called them then days and not striker like now was Jimmy Fletcher, who had a bit of a cult following among us school juniors and wasn't a bad player at all, but was probably past his peak when he came to us, and had done the rounds in Kent football, but always gave 100% and scored goals. To us kids he was always our best player and never made a mistake.The innocence of young schoolkids i guess. Happy days.

Given how the forwards of teams were set up in those days (two out-and-out wingers, two inside forwards and one centre forward), there would have been no room for Tommy H in Alf’s team. Whether Tommy chose to leave of his own accord or had his cards marked by Alf, we may never know.

Lincoln exile wrote: ↑Fri Dec 04, 2020 11:18 am This week's "Messenger" reports the death of Jimmy Fletcher who played in Alf Ackerman's team in the 1960s. He also played for Maidstone, where he became an England Amateur International, Gillingham, Chatham, Faversham, Southend, Gravesend, Margate and Dover. I didn't know until I read today's article that he later became a greyhound trainer.

Didn't Jimmy play in the famous FA Cup victory over league team Exeter in 1961? I have a vague recollection that he may have scored in that match. The recorded attendance for that match was 6777 - Watling Street must have been packed! I recall being at school that day and having to wait until I got home to find out the result!

Would it be possible to post complete match videos of some past matches (or, at least, much more extended highlights) so that we can get some kind of a “footie fix” during the dark times ahead? Or are there legal / commercial restrictions that prevent that?

August 2017 v Oxford City at PP was a different story....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxZlOaePxGY&t=1314s

Always worth a watch (especially for Warren's third goal!)!

M1 South wrote:The thing is though GRD, the Darts are infamous for doing well against the teams at the top but not so well against those at the bottom (Or any opposition down to 10 x men)!

I did think about adding a comment along those lines but decided that it would be a bit of a buzzkill after seeing how easy (!) the Darts' run-in is......

M1 South wrote:I'm sorry, but could you run that by me again??

It's just a way of trying to give a value to how difficult each team's set of matches is - the higher the average number, the "easier" those matches should be (since, on the whole, the teams being played are lower in the table). To take an extreme example, if two teams each had three matches left (say) and one team was playing the bottom three teams (positions 20, 21 and 22) that average would be (20+21+22)/3 = 21, while the other team was (say) playing the top three in the table, so that average would be (1+2+3)/3 = 2. So (arguably) the team with the higher average (21, in this case) has the easier set of matches - clearly so in this example, since they are playing teams much lower in the table.

Leaving aside Torquay and Woking, Darts probably have the easiest run-in (on paper) of all the other contenders. If you add up the current table positions of all the opponents of these teams you get:

Darts: 104 (7 matches) - so the "average" opponent is around position 15 (roughly = 104/7) in the table;

Bath: 72 (7) --> 10

Welling: 98 (7) --> 14

Chelmsford: 68 (8) --> 8.5

Billericay: 93 (7) --> 13

Concord: 83 (7) --> 12

Wealdstone: 84 (7) --> 12

St. Albans: 70 (7) --> 10

On that basis, Darts and Welling have the easiest run-ins and Chelmsford have the hardest. That's all on paper, of course....