With the excitement of getting ready for Christmas I completely forgot to put in a report for November which is a pity because it was a record breaking month so this week I’ll briefly summarise the Singles League for November and December.

In November, from a scheduled 75 games, a record 72 games were played beating the previous record of 71 from March 2009. Once again there were many close games with ten matches finishing 9-7 and a further nine finishing 9-8.

In total a new record of 23 players hit a new record of 41 x 180’s throughout the month of November beating the previous record of 37 from November 2008. There was some big scoring in League 1 with Ivan Leslie equalling Martin Peace and Robbie Stanger’s record of seven 180’s in a month. Ivan had three 180’s in his 9-8 victory over Robbie Stanger with Robbie also hitting two for a total of five in one match to equal the highest amount of 180’s in a match set by Bruce Moar and Martin Peace in October 2008. Robbie also had three 180’s in his 9-4 victory over Davy Cooper.

The checkout stats in November were nearly as impressive as the 180’s with 18 players hitting a total of 28 ton plus checkouts. November’s checkout specialist was Craig Moar with five in total including a 152 in his 9-2 victory over Sean Stanger and a 158 in his 9-8 win over Michael Muir which equals Paul Davis’s season high. Two others worthy of a mention are Michael Moodie’s 149 check in his 9-1 win over Colin Ross and Ross Donaldson’s 151 check against Leigh Shearer.

There were three 9-0 wins in November with Roy Griffiths, Noreen Bain and Brian Moar all securing whitewashes over Linda Harcus, Jacqui Denoon and Brian Stevenson respectively.

Other notable stats for November were Iain Wilkie scored this season’s first 12 darter in his 9-2 win over Derek Farmer. Ivan Leslie had back to back 180’s in his 9-5 win over Bruce Moar and yes, he did win the leg, and finally, after more than thirty years of playing darts, Colin Ross had his best ever leg in November with a 13 darter, well done Colin!

Following on from November and December’s Singles League stats were highly impressive too. Unfortunately only 60 of the scheduled 66 matches were played but considering the weather at the start of the month and over the festive period that’s maybe not too bad. Again there were a lot of very close games with eight matches finishing 9-7 and a further nine finishing 9-8.

There was some high scoring again with 17 players scoring 38 x 180’s. League 1 improved on November’s high scoring with the five players hitting a monthly record of 21 x 180’s between them in the ten matches with Robbie Stanger hitting six closely followed by Brian Moar with five, Davy Cooper 4 and Iain Wilkie and Ivan Leslie on 3 each. Although not a maximum, Susie Bain deserves a mention for hitting a 171 on the 19’s against Neil Tait.

There were 24 ton plus checkouts by 13 players with Robbie Stanger topping the checkout table for December with four. Robbie also had the highest checkout of the month with a 140 in the last game of the month against Brian Moar. Robbie’s 140 also gave him a 12 darter but unfortunately for him it didn’t stop him from going down 9-6, his first ever defeat to Brian in the Singles League. Hard luck buey!

There were two 9-0 wins in December. Roy Griffiths achieved it for the second month in a row with his win against Noreen Bain. Noreen, after dishing out a whitewash to Jacqui Denoon in November, had to suffer being on the receiving end this month. The second was a very impressive 9-0 win in League 1 for Davy Cooper against Iain Wilkie. It’s very unusual to have a 9-0 scoreline in the top league, well done Davy.

The Singles League’s top performer for December was Roy Griffiths who won all his games to win promotion back to League 5 conceding only ten legs in total, a new record for League 6. Ivan Leslie also had a very impressive month in League 1 winning all his games and only losing 11 legs on the way, only two off Stevie Linklater’s record of nine legs lost. Others who won all their games in December were Linda Ratter in League 7, Neil Tait in League 5, Robert Gatt in League 4 and Michael Moodie in League 3. Michael has won every game he’s played this season so far and now moves up into League 2 amongst some very experienced players. Good luck Michael!

The January Leagues have been drawn up and have been posted on the Legion notice boards. There are a couple of withdrawals and one new player coming in so after a bit of jiggling things around again there will be five leagues of five players in January and two leagues of four players. All players are reminded to contact (preferably by text or email) the League Organiser with the scores of their games as soon as possible and continual failure to play games may lead to elimination from the league.