Minehead 2

The resort in Minehead already exists over 50 years and when it opened it was the biggest of this kind. But she was not the first Butlin's Resort in England, which was already opened in 1936 in Skegness.
Owner and founder of the Butlin's resorts was Sir Bill Butlin. He had once when on holiday experienced that the hosts didn't allow the guests during the day despite for the meals stay inside in their rooms without regard of the weather and started to develop the play of another kind of accommodation for the holiday makers.

Butlin was borne in 1899 in South Africa as son of English expatriates. His father was the son of a clergyman while his mother came from a family of fairground people - at this time a marriage socially not really accepted. The parents soon separated and the mother returned together with her sons to her family in England.
When his mother married a few years later a Canadian and went with him to Canada Bill stayed in England and lived with his aunt for some time before he joined his mother in Canada. He never liked it there, broke off school education. In World War One he had to join the Canadian army. After the war he returned to England and started to build up his own travelling fair which became a fixed fair in Skegness and developed into Butlin's first resort.
There didn't exist anything similar at the time - the guests got accommodation (where they could stay inside all day should they want to), three meals a day and entertainment. When it turned out the guests had some difficulty with the entertainment concept Butlin "invented" the holiday reps as well, male and female, which were called because of their uniform - white trousers or skirts and a red jacket - Redcoats. The Redcoats didn't earn a lot of money. They were trained at an own academy and the demands were high. As they had to perform on the resort stages as well they had to be able to sing and dance. The jobs were nevertheless in high demand as they could be a stepping stone for a career in show business. As was rumoured the Redcoats were not only holiday reps - Butlin very soon recognized that "sex sells".

During World War II the resorts were used by the army as training camps. Butlin bought them back cheap after the war and his resorts boomed; Butlin soon was a millionaire. But in 1948 he almost went bankrupt as he tried to build up a resort on the Bahamas which was a failure. So he decided to stay in the UK and soon had recovered financially.
In 1969 out of fiscally reasons he retired from business which was carried on by his son till 1972 when Butlin's was sold to the Rank Organisation which earned money with movies and photocopiers. Many of the resorts had to be closed, only Butlin's Minehead, Butlin's Bognor Regis and the first Butlin's in Skegness survived till today. Butlin himself moved - because of fiscally reasons as well - to Jersey where he died in 1980.

So Butlin never experienced one of his resorts would host a dart tournament, probably he would have enjoyed what developed further on day two of the UK Open.

Already in the afternoon Aden Kirk eliminated with Peter Wright another top player from the tournament. It happened almost at the end of the afternoon session and after some other interesting matches though those dramas more happened without TV cameras. First I had watched how Austrian Mensur Suljovic defeated Robert Thornton 9:7 - a really unexpected result n the venue where first boards 3 - 8 could be found. Now only two boards were left but it was even more crowded. On the other board a battle between Nigel Heydon and Brendan Dolan took place - Dolan prevailed.
With half an eye I registered Vincent van der Voort lost to Christian Kist, not really astonishing as Kist had already proved during the Grand Slam he didn't intend to be a one-day wonder. I had a look again at stage two where once again Barney got a win while Dave Chisnall not really looked good against Mervyn King. I returned to boards three and four where with Simon Stevenson and Paul Hogan the last two Riley's qualifiers were eliminated. But Mark Webster had a rather hard time to win against Hogan who had really impressed me.

At board two was a break when I returned. But I never regretted that I waited till the players returned on stage. It was fascinating to watch how Dean Winstanley and Stephen Bunting throw high scores around. And it was somehow astonishing looking at the scoring that Winstanley managed a 9:6 win in the end. I was so fascinated by the match I totally missed out what happened on main stage and only returned there for the dramatic 9:8 win by Adrian Lewis over Ronny Huybrechts. The afternoon had been over very soon and I needed the break to update the site.

When the evening session started the venue was really well filled and a lot of people had disguised a lot more then on Friday. I once again moved from stage to stage when not sitting in the press room to "cool down".

Now only the main stage and stage two still were used and this time there was no win for Adan Kirk who lost to Brendan Dolan while Mensur Suljovic managed another win against Jamie Lewis. My match of the evening to be sure was the match between Terry Jenkins and James Wade in which both players showed a lot of bottle. In the end Terry Jenkins was the winner.
Michael van Gerwen dispatched Mark Webster as did Adrian Lewis Raymond van Barneveld who was far less relaxed on the big stage and far less comfortable and he didn't enjoy himself at all. Can a stage really make such a difference to an experienced player? Dean Winstanley as well looked rather peaky against Kevin Painter - might be the match against Stephen Bunting had been really exhausting. That one can look rather unobtrusive and nevertheless play mean good darts and win once again proved Ian White. Mervyn King's win was a little bit surprising not because Kist was big favourite but because one really could see King had problems with his back, He walked rather stiff and it always looked it hurt when he made the step down from the oche after he had withdrawn his darts.

Once again frozen to the marrow I returned to my accommodation. But I still was very enthralled by all the good matches I had watch on the day.









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