Minehead 3
Minehead is a small, idyllic seaside town at the Bristol Channel. The region was already populated long before the Norman conquerors appeared in Britain and after them Minehead developed in mediaeval times into an important trade a fishing harbor. Under Elisabeth I at was similar important as Bristol. From here the vessels travelled to Ireland, France and Wales with salt wool and cloth to trade on board. Later coal trade with Wales was big and trade goods were expanded to cattle, butter and fish as well.
During the 17. and 18. Century privateers settled in Minehead as well who attacked mainly Spanish and French ships. Early in the 18. Century forty vessels were at home in Minehead. Not only privateers used the harbor pilgrims as well started from here to their pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella. Trading ships enlarged their routes and travelled as far as Virginia and the West Indies. At the beginning of the 19. Century other ports with better premises started to take over and finally trade and fishing ceased. Only pleasure steamers still frequented the harbor. More and more tourism became the main source of income. Today only a few small boats can be found in the harbor.
Beside the still very popular Butlin's Resort which attracts a lot of tourists the neighboring Exmoor National park is a popular region for hikers. Minehead is the starting point for the South West Coast Path as well which from here follows the coast till Poole in Dorset - the longest hiking path in the UK. You can find the oldest golf club of Somerset in Minehead and of course water sports are offered as well. But as the season only starts mid-April Minehead was very quiet during the UK Open except when the Dartfans invaded the supermarkets in the morning or the pubs and clubs late in the evening. I think I met exactly two persons up on North Hill who looked like real tourists.
The last day in Minehead started with the quarterfinals, which were played - as all matches on the last day - on main stage. Three of the quarterfinals were more one-sided and Terry Jenkins, Mervyn King and Adrian Lewis had no problems to progress while in the fourth quarterfinal Michael van Gerwen had a hard time against Ian White and just won 10:8.
During the break I did a not really planned interview and after that emptied are few more cups of hat tea.
/ Then it was semi-finals time!!! While Adrian Lewis win over Mervyn King was not really a surprise - though it was astonishing King managed to prevail so far despite his back problems - the other semi-final was a thriller with a surprising outcome - tournament favourite Michael van Gerwen was eliminated from the tournament by a determined Terry Jenkins full of fighting spirit. In the final it seemed Jenkins had run out of steam after so much hard work - he couldn't keep up with Lewis who showed a brilliant performance. Despite the defeat Jenkins didn't look devastated - it was a very friendly and high spirited atmosphere on stage after the match.
Terry Jenkins to be sure was one of the surprise players of the tournament, he showed himself in much better form then the weeks and month before the tournament and he eliminated several really strong opponents from the competition. A pleasant surprise was that Mensur Suljovic reached the quarterfinals - I hadn't expected this to happen. Two of the amateur qualifiers had reached second round, Youth Tour players Adan Kirk sent Phil Taylor and Peter Wright packing - all in all a very interesting and high class event.
Nevertheless I was not quite happy - the real UK Open atmosphere never developed. It couldn't happen because of those three different venues the tournament was played. You only were aware what happened in the venue you had chosen. And you had to make a choice as - though the venues were not far apart - they were too far apart to be really able to wander from board to board to follow all the action.
There were quite a lot of dartfans in Minehead though there would have been enough room for some more in the big tent venue while the two smaller ones were in times very crowded. The atmosphere all in all was good. It was quite a good idea to reduce the tournament from four to three days. The journey there was not so bad I first feared and I can well imagine to return to Minehead.