Greenside Social Club

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The perpetual trophy up for grabs each year

The Champion's trophy
This competition is dedicated to Kevin Dawson who was tragically killed in an incident within the Terminal 5 complex at Heathrow Airport on October 27th 2007.
Kevin was aged 44 and was father of 6 children, Dan, Steve, Ben, Joe, Charlie and Abby.
 Kevin was the son of Jean and Peter and was also the brother of Sophia and Ian.

Kevin's 6 children, 4 of which were at the competition

The competition saw players and friends come from all over to pay their respects to Kev Dawson and his family. A tremendous turnout of 50 players for the competition including Super League and County dart players from London, Surrey and Sussex amongst others, turned this first ever tribute evening into a wonderful occasion. With the format being a double to start ~ double to finish system, some surprises occurred en route to the semi finals. Some of the players involved are listed below:

Female England International Tricia Wright of Kent, was beaten by Battersea super league player Kenny Vince. Kev's younger brother Ian, who plays for London in the county league, was beaten by fellow London county player, Robby Morris in the second round 2-1. Battersea's Dave Deruyter was beaten by West Hammer Johnny Stefano, and Richie Buckell also of Battersea, was surprisingly beaten by Vauxhall's Chris Dennis in the first round. The other family members who took part were Kev's sister Sophie, who was beaten by Richard Morgan, Kev's 2 eldest boys, Dan who was beaten by Dave Goodwin of London, and Steve who lost to West Hammer Justin Thurley. Brett Dawson, Kev's nephew aged just 10 years old, played his first ever dart competition but was beaten by Kirk Deruyter, but Brett did manage to start both legs by hitting a double. As the competition progressed into the latter stages, we came to a final 4 to make up the semi finals. Rob Metcalf of Sussex Youth was up against Johnny Stefano in one semi, and the other saw Graham Parker from Horley in Surrey, up against London's Robby Morris. The first player to reach the final was West Hammer Johnny Stefano who played a steady game to beat Rob Metcalf 3-1. In the other semi final, Graham Parker forced Robby Morris into a 3-0 submission with Robby probably playing his worse game of the night. So we had the final....

Johnny Stefano V Graham Parker

Both players were extremely proud to be playing in this first ever final. Graham got off to a flyer and took the first leg comfortably. Johnny was struggling to get to the level he had played all night to get this far, and Graham was piling on the pressure. Graham took the second leg with Johnny not far behind, but now it was an uphill struggle for Johnny and Graham took full advantage to take the third leg as well. Well done to both players who played steady darts all evening and congratulations to Graham Parker, the first ever Kev Dawson Memorial Champion.

Johnny Stefano receives his runner up trophy from Kev's brother Ian Dawson

 

Graham Parker receives his Kev Dawson Memorial Champion 2007 trophies from Ian

Overall it was a fantastic evening and everyone who attended should be proud of themselves for helping our family achieve this memorial for our Kev. I hope we see you all, plus maybe a few more, next year. Thanks to you all.

Next years competition will hopefully be on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon some time around the first anniversary of Kevin Dawson's death. This will mean it will be sometime near to the weekend the clocks change at the end of October. The reason Ian Dawson is hoping to do this is so that those that have traveled some distance to get to the venue, can make a weekend of it. Ian is hoping to have some sort of function on after the darts competition, something like a karaoke or some sort of cabaret. Details shall be entered onto this website sometime in the Summer 2008.