BBC SPORT | Darts | Klaasen sets up all-Dutch final

Jelle Klaasen celebrates his semi-final win
Lakeside BBC coverage schedule
Dutch darts sensation Jelle Klaasen booked his place in the final of the Lakeside World Darts Championship after a 6-3 win over Shaun Greatbatch.

The 21-year-old Klaasen, in his debut week at the competition, recovered superbly from going 3-1 down early on.

He kept his cool for some superb play, sealing the win with double 20.

So there you have it, debut man Klaasen makes it all the way, will my earlier prediction run true? Which also begs the question (if he wins) why the heck didn’t I stick a bet on him! I mean his odds now are something like 7/4 which means a £3 bet would return a little over £8 so not really worth. At the start of the championship his odds were 100/1 and probably after the first round that may have gone down to something like 80/1 so a £3 bet returns.. yup £240. Ah well, a fair point is that maybe if I put a bet on he wouldn’t have done so well but I hate having the feeling that I shoulda gone with my gut. That way if he lost, he lost but I wouldn’t regret not doing it. Still I wish him all the best and would <Keving Keegan mode> “love it, love it” </Keving Keegan mode> if he won.

In other sporting news Man Utd were humbled by our city rivals Manchester City. This meant that not only did City win, so did Chelsea, because if they win tomorrow the gap to the top widens. That said, once Chelsea had their lead, I knew it would just be a race for 2nd. Its fun now though to see everyone bitching that Chelsea are ruining the game with their big money spending and that they’re dominating the sport etc, etc. Not too long ago the same was said and Utd and look at things now. Football clubs go through patches where they are almost unbeatable. Liverpool have done it, Arsenal have done it and Utd have done it and now, Chelsea are on their way to doing it. Its nice for once not to hear people whine that its Utd spoiling our sport but on the other hand if they just used their heads they’ll realise that even though the have the money and right now all their players are playing as a team this will not always be the case. Once the Lampards & Terrys of their team retire or leave the struggle to replace them will occur. Sure they have top money to buy “the best” but that doesn’t mean to say they’ll gel as well as the last did. Given time Chelseas grip on the Premiership will wain and either on of the aforementioned teams will rise again or a new boy will enter the fold. Either way just sit back and wait; it will happen.

Moving on finally saw Jarhead which, if you get the chance, you should go see as imho it’s a very good film. It’s very much in the mold of Full Metal Jacket in the sense its pretty much a one soldiers view of the war they’re in. We go through boot camp (though it’s not quite as harsh as FMJ) and then most of the film is in Iraq during the first war over there. It starts with operation “Desert Shield” and then progress to “Desert Storm.” Now I really don’t want to get in to the meat of the film as I’ll just spoil it for you but I left feeling slightly more upbeat about the film industry in that at least there are still some new, original movies being made. True I said it has hints of FMJ but it’s originial in its own right. Sam Mendes directs this film beautifully and some of the shots and views in this film are breathtaking. The acting as well is great with Jamie Foxx putting in another Oscar worthy performance along with Jake Gyllenhaal. Its a very thinking mans war movie, theres very little action, lots of character building and for me, a lot of thinking on my part. With any luck its success at the box office may provoke Hollywood to make more of these types of movies rather than re-makes, sequals and brain dead movies.