To be updated on a regular basis.
Pre-Tournament
- Ratajski wins the Winmau World Masters at a canter (beating the top two seeds) in front of a rapidly emptying Bridlington, wins a Lakeside spot, and then promptly sticks two fingers up to the BDO by declining the spot and choosing the PDC version which he hadnt even publicly qualified for at this point
- The above means that NONE of the 2017 BDO TV event winners are at Lakeside as Machin (who won the WDT) didnt even bother coming over to try and qualify.
- Ex Lakeside finalist Jeff Smith also sticks two fingers up by choosing the PDC event in favour of sitting at home and being loyal
- The draw not being done until over two months after the field has been finalised
- The draw not ending up on TV, despite talk of it being and Winmau even Tweeting this fact
- The draw not even done live, Richard Ashdown claiming it was done earlier the same day despite Fordham needing to be at an exbo in Torquay that day also. Hmm...
- The BDO (or Des) announcing from Tenerife that the draw was to be released onto the Channel 4/BDO websites at 7pm, hilarity ensuing when Channel 4 put it on their website at 4.45pm causing massive seething from numerous people including Ross Montgomery
- The draw featuring at least 4 players who had their names spelt incorrectly (Darryl "Daryl" Fitton, Chris "Gilliand" Gilliland, Umit "Uygonsozlu" Uygunsozlu and Vicky "Prium" Pruim)
- Belgians being shown as Dutch in graphics at the end of the draw, despite them being shown with the correct nationality during the drawing of the balls..
- Auntie Sue writing a ridiculous War and Peace write-up on the draw only minutes after 7pm (proving it must have been written ages back), claiming it was a "draw and a half" (at least it wasnt fekked up this time like her husband did last year), and claiming Paula Jacklin, who has never won a TV match in a major event, is in "form"
- Absolutely no mention of the other broadcast partner (BT Sport) during the draw, either visually or verbally.
- Still about 200 tickets left for the final as of the 7th December.
- Playing contracts reportedly withholding prize money from players for a "significant period of time"
- In addition, the players being made to sign not one but TWO contracts as a revised one was sent out after they had the first lot all sent back in.
- Lakeside still not able to confirm actual session times as of the 7th December.
- Still no sign of the drawn matches in text form on the BDO site, only the video clips, 5 days after the draw.
- Prize money reportedly at a standstill again, all tiers unchanged since 2014 (Prelim losers have never seen an uplift) with the winners cheque not increased since 2010. (confirmed prize money standstill by BDO FB on 12th Dec)
- Defending Champion openly stating he will switch to the PDC should he not defend his title.
- An order of play still not available 6 days after the draw.
- The initial order of play shows Chris Harris as being from Northern Ireland, when he is in fact Welsh
- Furthermore nobody is still able to spell Vicky Pruim's name right, again featuring as "Vicky Prium" on the order of play.
- The BDO on Facebook saying that the Youth final is part of the ladies first round
- The BDO using the worst possible picture quality known to man for Tricia Wright
- The BDO release the full 9 day schedule which contains a multitude of howlers: “Scottt” Baker, “Derek” Telnekes, Michael “Uterbuchner” and “Gert” de Vos all feature as typos, Andy Baetens is Dutch (again), there is no Day 8 and two “Day 7” listings, they can't be bothered inserting the names of the two Youth finalists despite them being known for months, and the 1st mens semi final in the afternoon session is listed as starting at 19:00.
- Partner of board member using their shared FB account to abuse the partner of Darry Fitton and Bob Anderson, as well as the Cheshire county chairman, in a discussion about one of the howlers above.
- FB post from the BDO claiming the event is the "world's biggest darts tournament", attracting some bemusement in the comments.
- A little bit of nepotism as the wife of a board member (who has never won a TV match in a major event in her life) is given plum free to air slot on TV for her first match, whilst top seed Deta Hedman is lumbered with evening session tucked away on a pay TV channel
- Viagogo selling Lakeside tickets with a large picture of PDC player Raymond van Barneveld emblazoned at the top of the page
- Lakeside proudly declaring on Twitter that the event contains the "world's best 56 players", 16 of them are women and that's before you even point out the obvious. They also missed out the two youth players from the total...
- The Lakeside darts site has decided to spell a players name a different way twice on the same page: 'Pengiran Mohamed" and "Pengiram Mohamed"
- Yet again the BDO get a "journalist" from Twitter to work for free for them and do all of their match reports.
- Rhian Griffiths claiming on a Gofundme begging page that Lakeside, other than on Channel 4 in the UK (missing out BT Sport which is a howler in itself), will be shown on "various other broadcasters around the world", when the event has no TV deal outside the UK/Ireland and will solely be on Youtube
- The BDO taking three attempts to deliver a Happy Xmas message whilst promoting Lakeside at the same time, riddled with spelling/grammatical errors, a squiggly spell check line, and the line that "fancy dress is encouraged"
- One of the top seeds at the event going onto the BDO FB page to encourage the fans to watch illegal streams of the event rather than pay for the coverage the BDO have secured on TV.
- BDO Twitter issuing a Tweet more or less hoping the pesky foreigner Darius Labanauskas loses to Scott Mitchell, which was hastily deleted.
- BDO Twitter issueing a Tweet claiming Ross Montgomery won the Jersey Open...when it was actually Scott Waites.
- Sharon Prins having her name changed to "Sharon Prinns" on the awful PowerPoint thing on the BDO site/FB page
- Paul Hogan (unqualified) featuring in the C4 promo
- Wayne Warren (Welsh) having his nationality changed to English on the awful PowerPoint thing on the BDO site/FB page, the latter with links to "page not found" on the C4 website.