Mark "Mile High" Hylton - 2007 Diary

Update Mark Hylton Is Going Places.

As airline cabin crew Mark Hylton is used to going places quickly, but this year he has started to travel quickly up the ladder in the world of darts. Last Weekend he competed in, and performed well in, the 2007 Warwickshire Invitational Classic which was run by Dave Wykes who virtually runs darts in Warwicksire. The competition was held at Cherry T Sports & Social Club in Lythall Lane in Coventry on Sat 8th December. The grand knock out started at 1pm with the players trying to win the £1,000 1st Prize or at least the £500 Runners Up prize. For those less successful £200 was awarded to the Semi Finalists, £100 for the Last 8 and £50 went to the Last 16. The competition was a Round Robin that hads a total of 48 Entries who played in 8 groups of 6 and 2 Qualifiers from each group went into to the last 16. The games were the best of 7 legs and the entry fee was £50 per man.

Many well known and local players took part including Chris Mason, Wayne Jones, Andy Hamilton, David Platt, Steve Hine, Colin Osbourne, Paul Hogan, Kevin Painter and our very own Mark Hylton. Ladies World Class Superstar Trina Gulliver also entered, but such was the standard she finished bottom of her group and only managed to beat Brian Jones 4-2 losing to all the others she played.

hammer Mark Hylton was best of the group in which he played, (Group 3 ) at one stage, having beaten Gary Welding in 16, 15, 12 and 12 darts ie; 4-0. Mark hit a brilliant 109 point average over his 4 winning legs which is up there with Phil Taylors best averages. In one of the 12 dart legs he had a 154 checkout and in the last he hit a 121 checkout. He went on to beat Kevin Painter 4-1, then lost to Kirk Shepherd 4-3 and Dave Honey 4-2 before finally losing to Stephen Bunting 4-2. However he finished a respectable 4rth in his group before saying he, "Might have done better had it not been such a long day." He added that, "It had been a great experience and he had learned a lot."

The last 4 were Wayne Jones V Andy Hamilton and Darren Johnson V Kevin Painter. The two Finalists were Andy Hamilton V Darren Johnson with Andy winning the match 7-5.

Next week, the 15th of December sees Mark Hylton playing in the Kineton Open at Stratford where there is a £500 first prize. Mark is hoping to repeat the success he had on November the 2nd when he won the £300 first prize in the Worcester Open that was held in Droitwich, Warwickshire.

Update 20/12/07

Since writing the above article on Mark's successes earlier this year, he competed in the Kineton Open on Saturday the 15th December and came Runner Up winning £200 in prize money. He lost in the final 6-4 to P.D.C.'s Pete Allen who took the £500 first prize.

The competition had 66 entries including quite a few well known players, including Dave Honey and Andy Smith, some of whom went out fairly early on.

The first round saw Mark beat a cracking Danish player called Preben Krabben. In the Second round Mark played Kevin Dowling who is the Midlands Open champ for 2007 and beat him 4-3. In the quarters he played "Muffin Man," P.D.C. Steve Hine and produced a good result of 4-1. Mark then went on to beat Leicester Open winner Nigel Heydon 5-2 in the Semis.

Mark said that he was playing well although he was still not 100% comfortable, but his determination was getting results.

Mark Hylton is definitely starting to gain recognition amongst the elite players and in the dart world generally as he has been asked to do a couple of exhibitions in Stratford in the New Year after Saturday's excellent performance. Mark said about the invitation, "HAVE TO SAY I FEEL A BIT DAUNTED BY THAT!"

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Many Thanks to Neil Hutchings for all his support, encouragement and guidance. Also, Thank You, Vivienne of Vivienne Bailey Photography for the truly fantastic photo's.

Mark "Mile High" Hylton - 2007 Diary

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