Q & A January 2021: Wim Blokpoel

Wim Blokpoel - Welcome to our first monthly q & a. From this month on, we’ll have a guest every month, who will answer 10 questions which have been asked by you guys! For this first month we will have the q & a with Dutch Darts owner Wim Blokpoel, but do you want to be our guest next month or do you know someone you would like to see as guest next month? You can always message us!

Question 1 - Who do you think will be Holland’s next world champion? (Henry Cheal) - I think the most obvious one is Michael van Gerwen. He’s only won 3 world titles which is too few for the player he is. I’m sure he’ll win much more of them though, and he’ll probably be the first Dutchman to do so. Other potential world champions are for me, to name a few, Jeffrey de Zwaan, Dirk van Duijvenbode and Kevin Doets. 

Question 2 - What do you think Barney can achieve on his return to the PDC? (Henry Cheal) - In the first place, I think he can earn his tourcard back, probably this year or otherwise next year. After that, it depends on how good he now is mentally. He’s one of the best players on this planet in playing darts, but the last years of his career his mental health destroyed everything. If he can get this solved, I think he can be top 16, and maybe even win majors and if he’s very impressive even top 8. If his mentality stays the same as it was recent years however, he’ll probably strugle to even stay in the top 64 or might not even play much pro tour tournaments which would be the worst case scenario.

Question 3 - Do you think Dutch darts is better off in the long term without Barney or not? (Henry Cheal) - First of all, Raymond van Barneveld is the player who made Dutch darts the way it is at this moment. He made the Netherlands become a good darts country, which ended in Darts shops, darts tournaments in the Netherlands and even Darts shown on national television. The highlight in this was the Lakeside final between van Barneveld and Klaasen which was seen by more than 5 milion people, with not even 16 milion people living in the Netherlands back then, so that was ridiculous. I think without Raymond van Barneveld Dutch darts is smaller, if we look at how many people watch darts here this has declined over recent years, especially this year with around 100.000-200.000 people watching in most tournaments, and not more than 600.000 during the world’s, which had been milions of people usually. So darts would be smaller, but would still be big as Dirk van Duijvenbode came into talkshows, and national news after readhing thr last 8 which does show we can still have a Darts hype without RVB.

Question 4 - Who is Dutch number one material in your opinion? (Dartsfan03) - Great but also tough question. Given the fact I think MVG will stay Dutch number one for much more years, the older players won’t be anymore. We might have some big talented players who could be the new number one, Jeffrey de Zwaan despite his bad 2020 is still an incredible player who can play so much better than he is atm. Another one is Dirk van Duijvenbode who is mentally incredibly strong and can also win very tense and difficult matches which helps getting further into tournaments. Some very young players like Luc Peters or Kevin Doets might as well, for Luc it’s too early to say, otherwise we might create another Justin van Tergouw who was called new number one by everyone but didn’t peform great after that. Doets however is another incredible talent who is still very young, so when MVG retires he’ll probably still be a great player and possible Dutch number one. An outsider is Martijn Kleermaker, who isn’t that old either and can play brilliant, although he has to be more consistent.

Question 5 - Who do you think are the next generation of Dutch darts? (Sportsman) - We are good at giving young players huge pressure by saying they could be top 16, top 32, new Dutch heroes etc, so it’s hard to say. But I can see players like Luc Peters and Kevin Doets who I mentioned earlier becoming a new great generation. I also think Justin van Tergouw might become much better, as he shown signs of what he can before. There are loads of young talents so I won’t name all of them, but I also still think if Wessel Nijman can come back again and he’ll have to be incredibly mentally strong for that, he might be a great player as well, as he has talent but we obviously won’t see him back soon. Another guy is Damian Mol who surprised me at the challenge tour this year, and finally we have Geert Nentjes, Niels Zonneveld and Owen Roelofs wh9 are all common names these days, and are still very young big talents.

Question 6 - Can Barney still be top 5 of the Dutch? (Dartsfan03) - I already said in another question it depends on his mentality, but of course it is possible, as I already said he can possibly be top 16 again. For top 5 of thr Dutch you have to be number 28 of the world at least at this moment, and I expect with van Duijvenbode to rise, this will be higher soon. But I think van Barneveld can be top 16 earlier than the likes of Noppert, Wattimena and van der Voort will be, so the answer is, yes he can. 

Question 7 - Do you think that the Netherlands are being treated unfairly in regards to their relevance to the Eurotour? Opposite to for example Germany? (Till) - Yes. Absolutely. But not just Eurotour, PDC tournaments in general. Of course we used to have 2 nights Premier league and 2 Eurotours, last year 1 eurotour and the World series finals. Of course Germany has loads of talents and loads of eurotour tournaments, but why not one more in the Netherlands, as there are much more Dutch top 32 players than German. And obviously thr PDC wants to discover new countries, but they have to watch out they don’t forget the already discovered countries otherwise the countries could lose their love for darts. 1 night premier league is enough, but what I would like to see the most is a small major in Holland every year, like the World series finals, or maybe The Masters of even World Grand Prix, as the crowds have been quite small in Ireland recently.

Question 8 - Do you think Danny Noppert will win a major? (Henry Cheal) - Yes. I call majors ranked tv tournaments, and it won’t be a big one but at least once he’ll win something like PC Finals or European Championship, or which I can really see him winning, UK Open. Danny won’t be a world champion, or top 4 player, but I do think he’ll win a major, he just needs to get his floor form on tv, which he has in some tournaments but not consistently or enough. 

Question 9 - Do you think MVG will overtake Eric Bristow’s achievement of winning 5 World Championship’s? (Henry Cheal) - Yes. He already won 3, so he only needs 2 to get the same amount, which he certainly will. 5 is the lowest amount I can see him winning, but MVG’s ultimate goal in darts is to be the Dutch player with the most world titles. And obviously not only Bristow has 5 of them, but so does van Barneveld. So if MVG want to overtake that, he has to win at least 6, and when he wins 5 which he will in my opinion, he’ll surely go on to win the 6th one, so the answer is yes. 

Question 10 - Who would you like to see as guest next month? - You don’t have to be a great darts player to be a guest in our q & a (obivously as I’m a guest as well lol) so don’t be ashamed to ask if you can be a guest once as well, and give suggestions of people you would like to see as a guest, because I think it will be a nice read when we can get some nice guests for these q & a’s. So let’s see who will be our monthly guest in february!