Category: Darts

• Welshman says ‘team ethic didn’t show with England’

• Defending champions booed in ‘rubbish’ performance

Gerwyn Price said the lack of unity shown by Luke Littler and Luke Humphries contributed towards England’s “rubbish” performance at the World Cup of Darts.

Price and his Welsh compatriot Jonny Clayton finished runners-up in Frankfurt after losing a last-leg shootout against the Northern Irish duo Josh Rock and Daryl Gurney.

• World’s top two players suffer shock defeat

• German duo ease to 8-4 victory in Frankfurt

Luke Littler and Luke Humphries were left reeling as England’s hopes of retaining the World Cup of Darts were torn apart by Germany. The world’s top two players slipped to an 8-4 second round defeat at the Eissporthalle in Frankfurt, where Martin Schindler and Ricardo Pietreczko made the most of the backing of a partisan home crowd to seal a comprehensive victory.

Littler and Humphries, who both received MBEs in King Charles’s birthday honours, were made to pay for missed doubles, with the 18-year-old in particular turning in an off-colour display in a country where he has endured previous disappointments.

• World No 1 triumphs 11-8 despite wobbly start

• Elated Humphries hails ‘the title I was missing’

There have been seminal moments in time on darts’ journey: the highs and the lows. But there have always been breakthrough moments that have opened the door for a bigger future and as Luke Humphries lifted the Premier League Darts trophy aloft inside a sold-out O2, it was not unreasonable to assume where this game heads next.

In the 1980s, it was Eric Bristow’s pomp and circumstance while dominating in the slightly more low-key venues of Stoke’s Jollees Cabaret Club and the Lakeside. Then it was Phil Taylor who dominated the PDC’s formative years and, yes, while he had the odd rival along the way, it is a fair argument that the 16-time world champion single-handedly broke down barriers for the sport.

• Dutch player fails to make playoffs after 6-2 defeat

• Luke Littler sets points record by seeing off Humphries

Michael van Gerwen was knocked out of the Premier League after failing in his win-or-bust Sheffield mission as a record-breaking Luke Littler won a sixth night. The seven-times Premier League champion has had a miserable campaign and came into the final weekly night having to win to stay in contention for the playoffs.

But Van Gerwen fell at the first hurdle, losing 6-2 to Nathan Aspinall, whose victory guaranteed him a top-four spot and completed the lineup for next week’s playoffs at the O2 in London.

• World champion’s vehicle vandalised in Norwich
• Teenager defeated Luke Humphries in Friday exhibition

Luke Littler has revealed his van was vandalised while the world champion was participating in an exhibition event in Norwich.

The 18-year-old defeated rival Luke Humphries in the MODUS Icons of Darts event in the city on Friday night but returned to his vehicle to discover the rear window had been smashed.

• Aspinall beats Dobey 6-1 in final to boost playoff chances
• Littler’s win against Humphries enough for No 1 seeding

Nathan Aspinall beat Chris Dobey 6-1 to take victory on night 15 of the Premier League in Aberdeen and close in on the playoffs, while Gerwyn Price earlier hit a nine-dart finish and Luke Littler made sure of top spot at the O₂.

Aspinall – who coasted past Stephen Bunting 6-1 in the semi-finals – built on a couple of early breaks over Dobey to establish a solid lead. After Dobey, who knocked Littler out to reach the final, lost his throw again in the sixth leg, he then missed two more darts at a double in the next as Aspinall came back to land double 10.

• Home favourite wins 6-5 to book place in playoffs
• United fan Littler goaded by Leeds fans all night

The home favourite Luke Humphries continued the feelgood factor in Leeds by winning night 14 of the Premier League, beating Luke Littler in the final. Littler, a Manchester United fan, had earlier mocked Leeds fans in his opening match

The city has been celebrating the football club’s promotion from the Championship this week and the buoyant supporters got to watch their adopted favourite book his place in the playoffs later this month.

Booing and flashpoints are commonplace in a sport further along on a journey that others are taking to varying degrees

Let me tell you the moment I realised Boris Johnson was fucked. It was late 2021 and there had been some talk about parties in Downing Street during Covid, but in these febrile siloed times, when the entirety of human existence has blurred into a single personalised scrolling feed, who even knows what constitutes “the news” any more? Who knows what fragments of reality ever emerge from Westminster’s furiously spinning vortex of unintelligible jargon: prorogue, backstop, Aukus, Slapps? What is a Morgan McSweeney and what time does it start?

But then came the magical night, a few days before Christmas, when the darts crowd turned. As Florian Hempel swept to a routine first-round win against Martin Schindler (bit of an upset, to be honest, but you never write off Flo at the Palace), Alexandra Palace rocked to strains of “Boris is a cunt”. Fans held up signs reading “Work Event”, drew pictures of cheese and wine and gleefully held them up to the cameras. And you realise, with a piercing we’ve-lost-Cronkite clarity: oh wow, he’s fucked.

• Teenager triumphs 6-4 in Birmingham final
• ‘I am very confident I will finish top of the table’

Luke Littler fought back to see off Michael van Gerwen 6-4 to win night 13 of the Premier League in Birmingham, setting a new record with a fifth overall evening victory of the season.

Littler, the world champion, had beaten Stephen Bunting 6-5 in the opening quarter-final at the Utilita Arena, leaving Bunting still bottom of the table, before also edging past Nathan Aspinall in a last-leg decider.

• Player suspended for betting on 88 matches
• ‘If you fix matches you face serious consequences’

Former World Championship semi-finalist Andy Jenkins has been handed an 11-year ban and £17,580 fine for match-fixing in darts.

Jenkins was found guilty of fixing 12 Modus Super Series matches between 22 February 2002 and 5 July 2023 and also passing information on to bettors.

• Van Gerwen comes back from 4-0 down to beat Littler 6-5
• Price defeats world No 1 Humphries 6-4 in final

Luke Littler threw away the chance to silence the baying Liverpool crowd as Gerwyn Price claimed victory on night 12 of the Premier League.

Littler, booed on to stage on the banks of the Mersey owing to his allegiance to Manchester United, capitulated against Michael van Gerwen in the quarter-finals of the weekly competition.

• Dobey gets first nightly win in two years
• ‘I’m a fighter and I’ll be here until the end’

Luke Littler’s wait for a record-breaking fifth nightly win of a single Premier League season goes on as Chris Dobey reigned on night 11 in Rotterdam.

Dobey took his first nightly win in two years with a 6-2 victory over Stephen Bunting, who saw off Littler in the semi-finals. After avoiding a scare to edge out Rob Cross 6-5, Littler fell 3-2 behind to Bunting and then drew the ire of the Dutch crowd when he spent time changing his barrels – to no avail, as Bunting charged into a 5-2 lead.