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Daily Record
4 days ago
- Sport
- Daily Record
Luke Humphries fires back at Premier League darts critics as yet another date is added
Champ Cool Hand prefers trophies to cheques and sticks up for PL system Champion Luke Humphries has hit back at critics of the Premier League set-up. The world No.1 took the title at the end of a 17-week darts marathon which turned off many observers. Humphries and Luke Littler clashed for a ninth time in the campaign in the Final and Raymond van Barneveld is amongst the snipers who think that's way too much and is taking away the spectacle. But, as PDC chief Barry Hearn revealed plans to add Antwerp in Belgium to the PL schedule in 2026, Cool Hand responded to enquiries about changing the tournament's current make-up and said: 'Can you give me advice on how you change it? If me and Luke play in every Players and Euro Tour, every major and every Premier League, because that is what the fans, they want all these darts, if we make the final of every tournament, you are going to see us play 40-50 times a year. 'The only reason we play each other so much is because we end up making the finals. I don't know how you stop it. I think as much as everyone wants to change the Premier League, I am happy to be in it. 'I don't care what it does, what you do, whether it's a league format, a singular night, it doesn't stop the fact that me and Luke might play each 10-15 times a year. That's because of how much darts there are. We can play each other next weekend if we make the final [in Copenhagen]. 'The magnitude of darts now, we are playing every week and sometimes you are playing the Players Championship, two or three times a week. Then a Euro Tour. If you are the two best players in the world performing so well and making the final every week, you will keep playing each other every week. 'I would not even suggest it. I honestly don't know. It's up to the PDC. I'm happy playing it. I am not going to be the one that wants to change it. Of course, they do change it, I am happy with that as well. 'But for me, I won't be sitting here moaning, saying I don't want to play this or I want to play in this. I am happy to be involved. The PDC know what they are doing. If this is the best format for them, then they will do it. It still does good numbers, the fans still come, still gets good numbers on Sky Sports. They know what they are doing. Not for people like me to change things, it's up for people like me to work hard and win titles. Let's not change it.' Such is the schedule, top stars such as Humphries get little time to savour successes. After his triumph at London's O2, he smiled: 'I want to have a beer and celebrate.' But asked if he'd allow himself a treat, he said: 'It's hard. I don't know. What do you treat yourself to really? I have bought a brand new house. I have bought a new car. I don't know. I am not one of those people that goes out and just wastes my money on nothing. I will have a nice holiday. That will be something. I don't think about money, I think about winning big titles and the money comes with it. 'When you pick up trophies like this, you don't think about how relentless it is. It makes it all worthwhile.'
Daily Record
26-05-2025
- Sport
- Daily Record
Luke Littler prize money as darts sensation closes in on major milestone at Premier League Darts Finals Night
The teenage sensation is looking to continue a brilliant 2025 at Thursday's Premier League Darts finale Lethal Luke Little r can smash the £1million mark for 2025 if he comes out on top again in Thursday's BetMGM Premier League showpiece. The outstanding World Champion is aiming to go back-to-back at London's O2 having won the crown in his debut year 12 months ago. Littler has already claimed two major titles along with a Euro Tour triumph in Belgium and, incredibly, another trophy lift will whip him through the seven figures in prize money for the calendar year with over half of it still to go as PDC chiefs and sponsors lavish big purses to the key events. The teenager scooped £500,000 for winning the Paddy Power World Championship at the beginning of January and £110,000 for securing the Ladbrokes UK Open title in March. With additional prize-money gained from a quarter-final run at the Winmau World Masters and ProTour and European Tour events also boosted by six nightly wins in the regular 16-week league campaign worth £10,000 each, the youngster could top the million mark in combined ranking and non-ranking cash by grabbing the £275,000 first prize on offer at London's O2. Littler meets Gerwyn Price in the first semi-final on Thursday and is looking forward to the big night as he said: 'I'm very happy to finish top of the table and break more records once again. "I'm ready for the semi-finals. It's The O2, I've been there before, I've won a semi-final before, but so has Gerwyn. I know it's going to be an incredible night, it's going to be a sell-out and I'm really looking forward to it.' If Littler defeats Price, the World Champion will meet either Luke Humphries or Nathan Aspinall, who clash in the evening's second semi-final. You can get all the news you need on our dedicated Rangers and Celtic pages, and sign up to our newsletters to make sure you never miss a beat throughout the season. We're also WhatsApp where we bring all the latest breaking news and transfer gossip directly to you phone. Join our Rangers community here and our Celtic community here. Tune in to Hotline Live every Sunday to Thursday and have your say on the biggest issues in Scottish football and listen to Record Sport's newest podcast, Game On, every Friday for your sporting fix, all in bitesize chunks.
The Irish Sun
12-05-2025
- Sport
- The Irish Sun
Michael van Gerwen's darts woes go from bad to worse with humiliating defeat to little-known prospect
MICHAEL VAN GERWEN has been sent reeling again - as unwanted stats add up for the Dutch legend in 2025. Outsider Dominik Gruellich inflicted MVG's sixth first-round loss of this year's ProTour. 2 Michael van Gerwen's struggle went on with final-leg agony Credit: Rex Such lows are hard to take for the frustrated three-time world champion. Van Gerwen's season has not been a total nightmare. Most notably, he picked up his 38th Euro Tour title at the German Grand Prix in April, with a nine-darter to boot. But the 36-year-old enters night 15 of Premier League Darts in Aberdeen on Thursday this week without a nightly win so far. READ MORE IN DARTS Howevger, he's still fourth in the Prem table - just ahead of So it's Mighty Mike's ProTour problems that might conceern him most. And at Players Championship 15 he slumped 6-5 to German star Gruellich in the 23-year-old's home-country town of Hildesheim. Yet MVG could consider himself lucky compared to English ace Most read in Darts However, that was due to Gilding's flight rather than his flights. The 54-year old didn't even make it to the tournament - as his flight was held up. Gilding's social media team blamed "KLM'S last flight... being delayed by two hours". 2 The Dutchman crashed out to German outsider Dominik Gruellich Credit: Getty They added: "Andrew would have missed his connecting flight to Hannover." Krzysztof Ratajski went on to win Players Championship 15. The Pole defeated Dave Chisnall 8-4 to scoop the £15,000 top prize.
The Sun
12-05-2025
- Sport
- The Sun
Michael van Gerwen's darts woes go from bad to worse with humiliating defeat to little-known prospect
MICHAEL VAN GERWEN has been sent reeling again - as unwanted stats add up for the Dutch legend in 2025. Outsider Dominik Gruellich inflicted MVG's sixth first-round loss on this year's 2025 ProTour. 2 Such lows are hard to take for the three-time world champion. Van Gerwen 's season has not been a total nightmare. Most notably, he picked up his 38th Euro Tour title at the German Grand Prix in April, with a nine-darter to boot. And the 36-year-old enters night 15 of Premier League Darts in Aberdeen on Thursday this week without a nightly win so far. But he's still fourth in that table - just ahead of Nathan Aspinall in the battle for a place in the Play-Offs on May 29. So it's his ProTour problems that will concern Mighty Mike most. And at Players Championship 15 he slumped 6-5 to German star Gruellich in the 23-year-old's home-country town of Hildesheim, Germany But MVG might think he was lucky compared to English ace Andrew Gilding. But it was due to hsi flight rather than his flights. The 54-year old didn't even make it to the tournament - as his flight was held up. Gilding's social media team blamed "KLM'S last flight... being delayed by two hours". They added: "Andrew would have missed his connecting flight to Hannover." Krzysztof Ratajski went on to win Players Championship 15. The Pole defeated Dave Chisnall 8-4 to scoop the £15,000 top prize.
The Guardian
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Untameable darts crowds tell us about the future of sport – and maybe society too
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. The wider lesson here, of course, is that you never mess with the darts crowd: a lesson all dart players inevitably learn one way or another. You cannot harness the crowd. You cannot beat the crowd. At best you may be able to manage the crowd. The crowd is wild and untameable, gives and takes its affection with a deliciously wanton promiscuity, and most importantly pays your wages. And yet in recent months something definitely seems to have shifted in these loud windowless arenas: a new numinous madness brewing among the traffic cones and the pools of spilt Amstel. No sport has leaned more enthusiastically than darts into the concept of the spectator as spectacle: the costumes, the signs, the £60,000 cash prize for a nine-darter. No sport has so drastically reconfigured itself around the whims and values of its paying public. During the last world championship a third-round game between Nathan Aspinall and Andrew Gilding was actually stopped so the players could watch a fan downing an entire four-pint pitcher on the big screen. These days darts is less a classic working class sport than a middle class cosplay of a working class sport: a mass fete of boys, bags and booze. At Ally Pally or the Premier League you are far less likely to see a bricklayer than a banker or a bunch of estate agents on a work Christmas do. This is the modern music hall, a brilliantly curated populist product that also serves as one of this country's great contemporary cultural exports. James Bond; Adele; Paddington Bear; Stephen Bunting walking on stage to 'Titanium' while 10,000 people sing along in a kind of religious ecstasy. And yet like any form of populism, there are moments of excess and overindulgence. Phil Taylor occasionally used to get some rough treatment, then Gerwyn Price after him. These days, however, flashpoints between players and the public have become a near-weekly occurrence at the Premier League and Euro Tour. Whistling and booing has become commonplace, endemic, largely unpoliceable. A few months ago Cameron Menzies of Scotland was jeered and barracked to the point where he basically had a panic attack on the Alexandra Palace stage. Petty nationalism is clearly a factor here: English crowds save their worst for the Scots and Europeans, while German crowds are at their most hostile when an English player comes up against one of their own. After being mercilessly hounded in Munich, Luke Littler went on Instagram and announced – with a very Churchillian pomp – that he was boycotting Germany for the foreseeable future, before later rowing back. But then perhaps this is the logical result of a sport that has increasingly sold itself as a place where social norms can happily be transgressed. The Professional Darts Corporation markets itself in Europe as 'the biggest party in sport'. Like Cheltenham or Aintree, the Test match or the summer football tournament, darts has been reimagined not as a routine or a ritual but as a cultural experience. Not as a part of regular life, but as a wild and hedonistic escape from it. And in this respect darts is simply further along on a journey that most other sports are taking to varying degrees. Take selfies. Use the hashtag. Make some noise. Here comes the kiss cam! Everyone shine your phone torches. Make some more noise! But if the fan is no longer simply a passive spectator, then nor will it ever truly be possible to police the whole gamut of ways in which they might be active. Take tennis, where the four Grand Slam crowds appear to be locked in a kind of inflationary dickhead spiral: mercilessly persecuting its designated heels, appointing itself moral arbiter on everything from line calls to humour to how long a female player can spend in the bathroom before getting booed. Meanwhile players are commercially incentivised to be visible and distinctive, to build brand, to cultivate those sweet parasocial relationships that probably will not end in a literal stalker turning up at your matches. Or take women's football, which sold itself on its openness and now finds itself in thrall to an increasingly sinister stan culture in which a significant minority feels entitled to unlimited player time, player photos, player signatures and player feedback. The Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale has become the most attended event in golf by essentially becoming outdoor darts: a fiesta of heckles, hot tempers and hurled beer cups. Snooker is currently having a bit of a 'darts' moment. What happens when norms break down? When individualism gradually erodes the ties that bind us? What happens when thousands of people collectively cross the line? Nothing, of course. The line simply moves. The crowd, emboldened and empowered, sizes up its next meal. At the temple of mass consumerism, the customer is always right. And in this respect darts is something of a canary in the mineshaft: a salutary and perhaps cautionary tale of what can happen when a sport indulges its audience to the point where it can essentially behave how it pleases. An increasingly common sight at the darts of late has been players standing at the front of the stage, both arms raised towards the crowd, gently trying to shush them down. It rarely works. Actually, it never works. Often it has the opposite effect: the boos and jeers reach a screeching crescendo, the sound of mass refusal. This is the darts, and we do what we want. And seen from a certain angle, the shushing-down looks like something else entirely: a kind of supplicatory worship, the humble practitioners of darts saluting their new overlords. Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
