I didn’t see much of Christmas because I slept through most of it (with apologies to my parents)! The World Championships is a very intense period and certainly for the last four or five days of the first half of it, I was just running purely on adrenaline. Myself, marker Andrew Davies and Players Marshal Dean Williams got in the car to go home after the afternoon session of the 23rd December and both Dean and myself fell asleep at some point during the journey (with apologies to Andrew who was driving this time – this blog is just going to be full of apologies).
As referees we only work one session per day during this tournament. We were all very lucky that we managed to stay fit and healthy throughout the two weeks – I can’t remember the last time we managed to do that as a team! Certainly this is the furthest into December that I haven’t got ill in at least twenty years….and I’m only twenty-one so what an achievement thank you very much. I’ve probably jinxed that now. If you don’t see me for the rest of the tournament you’ll know why!
During my sessions off, it was all work primarily with the podcast which I hope everybody’s been enjoying! If you haven’t downloaded and subscribed yet, then I don’t know what on earth you think you’re doing. Go on, check it out, you know you want to! It’s good…..no honest…..it is!……..well the host’s a bit dodgy but the guests are great! Thank you all so much for the lovely messages and comments that you’ve been leaving on the three episodes that have gone out so far of this series. Gary Anderson, Josh Rock and Dimitri van den Bergh were all brilliant guests and we’ve got some fantastic episodes on the way. Everything is prepared for Martin Schindler’s episode which will be going out on Monday 29th December, and we have a special episode which will be released on the day of the world final. Two days after that will be the PDC’s Head of Media Dave Allen who has seen first-hand the growth of darts over the last two decades, referee Charlie Corstorphine will be another episode and then I’ve still got Episodes 8, 9 and 10 to record. It’s been very busy alongside the refereeing, but very fruitful and all of us have also been busy sorting out our travel arrangements for 2026 after receiving our rotas about a week or ten days ago.
On the darts front I think it was a really good first half with a lot of great matches and stories. How good was Danny Noppert v Justin Hood?! The kind of match where it was a shame there had to be a loser. Danny had some fantastic clutch finishing but the perseverance and guts from Justin, and in his debut World Championship campaign no less! So, so impressive from both of them. We’ve had some fantastic stories with a lot of the international players winning at least one match: Nitin Kumar from India, Andreas Harryson from Sweden, Motomu Sakai of Japan, Joe Comito of Australia, Paul Lim of Singapore, Leonard Gates and Adam Sevada of the USA and David Munyua from Kenya have all made big noises in their respective countries for their achievements which can only be good for the global development of darts. Also, a special shoutout to Jesus Salate who became the first Argentinian player to play at the World Championships. Some big names have gone and some still remain so it’s shaping up to be a fantastic second half and climax to the World Championships. I’m actually writing this off the back of refereeing two great 4-3 matches between Krysztof Ratajski and Wesley Plaisier, and Jonny Clayton and Niels Zonneveld, so if that’s going to be the pattern between now and January 3rd we really are going to have a spectacular second half!
To close this blog I want to give a shoutout to young Aaron Mitchell who refereed the JDC World Final between Mitchell Lawrie and Kaya Baysal. To get up on the biggest stage in the world is not easy, and he looked like he has been up there for years. I’m sure if he wants to, he can have a big future in the game. It will be really interesting to see, as darts continues to develop globally, just how many young boys and girls will start to actively pursue careers as darts referees and not as players. It feels like we’re heading in that direction and what the end result will be is that in the future there will be a plethora of young and more than capable referees to choose from, whose maths will be spot on no matter what the player is throwing. Of course, other ingredients make up a referee: authority, communication, voice, vocal tone and vocal style, but all those can only be developed when you get up there and do it. I am sure that as the depth of standard increases amongst the players worldwide, so will the depth of standard of quality darts referees.
That’s it for this blog, I’ll be back before the end of the tournament but until then, I hope everybody enjoys this Christmas break and most importantly, the second half of the World Darts Championship!
