With drunken crowds, crazy characters and bizarre nights, darts has provided us with some very funny moments over the years. From the greats getting it all wrong to steady hands proving to be anything but and even accusations of nasty odours at the oche, here is our rundown of the top 5 funny darts moments.
Miscounting Power
In the twelfth week of the 2014 Premier League of Darts, 16 times world champion Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor gave hope for the rest of us, proving his own mortality and demonstrating that even the greatest of all time can make simple amateur pub-night mistakes, when he fluffed his lines and got his sums wrong in a match against Gary Anderson in Manchester.
In a match that would ultimately end in a 6-6 tie, The Power weirdly and uncharacteristically miscounted 129, shooting for double 16 instead of double 11 leaving Anderson to take the leg. Taylor nearly conceded the match after getting his checkout wrong but despite his bad counting, he managed to salvage a point against Anderson who would go on to win that year’s competition.
China
In the 2016 World Cup match between England and China, Adrian Lewis faced Wenge Xie and was dominating proceedings when, out of nowhere, Xie rattled off a 171 before celebrating like he had won the entire tournament on a moment the crowd and Lewis both enjoyed. Despite the wild celebrations, Jackpot checked out for 40 in one shot immediately after.
By the end, Jackpot and his partner Phil Taylor strolled into the last eight of the World Cup after the Chinese duo of Xie and Yuanjun Liu both lost 4-0 so they were forgiven for enjoying themselves as much as possible while still in the competition.
Almighty Spill
For a man who has made a very healthy living off the back of having incredibly steady hands, Michael van Gerwen proved to be decidedly clumsy in Sydney during a Darts Masters match against Raymond van Barneveld. Not only did he get shot down 8-2 Down Under but, feeling the heat, MVG felt the need for some refreshments in between throws.
Unfortunately for Mighty Mike, he was having an off night all round and as he reached for his water he fumbled the tumbler over sending it crashing to the floor and putting poor Barney off his shot. Oops.
Sun Goes Down
At the 2017 PDC World Darts Championships Chinese qualifier Qiang Sun didn’t get off to the best start when making his entrance. While Peter ‘Snakebite’ Wright bounces out to Pitbull’s Don’t Stop The Party and Gary Anderson makes his entrance to Jump Around by House of Pain, Sun enters the arena to Spirit in the Sky by Norman Greenbaum. On this occasion, however, instead of goin’ on up, he was goin’ on down and it wasn’t his walk on music that caught the eye as he stepped up to the oche to play Australian Corey Cadby at the Ally Pally.
Having been introduced to the packed crowd, Sun made his way over to the officials to shake the hands, a common pre-match courtesy, before tripping over the raised oche and falling flat on his face and sending the rowdy crowd into hysterics as he hit the deck. Sun’s night went from bad to worse when play finally got started as he went on to be eliminated from the competition losing 2-0 to his Aussie opponent.
Fartgate
Fartgate dominated the headlines during the 2018 Grand Slam of Darts when a match between Gary Anderson and Wesley Harms led to one player accusing his rival of an atrocious, potentially game-altering offense that left a stink on what was otherwise a good match that finished 10-2 to the Scotsman.
It all started with Harms, who in his post-match interview, claimed to have suffered on stage fragrant issues, before directing the blame for the rancid stinkers squarely at the feet his opponent. Said Harms, ”I think it will take me two nights to lose this smell from my nose”.
The Flying Scotsman’s response, in turn, led to one of the most bizarre sporting interviews of all time when he replied, “I thought that Wesley had farted on stage, it smelled awful. But I swear on my kid’s life that it was not me. I thought it was him, and I went, “that’s dirty.” It was bad. It was a stink. I thought it was him, and he started playing better. I went, he must have needed to get some wind out. It definitely came from table side. It smelled like eggs, rotten eggs.”
With neither player fessing up to foul play, fans were left to make up their own minds about the foul-smelling saga until, a few days later, the real culprit was unveiled when a security guard confessed to be the source of the pongy problem.