Little more than a decade ago most folk in the darts industry would regard Red Dragon as the lesser-known little brother of Winmau and that would have been those who had heard of them at all. Things have certainly changed!
The mail-order and then internet specialist has had an incredible few years and it looks set to continue after another significant few days.
Luke Humphries, Peter Wright, and Robert Thornton all claimed significant titles this weekend. Luke Humphries won his first Pro-Tour title, Peter Wright backed that up by winning Pro-Tour 2, all to be topped off by Robert Thornton winning the inaugural Seniors World Championships – beating Martin Adams 5-1.
Luke Humphries has been on a hunt for his first Pro-Tour since joining the PDC, and after reaching 3 Pro-tour finals Cool Hand has climbed over the hill, managing to beat Ryan Searle 8-4 on the way to his maiden title playing by some superb pressure darts along the way.
The recently crowned Double World Champion Peter ‘Snakebite’ Wright continues his hunt for the World Number 1 spot after his win against Gerwyn Price at the Player Championships 2 Event, saying “It was great to give my new darts an outing at a floor event as the standard can be immense from week to week and I’m really happy how they went”.
The success of Wright is one of the clues that this success is more than merely getting lucky with a few players at the right time. Snakebite has been with Red Dragon since before 2010 and the first few years were not overly successful. They remind me of the old phrase about being an overnight success ( after 20 years of trying)!
In the Inaugural World Seniors Darts Championship, many familiar faces from the past returned to our screens. In what was a very well received few days, Scotsman Robert Thornton took the event by storm. The Thorn was on fire, taking out Bob Anderson, Trina Gulliver and the in-form Kevin Painter, who had beaten crowd favourite Phil Taylor.
Robert was overjoyed at this latest win saying, “I’m still so passionate to be playing top-level professional darts and you can see my game is right up there, so to win this title is amazing and hopefully will kick start a great 2022 for me”
Rob is another who has been with Red Dragon through thick and thin for more than a decade. The Celtic combination seems to be a successful one.
Another player on show at the Circus Tavern was Wayne Warren. Wayne, also a long-term Red Dragon thrower, is the reigning WDF World Champion from 2020 and will be at Lakeside to defend his title in a few weeks’ time.
Including Humphries who was World Youth Champion in 2020, it is a barely credible run of World Champions in almost every code and format available. Youth, WDF, PDC, Seniors, and with four-time World Champion Lisa Ashton on their books at one time there was no group left out.
For many years the ‘Constructors Table’ run by our friends at AIM was headed by Unicorn with others fighting over the places. Red Dragon has headed the table for the last three years and they seem unlikely to give that up soon!
—–ENDS—–
The Boardroom with Catdromeda Accounting Ltd
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