Luke Humphries has revealed that he suffered a bizarre injury on the practice board ahead of the second night of Premier League Darts. Cool Hand was beaten by Luke Littler in a final disrupted by crowd disorder.
Boos and whistles marred a thrilling contest between the two Lukes, which Littler edged 6-5. Humphries had brushed off Chris Dobey and Gerwyn Price before falling to the resurgent 18-year-old.
It became apparent that Humphries was carrying a hand injury. The 30-year-old kept taking a look at his fingers during matches.
He later revealed that he had suffered an unfortunate cut while withdrawing his darts from the practice board earlier in the night. Humphries confessed that he had been hindered by the problem and labelled the evening a “difficult night”.
“A difficult night all round, and I just fell short in the end. An unexpected finger injury didn’t help either,” Humphries wrote on X.
“Fair play to [Luke Littler] and I’ll be back next week to do it all again in Dublin.”
One fan responded to Humphries by asking what injury he had suffered. The 2024 world champion replied: “Pulled my darts out the practice board and cut it on the wires then it just woundn’t stop bleeding haha.”
Littler won in Glasgow after a difficult night last week in Belfast, in which he lost to Michael van Gerwen in the first round. Both he and Humphries were frustrated with booing and whistling from the crowd.
Rob Cross was booed with match darts in hand, while Littler and Humphries were visibly thrown off by whistles during the final. The night’s champion felt referee Kirk Bevins worsened the noise by telling fans to be quiet.
Littler said: “There were a few in particular that were doing it when Luke was throwing. Kirk told them to be quiet and it made it even worse.
“I missed doubles, Luke breaks at 5-4. I’m just like ‘Kirk you’ve made it even worse for me, I’m 5-4 down.’ But I broke back and held my throw again.”
Asked what he would prefer referees to do in that situation, the world champion responded: “If it’s the same as it was when Kirk said it, then yeah leave it. Obviously, they’ve got to step in and say something, but yeah it was pretty bad. But I got the win.”
