Luke Littler dubbed the Glasgow darts crowd as “pretty bad” after boos and whistles marred night two of this year’s Premier League.
The teen picked up his first nightly win of the 2025 season, downing Rob Cross, Michael van Gerwen and world No.1 Luke Humphries en route to victory.
But it wasn’t without a touch of controversy, as unwanted crowd involvement tainted the second night of action in Glasgow, as the referees and security were forced to intervene.
Cross was booed with match darts in hand on two occasions, while both Humphries and Littler were visibly put off by whistling during the final match of the evening.
Speaking after he’d wrapped up his first nightly win of the season, Littler stated: “There were a few in particular that were doing it when Luke [Humphries] was throwing.
“Kirk [Bevins, the referee] 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.”
When pushed on what he’d prefer the referees to do, he added: “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.”
In a separate incident, Gerywn Price hit back at the whistles in the crowd while he was taking on Humphries in the other semi-final clash.
After smashing home a 180 – which received an uncharacteristic muted response – the Welshman turned to the crowd and belted out a stinging whistle of his own.
Unsurprisingly, social media was full of reactions to the crowd chaos, with Sky Sports presenter Abigail Davies taking X to vent her frustration.
She told her 47,000 followers: “Yet again, well done to those who paid good money to go and watch the best darts players in the world put on a show and actively contributed to them not delivering their absolute best by whistling.
“Really clever, that. There is no way you can be a fan of the sport if you do that.”
Dublin is next up on the agenda for the Premier League players, with Exeter, Brighton and Nottingham to follow after that.
