LUKE BULLIED BUT IT WON’T BE FOR LONG
MICHAEL SMITH became the first world champion to tame the Luke Littler phenomenon – but he accepts it’s only a matter of time before the boot is on the other foot.
‘Bully Boy’ Smith survived a match dart before going on to defuse Luke the Nuke and win the opening BETMGM Premier League night in Cardiff.
Boy wonder Littler, 17, had beaten six world champions past and present – Christian Kist, Raymond van Barneveld, Rob Cross, Gerwyn Price, Michael van Gerwen and Luke Humphries – in as many weeks at three tournaments before Smith spiked his guns on Thursday night.
But the former world No.1, who has been playing Littler since he was 12 years old, does not expect to remain invincible against the teenage sensation forever.
Smith (top) said: “He hasn’t beaten me like the other six but I will play Luke on night five or six in the first round at the Premier League and he could think, ‘Right, I am going to smash you up for beating me.’
“Or I could think, ‘I have already beaten you once, I will do it again.’
“In Cardiff, it was my night. Next week in Berlin I may be beaten in the first round. Just as in racing, favourites fall at the first hurdle.
“I have been playing Luke since he was 12 because he lives five minutes from my house. He has always been good.”
Smith offered no solution to the scourge of idiots trying to put him off on game shot by whistling – piercing, shrill whistles calculated to distract at the moment of release – in Cardiff.
He gesticulated angrily towards one idiot in the crowd, while Humphries was visibly upset by the disruption during his earlier defeat by Littler (above).
Gerwyn Price, who enjoyed hometown support where he has often been the target of unruly spectators, shrugged: “That is part and parcel of the game. I have had it for the last five years.
“Welcome to the club, but what can we do? Chuck everyone out? Go back to Covid conditions behind closed doors – that’s the only way you can solve it.”
Smith waited until after his winning dart against Littler to ‘shush’ the whistling narcissist and said: “It was one person being an idiot in a crowd of 4,000 people. You cannot stop it. You have to deal with it. Making an announcement asking them to stop would be the worst thing you could do. The referee didn’t tell the crowd to shut up because, the minute you do that, it sets them off.”
The Premier League travelling show pitches up next week in Berlin.