Rob: My chilling stalker threats

ROB CROSS has quit social media after a keyboard crank sent his family death threats.

The reigning PDC world champion (above) faces Spaniard Cristo Reyes at Alexandra Palace tonight in the tournament’s last match before Christmas after a year of patchy form.

But the former Hastings electrician’s celebrity came at a price – after one cyber-stalker trolled father-of-three Cross with sinister messages online.

Cross said: “He said I would live but my wife and kids would die. He said I should live unhappily alone for the rest of my days.

“I’ve got to admit I don’t go on social media any more because of it. My family are everything to me and if I didn’t have them I wouldn’t be coming here as a defending world champion. I would probably be an alcoholic or a drop-out.”

It was another afternoon of shocks yesterday at Alexandra Palace in London as fifth seed Daryl Gurney lost 4-3 to Jamie Lewis. Third seed Peter Wright, Mensur Suljovic (sixth seed), Gerwyn Price (seventh) and Simon Whitlock (eighth) have already been knocked out.

BThe 120mph crash in a Formula 4 race at Donington Park in April 2017 led to a double-leg amputation.

His collision with a stationary vehicle just days before his 18th birthday was the gravest blow imaginable.

But the teenager known as Billy Whizz wasted no time in getting back behind the wheel – and defying stratospheric odds.

By March 2018 he was back competing in the British F3 Championship and showing the kind of flare that makes him British motorsport’s brightest young talent since five-time F1 champion Lewis Hamilton.

And now Monger is looking to 2019 as the year he can make the breakthrough into the big time.

“Depending on whether I can raise the budget, I would like to race in Europe in the (Formula) 3,” he said.

“That for me is the next step on the way to F1 and it’s a great way for me to test myself against the best. That’s what I want to do and we’re getting there. We need to raise a crazy amount, something like

£900,000.

“Motorsport is expensive and I’ve got to this stage through hard-work and that’s not going to stop now.

I’ll keep going and I’ll make it work.”

There had been talk of

Monger targeting the Le

Mans 24 hour race in 2020.

But that now looks to be on the back-burner as Monger continues to progress at lightning speed in single-seater racing.

“Single-seat at the minute is the way I want to go,” he says. “This year has really opened my eyes up to what I can achieve – not how easy it’s going to be but how it is going to be down to me as a driver. That’s my main focus.”

Monger has coped with