Pipe’s raging at Mardle for ‘Coughgate’

JUSTIN PIPE has accused Sky Sports commentator Wayne Mardle of “bullying” him and claimed the ‘Coughgate’ row which soured his career almost wrecked his life.

Two years ago, Pipe became public enemy No.1 at Alexandra Palace when Sky highlighted footage of him appearing to cough as Kiwi opponent Bernie Smith prepared to throw.

Mardle cut the former

Somerset lumberjack down to size,

branding him “despicable” and “desperate” for resorting, allegedly, to old-fashioned gamesmanship.

Pipe, 48, has slipped down the world rankings to No.56 in the Professional Darts Corporation rankings after a lean two years since the Ally Pally fancy dress mob turned on him over the coughing controversy.

But he faces his critics at the William Hill PDC world championship against Slovenia’s Benjamin Pratnemer today still raging over the way he was demonised.

Pipe, speaking on the US Weekly Dartcast, said: “Wayne Mardle ripped into me on national TV. I am not allowed to say anything or do anything and that hurt me.

“That was bullying of the hardest standard. For Sky TV to go on there, say all those things about me, was shocking, absolutely disgraceful.

“To watch what he said about me on TV could have wrecked me, my life. It ruined my darts career for a good 12 months. I didn’t want to play, I was thinking: ‘What will my fellow pros think of me?’

“To be fined £3,000 for something I didn’t do, it doesn’t matter what you see on TV, you don’t hear anything.

“It was nothing other than a stifled cough, a little grunt. Even Bernie Smith says ‘I heard nothing and he didn’t make a sound’.”