Darts star’s fury after online troll targets daughter
FORMER Neath, Cross Keys and Glasgow Warriors rugby hooker Gerwyn Price has called on his social media followers to report a troll after his 12-year-old daughter received vile online abuse.
Price is now a PDC darts star, who has made a meteoric rise to seventh in the world rankings and banked £402,250 over the two-year season.
Price is angry after seeing his young daughter Emily receive a tweet about his on-stage antics.
Earlier this year, the 34-year-old Markham-based player was fined £21,500 and handed a suspended three-month ban for his behaviour in last November’s Grand Slam of Darts.
Price scooped a record £110,000 payday for landing his first major title in the PDC, but his final win over twotime world champion Gary Anderson was ill-tempered and hugely controversial.
Their volatile clash in Wolverhampton was referred to the Darts Regulation Authority and it emerged that disciplinary chiefs were also investigating Price over his antics when beating Australian Simon Whitlock in the quarter-finals.
The DRA said Price’s behaviour “drew an unprecedented number of complaints from members of the public”.
And last Thursday Daryl Gurney apologised to Price after their Premier League dust-up in Sheffield.
The pair played out a 7-7 draw and Gurney instigated a physical altercation after the game.
The Northern Irishman was fuming after the contest and after some verbal sparring there was some pushing and shoving between the two men, which resulted in security coming on to the stage to split them apart.
And this week, Price’s young daughter was contacted on social media from a Twitter user who told her: “Sorry darling but your dad is a numpty, a d**khead and will surely have a coronary if he acts like he does on the oche.”
After himself receiving criticism for his offensive post, the Twitter user went on to say: “I’m a grade A prat for what I wrote, but not intentionally as did not know her age.
“I said I am sorry to her mam – what more can I say.”
And Price is now calling on his vast social media following to get the person reported and “kicked off” Twitter.
He wrote in response: “I mean come on, my daughter is 12 years of age, I don’t mind the trolling myself, I can take it like I do week after week, but this is not on, what a pathetic human being if that’s what you can call him...
“Could I get some retweets and some followers to report this bloke and get him kicked off Twitter? Much appreciated.”
Ironically, his post only led to the darts star himself getting criticism for letting his daughter have a social media account.
But he defended his actions, adding: “I think that is unfair for you to say it is irresponsible of me to let my daughter have social media.
“Her account is monitored very closely, which shows as this comment was flagged straight away.
“My daughter is very sensible, which can not be said for some adults on social media.”