WARE TELLS WHISTLING FANS TO SHUT UP
15/03/2026 By Aaron Nijjar
By Phil Lanning
REFEREE Huw Ware slammed German fans by telling them to “shut up” in the European Darts Trophy.
The crowd were whistling while Stephen Bunting was throwing during the clash with home favourite Niko Springer in Gottingen on Saturday night.
Ware ran out of patience when the match went to a deciding leg at 5-5.
He then stopped the game and spoke directly to the fans: “I’ve asked politely once and I’ll say it impolitely: shut up please. Trying to have a game of darts up here.”
A huge cheer went up from the crowd after the outburst from a clearly angry Ware.
Springer went onto beat the Premier League star 6-5 in a thrilling finale.
Bunting then hit out at the crowd abuse. He said: “I never moan about defeats or cry about them but feel really hurt tonight even though it was a small minority of people.
“To boo and whistle at important times through any match isn’t acceptable and if you want to do that go to a football match.
“I understand why certain players don’t want to travel over here for the whistling but like I say it isn’t all the time.”
The PDC European MC Philip Brzezinski also went on the mic to berate the fans.
He later said on X: “99.99% of the crowd in Göttingen tonight were amazing, as good as gold and we appreciate them greatly. Thank you.
“And to the 4 or 5 people that interfered with their whistling, I will stick to what I said on stage: we don’t want you here.”
It’s not the first time that Ware has hit out at fans. He told the crowd to “stop whistling” at the Bahrain Masters in January 25.
Nathan Aspinall told The Sun earlier this year that fans should get a FIVE-YEAR ban for whistling.
He said: “I think the people that get caught shouldn’t just get kicked out, they should get banned for say five years.
“Something where they’re going to feel the effects of what they’ve done.
“Then, once a few of them start doing it, hopefully they’ll go: ‘I’m absolutely gutted, I can’t go to the darts, I got a five-year ban from whistling, trust me, don’t do it’.”
Ware also stated earlier this year it was tough to deal with situations in the middle of a game.
He said: “All of us referees, I can tell you, we all hate it.
“If it looks as if we’re doing nothing about it, it’s not because we condone it, it’s because we’re trying to manage the situation.
“Sometimes the bloke might be whistling to try and get some attention and if you say, well, I’m not going to give you that attention, then he’ll stop. There’s different ways of handling it.”
Image by Taylor Lanning.
