Schindler admits it's been an emotional journey to major final

MARTIN SCHINDLER was in tears as he admitted it's been an emotional journey from steward to star attraction after his European Championship heroics.

The German No.1 produced a brilliant campaign at Dortmund to surge all the way into the Final of the major event.

Despite a below-par year which led to him scraping into the event as 31st of 32 qualifiers, Schindler rose to the occasion in style beating Wessel Nijman, Jermaine Wattimena, Jonny Clayton and Krzysztof Ratajski to reach the shootout.

In the end, Ross Smith proved one hurdle too many as the Englishman triumphed in the Final to deny Schindler a fairytale success.

Nonetheless, it didn't detract from The Wall's epic effort after a journey which saw him begin a dozen years ago amongst the crowds working as a steward checking wristbands at PDC Europe events to being a main man on the stage in one of the game's biggest nights.

Schindler recalled: "I knew someone from the PDC and we did something like Martin, I will provide for your qualifiers, so I was able to play the qualifiers for European Tours. But, if you're not going to be qualified for a European, you need to work as a steward. And this is how I got into the PDC.

"To be honest, I didn't expect anything of it. Honestly, I needed to fight such a freaking long way to be here where we are right now. And I'm so happy about it.

"In German, we say it's like the European Cup, you know what I mean? If you win this one, you're like the European champion. Comparing to football. And now I was in the final. It's a good feeling. You know, you've come a long way. I enjoy it. I'm not going to lie.

"I'm definitely proud. When I started this, before 10 years or something, I wasn't expecting to be in the Final, but now I was. I wasn't giving up, until the last dart, I was fighting. Respect to Ross Smith, he was playing good all the way through. He was taking his chances, I was probably missing too much, but yeah, I'm still very happy. It was a big milestone for me, I guess.

"Obviously, if I go into a tournament, I believe I can win it, I could win it. I was fighting through every match. The other players have been giving me chances. Wessel was giving me chances, Jermaine was giving me chances. Probably Jonny has given me chances, but I think I was taking everything from him and I'm really happy with the way everything went. It's so difficult for me to find words, but I'm truly, truly happy in a way.

"It means a lot. I wouldn't say it so harsh, but I'm not playing a great year, I'm not playing a proper year. I'm probably playing not too bad, but I was losing too many matches in the Championships, in the Europeans. I missed the World Grand Prix and now I've managed to get to the Final in a major. Yeah, a lot of emotions and I'm really happy about it. I don't know, it's just darts sometimes, you don't really have the feeling that you do as you can and then you reach the Final in a major, first time."

Schindler also praised the home supporters who backed him every move as he added: "I think in my opinion, the crowd was very, very fair in all the way, especially in the important moments, they haven't really been booing or anything. For all the days I've been playing, they've been very, very clear, very quiet and very, very respectful to my opponents and I enjoyed the atmosphere. And I really tried everything. I really try to be as good and professional as I can. A major finalist, still getting tears into my eyes. I'm sorry for that."