PRIESTLEY WON…AND NEVER GOT TROPHY BACK!

DENNIS PRIESTLEY threw the first three darts of the PDC World Championship, won the title, but then never got his trophy back!

It’s the 30-year anniversary of the tournament when it kicks off at the Alexandra Palace on Friday.

Priestley, now 73, beat Jocky Wilson 3-1 in the opening match on Boxing Day 1993. It was the first new World Championship after the top 14 players left the BDO in an acrimonious split of the sport. 

‘The Menace’ went on to win the final but recalls that he played under the threat of losing his house due to the financial burden of the legal dispute. 

Priestley admits: “It was a big step into the unknown really. We were being threatened with having our houses taken off us. We were being sued for one thing and another. 

“It took a while to get on the right path. I didn’t even get my trophy back. They said they couldn’t afford a new trophy for the 1995 so they asked to borrow mine from 1994. I never got it back. I would have loved it back. 

“Jocky Wilson and I were the first game, I remember it so well. 

“The very first two scores that set the standard for the PDC World Championship were 140 and 180, Jocky scored the first maximum.

“You can say with absolute certainty that the top 14 players in the world were actually there. 

“I’ve only just realised that my first and last match averages were two of three highest in the tournament. I keep telling everyone I went into the tournament not expecting much, I wasn’t playing well.”

Priestley went on to thrash Phil Taylor 6-1 in the final on January 2, eventually taking home £12,000. Remarkably in this year’s event, a player who loses in the second round will receive £15k.

He added: “I won £12,000 for winning the title. Phil and I shared the £16,000 and £8,000 for winner and runner-up. 

“The reason we did that is because we had spent so much on legal fees for lawyers to fight the case for the split. 

“We didn’t really make much prize money to much later on. 

“There’s a huge progression with money. I never expected them to get to half a million for the first prize. I’ve heard that it’s not far off before a million for the winner. 

“The players now are reaping all the benefits from us penny pinching. 

“I’m very proud that we did what we did. I just wish the players that followed maybe didn’t take it for granted. It took a lot of hard work to get it to where it is.”

Priestley also admits that it was always tricky playing the legendary Scot Wilson. But they were good friends after verbals a few years earlier. 

He added: “You were never certain what would happen and what Jocky would turn up. I never wound anyone up, I wasn’t that type of person. Jocky was a character. 

“We did have words five years earlier in the News of the World event at the Hammersmith Odeon. I think that cemented our friendship. 

“He had just lost and Dave Whitcombe had beaten him. We came back into the changing rooms where we could practice. 

“Kids were at the stage door and Jocky told them to f-off. I set about him. I said ‘you shouldn’t talk to people like that’. He said ‘who are you, you’re a nobody’. 

“I said I know that but I wouldn’t talk to children like that, effing and blinding at the them. Then about ten minutes after he pipes up and says ‘you are right Dennis, I’m sorry’. We became firm friends after that. 

“In 1991 at the BDO Worlds, he was at the bar and just sung some rendition of a Scottish song and then told everyone I was going to win the Embassy. I did. He was a good judge!”