The World Professional Darts Championship was one of the most important tournaments in the darts calendar. Originally held as an annual event between 1978 and 1993, players then broke off into two separate organisations after a controversial split in the game. Each organisation, the British Darts Organisation (BDO) and the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) now organise their own World Championship in January. As a result there is no longer a unified World Champion in the game. Although Phil Taylor has won 15 world titles 2 in the BDO and 13 in the PDC version and widely considered the greatest darts player ever to have lived.
The BDO have organised their version dating back to 1978, when it was held at the Heart of the Midlands nightclub, Nottingham. The following year it moved to the Jollees Cabaret Club, Stoke, where it stayed until 1985. Since then it has been held at the Lakeside Leisure Complex at Frimley Green, Surrey.
The PDC version started in 1994 after "the split", with a field of players containing all active previous World Champions from the BDO. It was originally staged at Purfleet's Circus Tavern, Essex before moving to Alexandra Palace for the 2008 World Championship.
Read more about World Professional Darts Championship: Men's Winners, Total World Darts Championship Wins, Women's Winners
Famous quotes containing the words world, professional and/or darts:
“You should go to picture-galleries and museums of sculpture to be acted upon, and not to express or try to form your own perfectly futile opinion. It makes no difference to you or the world what you may think of any work of art. That is not the question; the point is how it affects you. The picture is the judge of your capacity, not you of its excellence; the world has long ago passed its judgment upon it, and now it is for the work to estimate you.”
—Anna C. Brackett (1836–1911)
“We have been weakened in our resistance to the professional anti-Communists because we know in our hearts that our so-called democracy has excluded millions of citizens from a normal life and the normal American privileges of health, housing and education.”
—Agnes E. Meyer (1887–1970)
“Rejoice with the anchovy who darts in and out of salads.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)