Sports like football and tennis will always be more closely associated with London than other sports, but if you’re a darts fan then there is little doubt that there is on place you will think of more than any other: Ally Pally. Alexandra Palace is located between Wood Green and Muswell Hill and is where the World Professional Darts Championship takes place each year. London is also the place where some of the Premier League Darts tournament takes place, although most of it is played at various venues across the United Kingdom and into Europe. Even so, it is worth mentioning in terms of darts tournaments in London.
There are, of course, plenty of minor tournaments that are also played in the nation’s capital. The likes of the East London Darts League will see matches played in London, for example. Ultimately, though, it is really only the biggest competitions that we’re interested in here. As a result, the focus of this page will very much be on the World Professional Darts Championship, as well as the Premier League Darts, both of which can be watched either in full or in part in London venues. There is also no question that the most important of those venues is Ally Pally, which we’ll also take a closer look at to let you know why it’s so key to the world of darts.
The World Professional Darts Championship
It is difficult to talk about the World Professional Darts Championship without taking a closer look at the split in the sport of darts itself. That is because the tournament was held as an annual competition between 1978 and 1993, but at that point players broke off into two different organisations. There was the British Darts Organisation and the Professional Darts Corporation, with each choosing to arrange their own World Championships. The BDO held theirs in January, which the PDC held theirs in December, meaning that there was no unified world champion of the sport for the best part of three decades.
The BDO’s World Championship dated back to 1978, which was when the Heart of the Midlands nightclub in Nottingham hosted the first one. It moved to Stoke’s Jollees Cabaret Club in 1979, remaining there for the following six years. In 1985 it moved to the Lakeside Leisure Complex in Surry, where it remained until the it was moved to the O2 Arena in 2020. Later that year, the British Darts Organisation was liquidated. The World Darts Federation then announced that it would host its own World Championships at Lakeside Leisure Complex, but the global health crisis at the time meant that it didn’t start until 2022.
The World Professional Darts Championship as we understand it today has been running since 1994, which was the year after ‘the split’ in the sport. The field was made up of all of the active previous World Champions that had won the BDO’s tournament. Originally stated at Purfleet’s Circus Tavern in Essex, it moved to Alexandra Palace in time for the 2008 competition and has remained there ever since. The PDC World Darts Championship, to give it its proper name, gets underway in December and reaches its conclusion in January. It is the PDC’s most prestigious championship, with winners getting the Sid Waddell Trophy.
That was named in honour of the darts commentator who died in 2012. It is considered to be part of the Triple Crown of darts, sitting alongside Premier League Darts and World Matchplay. It began life as the WDC World Darts Championship as the organiser was called the World Darts Council at the time. It became the Professional Darts Corporation in 1997, with the competition’s name changing accordingly. Phil Taylor was the dominant force in the tournament, winning it 14 times from 25 appearances. Despite the launching of the WDF World Darts Championship in 2022, it is the PDC’s competition that is seen as the most prestigious.
Premier League Darts
Launched in 2005 as a competition for Sky Sports, it was originally a fortnightly fixture in smaller venues around the United Kingdom. The inaugural competition featured just seven players, being expanded to ten in 2013. In 2022, it was reduced again, this time to eight players. The entire point of Premier League Darts is that it moves around different venues, with some based in Europe being used. Some of it is held in London thanks to the fact that the O2 Arena has been used for matches such as the Play-Offs in the past. Since 2022, the field has been made up of the top four players of the PDC Order of Merit, as well as four wildcards.
As mentioned, it sits alongside the World Professional Darts Championship and the World Matchplay as part of the sport’s Triple Crown. The World Matchplay takes place in Blackpool. As with so many other competitions in darts, Phil Taylor was the dominant force in Premier League Darts during his heyday. He went unbeaten in the first three seasons, winning 44 matches before being beaten by James Wade in 2008. The prize fund rose steadily since the competition was first launched, with £265,000 on offer in 2005 and £1 million available by 2022. For a time, it alternated with Premier League Snooker, before that was moved to the autumn.
Ally Pally
It is worth mentioning Ally Pally in its own right when it comes to darts in London. In spite of only being the home of the Professional World Darts Championship since 2008, it has become synonymous with the sport. In fact, the fact that most people know it only as Ally Pally rather than by its proper name of Alexander Palace speaks volumes. The Grade II listed building was built as the ‘Palace of the People’, conceived by Owen Jones in 1859. Construction materials from the 1862 International Exhibition were used in the building of the palace, with the new venue opening to the public for the first time in 1863.
Although originally conceived as being the ‘Palace of the People’, the building and its parks were renamed in honour of Alexandra of Denmark, who had married Prince Albert Edward the year that it opened. Built on the site of Tottenham Wood, it is located in the London borough of Haringey between Wood Green and Muswell Hill. The purpose of it originally was to serve as a public centre of recreation, education and entertainment. The darts tournament takes place in the West Hall, which has a capacity of 3,200. Ally Pally also hosts the Masters in snooker and pool’s Mosconi Cup, but it is best known as the home of the darts.