World champion Gary Anderson has revealed he deliberately lost a Premier League match against Adrian Lewis at Glasgow’s SECC in 2011.
Scot Anderson, 44, led the match three- but, with Lewis suffering “disgraceful” abuse, permitted the Englishman to reel off eight legs in a row to safe an 8-3 victory.
When asked if he intentionally lost, Anderson told BBC Scotland: “Yes.
“I did not want to win a game exactly where that happened I believed it was a disgrace.”
| What is the Premier League? | |
|---|---|
| A 10-man tournament played in a round-robin format (though only eight competed in 2011). The best four players qualify for the semi-finals, which take location on the exact same evening as the final. Anderson took property £200,000 for winning this year’s occasion. | |
Anderson subsequently issued a statement on social media, saying he “would by no means intentionally drop a match”.
Lewis, 30, had beer thrown at him throughout his entrance to the arena, and coins were thrown onto the stage during the match.
“It was undesirable that night,” stated Anderson, who beat Lewis ten-four in the final two months later.
“I am a proud Scotsman but when that happened, it sickened me. Aidy is a very good friend of mine. It was terrible.”
Anderson said it was not “proper” for him to win the game.
He added: “If I am going to play a game, I’m going to play it appropriate. With them undertaking that, Aidy could not play with that going on.”
Anderson, who beat Phil Taylor in January’s PDC Planet Championship final, says abuse of that magnitude is anything he hardly ever encounters on the darts circuit.
“I play all over the globe and I had never seen it prior to,” he added.
“It cheesed me off. I never know why it happened, and I hope it will never happen once more.”
