Sports story by Dominic Taylor, Sat, 31 Dec 2005 10:44:00 GMT


Peter Manley and Adrian Lewis played out a controversial Ladbrokes.com World Championship quarter final in which the former emerged a 5-3 winner. But the match will be remembered for reasons other than the fantastic play by Manley and Lewis at times.

Lewis and Manly were tied at 1-1 when Lewis claimed that he was getting severely distracted with the way Manley was talking when he was throwing. Manley, who is the chairman of the Professional Darts Players' Association, was ahead 3-1 when something he said sent Lewis off the stage. Lewis went and discussed something with Russ Bray, the match referee and finally returned to the match, but his rhythm was already disrupted and he ended a 5-3 loser.

Lewis was also put off because Manley seemed to take a lot of time to retrieve the darts. The Darts Regulation Authority has now become involved in the issue and both Manley and Lewis could end up paying for their tiff. "It was a tense match; it was all in the heat of the moment and a bit of experience came through in the end. If I've done wrong I've done wrong and the governing body can put me in line," Manley said after the game.

Now Phil Taylor, who is something of a tutor to Lewis has spoken out and has said that the match must be replayed if the authorities are not satisfied with the players' explanations. "I'm very shocked at Peter because he's a good player and doesn't need to do that. He must be thinking there is £100,000 for the winner of this tournament and he's got his nasty head on. It's disgraceful because he is our leader, although he has never done anything like that against me," Taylor said.

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