The German invaders drowned out the Brits during Luke Humphries London clash with Gabriel Clemens – but Cool Hand Luke won through by sticking to what he does best: magic darts
Luke Humphries told how invading German darts fans may have claimed victory in the battle of the Ally Pally – but he won the war.
Thousands crossed the English Channel to cheer on their hero Gabriel Clemens against the battling Brit in a world championship third round showdown.
It came after we revealed how Deutschland has gone darts-mad with a record eight Germans qualifying for the tournament for the first time.
Though outnumbered in the famous north London venue German fans drowned out their Brit rivals with cheeky chants of ‘es kommt nach hause’ – their version of Three Lions’ football anthem ‘it’s coming home’.
Ex-world champ Luke admitted the rowdy ‘Barmherzig Armee’ – Germany’s ‘Barmy Army’ – bossed the room and made him feel like he was playing in Munich.
But he kept his cool to win a 4-2 nerve-shredder and snuff out Germany’s chances of crowning a first world champion.
Luke, 30, admitted he was stunned by the scale of ‘great’ Germany support.
He said: “I think 33% were Germans. They outdid everyone in that crowd. They really do have good voices. They were very very vocal and fair play to them.
“They were hostile but they weren’t bad – they weren’t disrespectful. They weren’t whistling, booing or anything like that – maybe on the walk-on. I suppose that shows how great the German fans are in my opinion.
“When you go to Euro tours of course it’s tough playing a German. But you sit back and think how great the German fans are.
“Most of the time they are very respectful as well. I’ve experienced a lot of good respect from them. In my honest opinion they were very respectful. They didn’t try to put me off once. If you’re going to come over here and give the players respect I’m respecting them. It was really good.”
The four Germans who made the third round – Clemens, Arno Merk, Martin Schindler and Ricardo Pietreczko – were all beaten.
But their fans are set to return next year in even greater numbers. The 2027 championship will be in the Great Hall at the Alexandra Palace – a bigger venue to cope with the growing global demand for the sport.
And most of the extra seats look set to be snapped up by Germans.
Max Hopp, who lost in the second round this year, said the sport was massive in his homeland where the winter tournament had achieved ‘cult’ status.
“Ally Pally is just a cult – in my country we say it’s a cult,” he said.
“Everyone wants to be here.
“Everyone wants to be up on the stage.”
Philip Brzezinski, a TV commentator and master of ceremonies for the Professional Darts Corporation’s European Tour, said Germans and Brits were ‘quite similar’ in terms of ‘what entertains them’.
“They like good sport. They like a good night out,” he said.
“The audience used to be very working-class, very male, but it’s now much more universal.”
His Sport1 colleague Katharina Kleinfeldt added: “There’s kind of a niche in between Christmas and New Year.
“In the UK you have the Boxing Day football but in Germany there’s not that much going on. The Bundesliga isn’t on.
“That’s a reason why the audience is getting bigger and bigger.”
Commentator Elmar Paulke said Germany had been ‘going nuts about darts’ for the past five years – and interest was still growing.
“We will have a world champion in the next five to 10 years and then you will see the sport peak in Germany,” he said.