Mike Gregory (darts)

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Mike Gregory

Personal information
Date of birth	December 16, 1956 (age 50) ^[1]
Place of birth	,
Organisation
BDO	1984 - 1992, 1993 - 2000
PDC	1992 - 1993
Current World Ranking	inactive
BDO Grand Slam Events - Best Performances
World Ch'ship	Runner-up 1992
World Masters	Runner-up 1983, 1992
PDC Televised Events - Best Performances
Other Tournament Wins
Tournament	Years
News of the World British Professional WDC Lada Classic Unipart European Masters	1987, 1988 1984 1992, 1993 1995
Infobox last updated on: December 23, 2006.

Mike Gregory (born December 16, 1956) is a former professional darts player who reached the final the Winmau World Masters twice and also reached the final of the Embassy World Darts Championship in 1992 - losing to Phil Taylor in the match regarded amongst the greatest matches ever played.

1 Darts Career
2 Major Controversy
3 After the split
4 Trivia
5 References

[edit] Darts Career

Gregory was one of the top ranked players from the mid-1980s through to the early 1990s, having been seeded in the top four at the World Championships on seven occasions - although he never won the World title.

He made his World Championship debut in 1984 and reached the quarter-final, losing heavily 0-5 to Jocky Wilson. Gregory would stumble at the quarter-final stage in 1987, 1989 and 1993. He made his first semi-final in 1990, losing to Eric Bristow and his only final appearance came in 1992 - when he lost an epic match 5-6 in sets to Phil Taylor. The match went all the way to a tie-break leg, which comes when the players reach 5-5 in both sets and legs. It was the first time this had happened in the World Championship's 14-year history and the match is often mentioned in discussions about the greatest darts match ever played, Taylor himself still lists as his greatest ever match. ^[2]

Whilst he was never a World Champion, he enjoyed success away from the big event becoming one of only seven players to win the News of the World Darts Championship twice (in 1987 and 1988 joining Tom Barrett (1963/64 and 1964/65) and Eric Bristow as the only other players to win in consecutive years). He also won the 1984 Unipart British Professional Championship and the 1985 Unipart European Masters ^[3]

[edit] Major Controversy

Mike Gregory was a controversial figure in a controversial dispute which threatened darts during 1992-93. Darts had enjoyed a boom-and-bust period during the 1980s and 1990s. At first, sponsors and television companies could not get enough of the game with many major tournaments appearing on the screens. Despite the number of tournaments, the game had a poor image - players were allowed to smoke and drink alcohol on stage during matches. This, coupled with the decision of ITV to scrap both their World of Sport Saturday afternoon show (which broadcast several events) in 1985 and withdraw from darts coverage by 1988 left the World Championship as the only televised event.

The players formed the World Darts Council (WDC - now known as the Professional Darts Corporation) in January 1992 with the intention to promote the game more on television and enhance their earnings which had severely diminished in the previous few years. ^[4]

The top 16 players including all the former World Champions stuck together in the WDC and Gregory won their first ever tournament, the 1992 Lada Classic which was televised regionally on Anglia Television. The players wore WDC logos on their sleeves during the 1993 World Championship as a show of solidarity - but the governing body, the British Darts Organisation (BDO) told the players to remove them. The players issued an ultimatum that if the BDO didn't allow them to run additional tournaments, they would withdraw from the World Championship for the following year.

Gregory won the second WDC Lada Classic in 1993 - but as the WDC prepared to organise its own World Championship to start in 1994, Gregory had a change of heart and decided to stick with BDO. Chris Johns was the other player who followed Gregory, but the other 14 stayed united. Gregory's decision to jump back to the BDO caused controversy, as the WDC players felt as if he had let them down. The BDO players were not too keen to welcome back the player who had defected.

Gregory was ranked number two at the time of the split and it was possible that the BDO wanted to keep a high-profile name as the game continued its internal battle.

[edit] After the split

The last BDO tournament in which the "rebel" players competed was the Finland Open in May 1993. Gregory's return to the BDO was in time for the 1993 British Open which was staged just after Christmas and he reached the semi-finals. He wasn't able to compete at either World Championship in 1994 as the tournament draws had been made before he decided to return to the BDO. Later in 1994 he won the Norway Open and Belgian Open.

In 1995 he returned the Lakeside for the first time since the split as the number five seed. He reached the quarter-finals losing 4-5 to Martin Adams. He suffered first round defeats in each of his next three appearances in the tournament - 1996, 1997 and 1999. Since 1999, Gregory has failed to qualify for the competition.

His other BDO titles came in 1995 winning the Swiss Open and the Belgian Open, but then his form slowly faded. Other than a quarter-final appearance at the 2001 Welsh Open and a defeat to Davey Richardson in the final of the 2003 Scottish Open - he hasn't featured in the latter stages of Open events since 1999 and he no longer competes on the darts circuit.