Gary Anderson became the latest Scot to join the bonfire of champions at Ally Pally – after rubbing up Chris Dobey the wrong way backstage.
In another Jocky horror show, just hours after Peter 'Snakebite' Wright's reign was ended by Kim Huybrechts, seething Dobey completed a shock 4-1 win against the Flying Scotsman.
Then the Geordie known as 'Hollywood' revealed he was fired up to finish off two-time champ Anderson by a remark when Dobey – who used to put out the cones on motorway contraflows as a 'traffic management operative' – was leading 3-1.
Anderson left Ally Pally without commenting on his defeat or the the feisty exchange behind the scenes which riled Dobey.
Dobey said: “I won't go into details, but Gary said something during the last break and I didn't like it. There was no way he was going to win after that. It kind of annoyed us.
“I don't know if he was trying to play mind games or not, but if he was playing tricks he doesn't need to do that because he's a class act.
“He's one of the biggest names in darts and he has been for a while. It's a massive win."
Asked later to elaborate, 32-year-old Dobey – who will now face Rob Cross or Mervyn King on Friday night - insisted: “I’m not going to say, I’m not going to talk. He just said something I didn’t like.”
For Anderson, 52, it was his earliest exit from the PDC World Championship since 2014.
He took the first set in style, averaging 115, but once his former stablemate Dobey had levelled the contest, it was one-way traffic.
