Mike Gregory



Mike Gregory was born on 16. December 1956 in Bath. His first success in darts came in 1983 when he defeated in the semi-finals of the British Open John Lowe before he lost in the final to Eric Bristow. He lost as well in the same year in the final of the World Masters to Bristow.

1984 Gregory took for the first time part in the BDO World Championship und reached the quarterfinals where he was eliminated by Jocky Wilson. 1990 he for the first time stood in the semi-finals and once again lost to Eric Bristow. 1992 he for the first and only time stood in the final. It was an epic match between Gregory and Phil Taylor which developed. Gregory had six matchdarts but it was Taylor who won the match 6:5. This match till today is considered as one of the best matches ever played and for Taylor himself it is his best match. Mike Gregory stayed till 2018 the only player who lost a World Championship final despite he had matchdarts.

Gregory - whose nickname was " The Quiet Man of Darts" - never won the World Championship but loads of other tournaments and is together with Tom Barrett and Eric Bristow one of the only three players who won the News of the World in two consecutive years.

Though Gregory was one of the top players of the mid 1980s to the mid 1990 he is some kind of forgotten player whom many of his colleagues eyed critially. The reason was his controversial behaviour during the split in darts.

In the mid 1980s the image of the sport got worse and worse as on stage it was allowed to smoke and to drink alcohol. The broadcasters stopped to televise tournaments with the exception of the BDO World Championship. It got more and more difficult for the professional players to earn their living with darts. Many players blamed the BDO for this development and founded the World Darts Council, today the PDC , to bring the sport back into TV. The top 16 at that time inculding all former World Champions were among the founding members. Gregory was among them and he won the first tournament the WDC organised - the Lada UK Masters 1992. He defended the title one year later. When the BDO decided to exclude the WDC players from the BDO World Championship 1994 Gregory turned his back to the WDC and returned to the BDO. His fellow rebels took offence especially as he never had talked about it and they were taken by surprise. The players who had stayed in the BDO were not really happy with Gregorys return either.

Gregory had two more successful years in the BDO and celebrated his last tournament win in September 1995 when he won the Unipart European Masters. After that he started to lose his form though he managed to qualify in 1996, 1997 and 1999 for the BDO World Championshoíp again. 2005 he played in his last WDF tournament - the Scottish Open. In his last years he still played County Darts for Somerset and in the Somerset Super League. There were rumours of a comeback but it never happened.

Gregory, who suffered from detoriating dementia in his last five years, passed away on 19. April 2022 with 65 years of age.


On Youtube you can find some Mike Gregory videos among them his World Championship final 1992 against Phil Taylor and the final of the Lada UK Masters 1992 against Dennis Priestley.







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