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The European Championship featured a shock semi-final line-up before Ritchie Edhouse became champion
The European Championship featured a shock semi-final line-up before Ritchie Edhouse became champion

European Championship was the strangest darts major in history but Paul Nicholson insists there will be more shock champions in future

By Paul Nicholson
13:16 · TUE October 29, 2024

The 2024 European Championship will go down as the strangest major in darts history due to all the shocks and an incredibly unexpected semi-final line-up that nobody could have possibly predicted.

That’s no disrespect to the final four whatsoever – and they certainly all deserved it - but in Ritchie Edhouse, Luke Woodhouse and Jermaine Wattimena we had three 250/1 shots whilst Danny Noppert (66/1) wouldn’t have been many people’s title pick despite the fact he has won a the UK Open before and is ranked 12 in the world.

It was a head scratching few days for most darts fans in Dortmund, so I’ll try and make sense of it all…

Was there any logic for Ritchie Edhouse winning?

Before a dart was thrown, most fans and pundits would have been preparing for storylines such as Luke Humphries reaching a seventh ranked major final in a row, Luke Littler winning a 10th title of the season or even Gary Anderson lifting his maiden European Championship and his first big, individual trophy since 2018.

On paper, it would have been hard to pick any of the semi-finalists due to the form and major credentials of many other usual suspects who we’d expect to see challenging for this trophy.

Darts isn’t played on paper. It’s played on sisal. And if you look back at how Ritchie was playing on sisal, we should have all been ready for a big run sooner rather than later.

Ritchie is an incredibly selfless individual and I've always questioned whether he believes in himself enough. I said if he did, he could do something quite special because he’s got a lot of ability.

It's only been little smatterings of it over the last four years or so, which is why he’d never gone beyond the last 32 of a major before this weekend.

I remember him taking out a massive shot to take out Adrian Lewis 6-5 in a European Tour event a few seasons ago, and I thought ‘why doesn't he do this more often?’

I always thought that maybe he doesn't believe in himself enough.

But over the course of this season a few things have happened that have changed his outlook and he is now realising that he is better than he thought he was.

And when that happens to a dart player, they can do extraordinary things.

Let’s not forget, he played the first game of the tournament on Thursday night and put in an average of almost 110 to beat Gian Van Veen. If anyone does that at the start of a tournament they’ll be thinking ‘there’s nobody I can’t beat this weekend.’

It turned out, nobody could beat him.

The only person who got close was Michael Smith and even in that last leg decider, Edhouse held it together better than the world number two.

He didn't used to do that.

The confidence that he's yielded from all of the things he's done in 2024 – including an outrageous 120 average in a Players Championship event recently - have allowed him to be stronger in key moments like that.

This is a player who has lost 2-0 set leads in the last couple of World Championships and those experiences would have demolished his confidence.

But this year he’s built up that confidence month by month by month. When it came to the European Championship, only one person even got close to him.

It’s not as if he took advantage of people playing badly. Anderson, who has been one of the players of the season and boasts the highest overall average out of anyone this year, managed 100 against him but was still blown away 10-5.

The final between Ritchie and Jermaine may not have been the highest of standards but you’ve got to bare in mind that the climax of these type of weekend majors – where the players have played three long matches in one day – aren’t always statistical classics. No matter who’s involved.

It’s very common to see averages well below 100 because the stakes are so high, especially when both players know this could be their best ever chance to win a major.

It was always going to be edgy but Ritchie deserves immense credit for settling quicker than Jermaine and getting the job done as quickly as possible.

Jermaine may feel slightly disappointed about his final performance but the weekend was a huge success for him, especially given the way he bested Luke Humphries 10-4 in the quarter-finals with an average of 100 before edging past Danny Noppert in a deciding leg.

Luke Woodhouse was underdog in all of his matches against Ross Smith (6-1), Ryan Searle (10-8) and Dirk van Duijvenbode (10-4) but still progressed with consistent averages between 92 and 95. It proves you don’t always have to be in the 100s to go far. Mid-90s can be plenty if your timing is right at the key moments.

Will this ever happen again?

If you include Andrew Gilding winning the 2023 UK Open and Mike de Decker winning this year’s World Grand Prix a few weeks ago, this is the third time we’ve seen a huge outsider lift a major title in very recent memory.

We should throw Littler reaching the world final into the mix because few saw that coming this time last year!

This is proof that darts is more wide open than ever before and the deep talent pool means this certainly won’t be the last ‘shock’ champion we’ll see in the coming years.

We’ve already talked about the signs Edhouse had shown this year, and the same could have been said about De Decker.

Edhouse and De Decker have been playing the darts of their lives this season so we shouldn’t really be that shocked. If another leftfield champion comes in the remainder of 2024 then I’m predicting that it’ll be Daryl Gurney due to the upward curve he’s been on away from the limelight.

Outsider champions do spur everyone else on – and Ritchie even admitted that straight after his first-round win over Gian van Veen. He said he watched De Decker shocking Humphries in the World Grand Prix final and thought ‘if he can do it, so can I’.

Ricky Evans tweeted that he was running to the practice board after watching Edhouse win the European Championship.

It will have an effect because he will inspire people of a certain ranking – and those who aren’t even ranked – that they can challenge for major titles in future years. It’s not a closed shop for the top 16 anymore.

Four years ago Ritchie was a Challenge Tour player. He rebuilt his career in the early Modus Super Series, earned himself a Tour Card and hasn’t been back to Q School since.

It was a great achievement for him to stay in the top 64, especially after two heartbreaking losses at the worlds which I know hurt him quite a lot.

If he can do it, so can everyone else.

How will Dave Chisnall be feeling?

Not the question on everyone’s lips but it may feel bittersweet for him to see Mike de Decker and Ritchie Edhouse win major titles this past month from nowhere when he’s still waiting for his first despite knocking on the door for many, many years.

He is by far and away the ‘best player not to win a major yet’ and he’s also had a better overall career than many who have won.

Not only has he reached six major finals but he’s won 26 PDC titles from 50 career finals.

He can keep knocking on the door but if nobody is at home there’s only one way he’s going to get in and that’s if he knocks the door down.

He needs to go and get a hammer and say to himself ‘I’ve had enough of this’.

His attitude has to change and he knows it because at the minute he’s just being a bit too tentative. I have every faith that Dave will write that chapter. It’s never crossed my mind that it will never happen.

European Championship: Daily results

Thursday October 24
Evening Session (1900-2300 CEST, 1800-2200 BST)
First Round (Best of 11 legs)
TV Channel: ITV4

  • Ritchie Edhouse 6-1 Gian van Veen
  • Daryl Gurney 6-3 Gerwyn Price
  • Luke Woodhouse 6-1 Ross Smith
  • Gary Anderson 6-3 Stephen Bunting
  • Ryan Searle 6-2 Raymond van Barneveld
  • Michael van Gerwen 6-1 Gabriel Clemens
  • Dirk van Duijvenbode 6-3 Martin Schindler
  • Michael Smith 6-0 Dave Chisnall

Friday October 25
Evening Session (1900-2300 CEST, 1800-2200 BST)
First Round (Best of 11 legs)
TV Channel: ITV4

  • Danny Noppert 6-2 Joe Cullen
  • Jonny Clayton 6-4 Chris Dobey
  • James Wade 6-3 Rob Cross
  • Ricardo Pietreczko 6-5 Damon Heta
  • Jermaine Wattimena 6-0 Peter Wright
  • Andrew Gilding 6-4 Luke Littler
  • Luke Humphries 6-2 Nathan Aspinall
  • Mike De Decker 6-1 Josh Rock

Saturday October 26
Afternoon Session (1245-1700 CEST, 1145-1600 BST)
Second Round (Best of 19 legs)
TV Channel: ITV4

  • Luke Woodhouse 10-8 Ryan Searle
  • Dirk van Duijvenbode 10-5 Daryl Gurney
  • Ritchie Edhouse 10-9 Michael Smith
  • Danny Noppert 10-6 Mike De Decker

Evening Session (1900-2300 CEST, 1800-2200 BST)
Second Round (Best of 19 legs)
TV Channel: ITV4

  • Gary Anderson 10-4 Michael van Gerwen
  • Jermaine Wattimena 10-9 James Wade
  • Luke Humphries 10-3 Jonny Clayton
  • Ricardo Pietreczko 10-3 Andrew Gilding

Sunday October 29
Afternoon Session (1300-1700 CET, 1200-1600 GMT)
TV Channel: ITV4
Quarter-Finals (Best of 19 legs)

  • Luke Woodhouse 10-4 Dirk van Duijvenbode
  • Ritchie Edhouse 10-5 Gary Anderson
  • Jermaine Wattimena 10-4 Luke Humphries
  • Danny Noppert 10-9 Ricardo Pietreczko

Evening Session (1900-2300 CET, 1800-2200 GMT)
TV Channel: ITV4
Semi-Final (Best of 21 legs)

  • Ritchie Edhouse 11-5 Luke Woodhouse
  • Jermaine Wattimena 11-10 Danny Noppert

Final (Best of 21 legs)

  • Ritchie Edhouse 11-3 Jermaine Wattimena

European Championship odds

Click here for more darts odds from Sky Bet

What channel is the European Championship Darts on?

The Machineseeker European Championship will be broadcast live on ITV in the UK, through the PDC's worldwide broadcast partners including DAZN and Viaplay, and on PDCTV (excluding subscribers based in the UK, Germany, Austria & Switzerland).

European Championship Darts: Prize money

  • Winner: £120,000
  • Runner-up: £60,000
  • Semi-final: £32,000
  • Quarter-final: £20,000
  • Last 16: £10,000
  • Last 32: £6,000
  • Total: £500,000
  • Nine-Darter Bonus £15,000

European Championship Darts: Previous winners

Darts: Related content

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