Charlie Manby has spoken out about being left ‘heartbroken’ after his girlfriend was ‘stopped’ from watching him win at the World Darts Championships.
Manby beat Ricky Evans 4-2 yesterday, with many comparing his fairytale run to the fourth round to the rise to fame of Luke Littler.
Whilst Littler himself made headlines for slamming the crowd booing him, reminding him their tickets pay his prize money, Manby has since made headlines for a frank interview about how his girlfriend didn’t get to witness him beating Evans.
At the time of writing Manby sits at 163rd in the world rankings, with Evans 120 places above him, and his next opponent Gian van Veen is the number ten darts player in the world.
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Speaking after the win against Evans in the post-match press conference, Manby said: “You want your close family there.
“My girlfriend’s not here today. That was heartbreaking enough.”
The Brit went on to explain that his girlfriend works for Ford in admin down in Huddersfield and was ‘absolutely gutted’ to miss the match.
He added: “Her manager has been good letting her have a couple of days off here and there but I think it was too much this time.
“Like this happens often you know.
“I think it was a bit out of order to be honest.”
The 20-year-old darts star said he was going to try and get her down for his David and Goliath matchup with Gian van Veen.
He said: “People don’t understand – especially him as a local lad supporting a local lad – things might not work out the same if she’s not here or not.
“People are always going to want to come, especially on debut and they’re always going to try and get tickets off of you.
“But at the end of the day it’s who I want there and I have a lot of close family and friends who want to come.
“My grandad couldn’t come the first two times and he’s come today.
“You know he’s a 78-year-old lad, he struggles a bit, but at the end of the day I wanted him to come more than anyone else.”
Manby isn’t even a full-time professional darts player yet, working as a bricklayer by trade in Huddersfield prior to this Cinderella run.
If he manages to beat European Champion van Veen and advance to the quarter finals he will be guaranteed £100,000 in prize money, despite not even having a PDC tour card, though he will if he beats the Dutch star.
Speaking to The Sun last week he said: “I’m not working over Christmas. But I went into work on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday last week.
“It was all good. Most of the lads had been down here with me anyway, so they enjoyed it and they had a good time.”
He faces Van Veen later today, December 30.
Topics: Luke Littler, Sport, UK News, Sex and Relationships
Michael Slavin