During last weekend’s Dutch event
Darts
The championship, with renowned darts official George Noble as the esteemed referee, declared that he will step down following the conclusion of the 2026 PDC World Championship.
This marks the second successive year that a renowned commentator is retiring, following Russ Bray’s decision to step down from announcing (excluding PDC World Series events) after the 2024 PDC World Championship.
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The illustrious career of George Noble
Noble has been officiating matches since the 1990s.
He started his career as a PDC referee in 2007 and has officiated matches for nearly the past twenty years.
Noble has remarkably achieved 26 perfect three-dart finishes in his career, with seven of those occurring during the PDC World Championship.
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Noble had the privilege of witnessing and announcing Brendan Dolan’s perfect nine-dart finish at the World Grand Prix, marking this as the inaugural such achievement in the tournament’s history under the double-in, double-out ruleset.
Noble also referred to Raymond van Barneveld’s 2009 PDC World Championship nine-darter as the first one ever recorded in tournament history.
On three separate nights during the Premier League, he achieved two perfect darts throws known as nine-darters (Luke Humphries & Rob Cross on March 6th, 2025; Gerwyn Price twice on February 2nd and 17th, 2022; and Phil Taylor twice on May 24th, 2025).
Phil Taylor’s achievement of throwing two nine-darter nights stands out as an unprecedented moment, with both perfect legs occurring within the same match, thus marking his status as the inaugural player to accomplish this feat.
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The maximum average score he has officiated in a game was 116.67.
Below is the count of major tournaments he has officiated as a referee:
| # of appearances | Tournament |
| 17x | World Matchplay |
| 16x | Grand Slam of Darts |
| 18x | World Grand Prix |
| 19x | UK Open |
| 19x | Premier League |
| 18x | PDC World Championship |
Noble has also stated that he will not be officiating matches for the European Tour for the remainder of 2025 following this last weekend’s Dutch Darts Championship.
We can anticipate seeing increased appearances from Franz Engerer at European Tour events moving ahead since the PDC currently lacks a referee.
So far in 2025, Franz has officiated at six European Tour events.
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