Peter Wright beats Peter Jacques 5-4 in Home Tour opener as traffic overwhelms PDC website and leaves fans fuming

PETER WRIGHT won the first match of the PDC Home Tour as the official website crashed due to overwhelming internet traffic.

The reigning world champion came from behind to beat Peter Jacques 5-4 in the opening fixture of Group One of Lockdown Live darts.

Yet the PDCTV website could not cope with the sheer numbers wanting to watch some live sport during the Coronavirus Crisis.

Wright had the NHS inked on to the side of his head for the clash and showed his class by hitting a 100 checkout – with two double tops – to win the ninth leg against the Yorkshireman from his Suffolk home.

But viewers either had to switch to an unofficial feed on YouTube or subscribe to a bookmaker like Bet365.

Eventually the PDC Darts Twitter channel offered its followers a random streaming site where the second match was available to watch.

The PDC CEO Matthew Porter said there was an “overwhelming volume of traffic and a couple of security issues” but he claimed there were “ten of thousands of viewers online currently”.

Anyone watching should probably forgive the poor quality of production on offer but the fixed cameras were too far away from the boards to work out which numbers were thrown.

Players were relied upon to call out their own scores for presenter Dan Dawson.

Some were not convinced with the presentation, with one wag saying: “The darts have been run by the BDO Darts tonight.”

Graham Cash tweeted: “Was looking forward to the darts, but the website crashed.

“They should have used Twitch or another already established streaming service. Nice try though. Can’t watch in Sky Sports app too small #PDCHomeTour.”