BACK IN THE DAY WITH: Wayne Jones: major finalist at BDO and PDC, but lost both finals

In this column, we regularly go back in the day with a particular darter. Today we do so with Englishman Wayne Jones.

Wayne Jones was born on April 24, 1965, in Wolverhampton. He began his career with the BDO in the late 1980s and managed to reach the final of the British Open in 1990, where he lost to Alan Warriner.

Yet it wasn't until the late 1990s that he made his definitive breakthrough. At the Winmau World Masters that year, to everyone's surprise, he reached the final. In that final, which was played at the Lakeside Country Club in Frimley Green, he eventually had to acknowledge his superiority to Andy Fordham.

For his debut at the BDO World Championship, he had to wait until 2001. After a 3-0 win in the opening round against Bob Taylor, the second round was his finish after a 3-0 defeat to Fordham. A year later, he beat successively Tony Eccles and Ted Hankey before losing 5-1 to Martin Adams in the quarterfinals.

It eventually remained only two appearances at the BDO World Championship, because after the defeat against Adams he decided to move to the PDC. There he quickly established himself as a regular and in 2006 he recorded his best performance ever at a World Championship. After wins against James Wade, Andy Jenkins, Steve Alker and Gary Welding, he faced Peter Manley in the semifinals. That semifinal, however, turned into a complete disillusionment and after a 6-0 defeat, Jones had to walk away extremely disappointed.

Jones, nicknamed "The Wanderer" because of his sympathy for soccer club Wolverhampton Wanderers, would eventually play in thirteen editions of the PDC World Cup, but he never managed to equal or improve on his semi-final position. In 2010 he did make his presence felt at the European Championship. Somewhat surprisingly, he reached the final, where he went down 11-1 against Phil Taylor.

By the way, 2010 was his best year at the PDC, he also reached the quarterfinals at the World Matchplay, World Grand Prix, Players Championship Finals and the semifinals at the Grand Slam of Darts that year.

Jones failed to qualify for the World Darts Championship in 2016 for the first time in years, and that had its consequences. At the end of that year, he lost his PDC Tour Card. He did win that Tour Card back in 2018, but in 2021 he forfeited it again.

Since then, Jones has been mostly in action on the Challenge Tour and sporadically picks up a tournament on the World Seniors Darts Tour.