Evison looks back ahead of 25th anniversary of World Matchplay win: "It's a bit of a shock really"

Ahead of the 25th anniversary of his World Matchplay win, Peter Evison spoke on the Weekly Dartscast's revived Darts Legends series.

Evison spoke about a myriad of topics including the breakaway from the BDO to the WDC and what it meant at the time.

"I've always done a lot of exhibitions but Olly Croft tried to pull everyone that broke away, we were turning up at pubs and they were like no we're not allowed to play you because if we play you, we're gonna be banned," said Evison to the Weekly Dartscast.

"So that was going on for a long time, even the friends that I was practicing with stopped practicing with me because they were told if they practiced with me, they were going to be banned. So I lost a lot of friends over it.

"Something had to be done, people were struggling to put food on the table. That's why (Mike) Gregory went back, Chris Johns had no backbone, he got scared out of it. It was tough until we got the end result."

8-1 win over Taylor

Among his victories at his 1996 triumph was against Phil Taylor where he defeated him 8-1 with a 103 average and he admitted there was extra motivation there.

"I used to practice with Phil. He was no-one when I first met him, I used to take him to a tournament, he didn't fear me. I was confident if I play well I could beat anyone anyway. It was just the way he come on made me abit more angrier because he came on with a cape and a hat on and that. That's what he got for doing it."

From there, a classic ensued with Dennis Priestley later in the tournament in the final where he won 16-14 and he discussed the emotions at the time.

"I just dug deep knowing that he was going to dig deep as well. It came down to who wanted it most and thankfully the 96 finish went in and I think that's the tournament Dennis never won which is a bit heartbreaking for him."

As well as the anniversary with Evison revealing he tried to mark the anniversary but was met with deaf ears by the PDC.

"It's a bit of a shock really. I tried to get hold of Matt Porter (PDC Chief Executive) see if he wanted me to go up there and do something because it's been 25 years. He didn't get back to me. It'd had been nice to be there."