At this past weekend's Dutch Darts Championship, legendary darts referee George Noble announced that he would be retiring after the 2026 PDC WC at the end of the year.
This is now the second consecutive year that a legendary announcer will retire after Russ Bray announced his retirement (except for PDC World Series events) after the 2024 PDC WC.
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The great career of George Noble
Noble has been refereeing games since the mid-1990s.
He became a PDC referee starting in 2007 and has done games for almost the last two decades.
Noble has notably reffed 26 total nine darters in his career, including seven at the PDC WC.
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Noble had the honor of calling Brendan Dolan's World Grand Prix nine-dart finish, which was the first ever in World Grand Prix history (double-in, double-out format).
Noble also called Raymond van Barneveld's 2009 PDC WC nine-darter, the first in tournament history.
He called two nine-darters on the same night of the Premier League on three different occasions (Luke Humphries & Rob Cross 3/6/25, Gerwyn Price 2x 2/17/22, and Phil Taylor 2x 5/24/25).
Phil Taylor's two nine-dart night was a historic day, as both nines were in the same game, making him the first player to hit two nine-darters in the same game.
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The highest average that he has refereed for a game was 116.67.
Here are the number of tournaments that he's refereed for majors:
| # 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 also announced that he's done refereeing games on the European Tour for the rest of 2025, after this past weekend's Dutch Darts Championship.
We should expect to see more of Franz Engerer at European Tour events going forward as the PDC will be down a referee for the time being.
Franz has refereed for six European Tour events in 2025 so far.
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