The man making darts for the Premier League winner
He is one of the most successful designers in the sports industry with a legion of world champions to his name.
But Lee Huxtable is not widely known outside the world of darts.
On Thursday night, Luke Humphries was crowned the 2025 champion of Premier League Darts, and he sealed victory at the O2 in London, with darts designed by the Welsh engineer.
From his Bridgend base, Mr Huxtable also made darts for semi finalist, Gerwyn Price and Dutch player Michael Van Gerwen for the tournament, which has run since February.
But of all the darts players he has worked with, he is missing one big one – current world champion, Luke Littler, whose arrows are made by rival company.
As head of development for Red Dragon Darts, Mr Huxtable tries to name all the world champions he has made darts for.
“Peter Wright, Gerwyn Price, Michael Van Gerwen, Luke Humphries, Trina Gulliver…” the names keep coming.
Within his work, Mr Huxtable has played a pivotal role in helping many players excel including World number one, Humphries.
“The Luke Humphries dart is a long shaft, front-weighted short barrel which creates certain amount of drag and lands at a perfect angle for him in the board to help his scoring.
“Every darts player is different, Peter ‘snakebite’ Wright’s world titles mean a lot to me, me and Peter would go through hundreds of concepts,” he said.
“His darts cover everything from short fat ones to long thin ones.
“One diamond-coated dart took 18 months in production and we had chemists involved. But he went on to win a world title with it which was very fulfilling.”
In 2020, Mr Huxtable designed darts for both the PDC and BDO world champions.
Wright and Wayne Warren both credited Mr Huxtable for his help to make them the best in the world.
“Sometimes it might take years working with a player, other times you get a eureka moment and that can advance a player’s game hugely,” the engineer said.
“It could mean someone going from the top 32 and getting into top 16 and making the big time.”
Mr Huxtable is also making darts for another Welsh player, Jonny Clayton, from Carmarthenshire, who has won four titles with his darts.
“Jonny Clayton’s game changed overnight and it skyrocketed to the next level,” he said.
“He’s a great character.”
Mr Huxtable has also been finessing the darts of former world champion Price, from Caerphilly county, before he battled it out at the O2 on Thursday.
“I’ve never seen focus like that from Gerwyn Price,” he said.
“He was a former rugby player who just played socially and he made it into the top 32.
“He said that’s not good enough and when he made it into top 16 he still wasn’t happy with that.
“He was so focused to be the best and to take Gerwyn from being a rugby player to a world champion was a big moment for us.”
