Callan Rydz thanked the Alexandra Palace crowd for their support during his victory over Welshman Rob Owen, despite several X-rated chants about his hair.
The Newcastle-born star went viral on social media after the Ally Pally wasp appeared to get stuck in his hair during the match, without Rydz noticing as he continued to throw at the board.
Those inside the venue later noticed and began bellowing a chant about what they described as “s*** hair” being sported by the 26-year-old, who came from behind to defeat Owen.
Another disappointing doubles effort from Owen, who was playing in the third round of the competition for the first time in his career, left Rydz with the chance to seal a 4-3 victory with double 10 – he duly obliged.
The crowd soon went from mocking Rydz’s haircut to chanting his name and he addressed them on-stage, speaking to Sky Sports as he said: “The crowd got me through that match. Rob battered me in the first two sets, so thank you very much to the crowd.
“They were saying Man United but I’m a Newcastle fan! No thank you very much to everyone.”
He then dedicated the victory to his late grandmother, with Rydz adding: “I saw a photo this week of me celebrating Christmas with my grandma who I lost and it really hurt, so this is for her.
“I didn’t feel like I played good there but I have seen the average and I was decent. I have a day off tomorrow to recharge the batteries. I think Rob is a great lad and just the crowd got me through this game, so thank you very much everyone.”
Owen had threatened to go 3-0 up but Rydz managed to weather the storm and his reward for battling valiantly is a place in the quarter-finals against either Michael van Gerwen or Jeffrey de Graaf on New Year’s Day.
He averaged 97.38 and threw a dozen 180s, coupled with a 43 per cent success rate on doubles, to storm back after an impressive start by Owen.
It has been an impressive Ally Pally run by Rydz, who has reached the quarter-finals for the third time in his career, having downed 11th seed Dimitri Van den Bergh in the previous round.
That came after the Belgian had branded Rydz as “unstable” following dominant victories over Romeo Grbavac and Martin Schindler.
“I went, ‘He’s not wrong,’ but I think that was the fire in the belly that I needed,” Rydz explained after decimating Van den Bergh 4-0 and recording a sensational three-dart average of 105.31.
