He is one of the most successful designers in the sports industry, and his name is World Champion.

But Lee Huxtable is not well known outside the world of darts.

Luke Humphries was crowned the 2025 Premier League Darts champion on Thursday night, winning at O2 in London, designed by Welsh engineers.

Mr Huxtable also made darts from his Bridgend base for semi-finalists, Gerwyn Price and Dutch player Michael Van Gerwen to compete in the competition since the match.

But of all the darts players he has worked with, he lacks a big player - current world champion Luke Littler, whose arrows are made by rival companies.

As the development director for Red Dragon Darts, Mr. Huxtable tried to name all the world champions he did for Darts.

"Peter Wright, Gerwyn Price, Michael Van Gerwen, Luke Humphries, Trina Gulliver..." The name keeps going.

In his work, Mr. Huxtable played a key role in helping many players stand out, including the world number one, Humphries.

“The Luke Humphries dart is a long-axle, front-weighted short barrel that creates a certain amount of resistance and land in the board at a perfect angle to help him score.

"Every dart player is different, Peter'Snakebite's world championship means a lot to me, and Peter and I will go through hundreds of concepts," he said.

“His darts cover everything from short fat to long darts.

"A dart coated with diamonds took 18 months to produce and we were involved in the chemist. But he went on to win the world championship, which was very satisfying."

In 2020, Mr. Huxtable designed the darts for the PDC and BDO world champions.

Both Wright and Wayne Warren praised Mr. Huxtable for their help in making them the best in the world.

"Sometimes it can take years to work with a player, and other times you get Eureka moments, which can greatly boost the player's game," the engineer said.

“It could mean someone went into the top 16 from the top 32 and had a great time.”

Mr Huxtable also made darts for another Welsh player from Carmarthenshire, Jonny Clayton, who won four titles with the darts.

"Jonny Clayton's game changed overnight and it soared to the next level," he said.

“He is a great character.”

Mr Huxtable has also been mediating the former world champion price darts at Caerphilly County, before he fought on Thursday at O2.

"I've never seen a focus like Gerwyn Price," he said.

“He is a former rugby player who just played socially and made the top 32.

“He said it wasn’t good enough and he was still not happy with it when he entered the top 16.

“He was very focused on being the best person and taking Gerwyn from rugby player to world champion was a big time for us.”

Mr. Huxtable, Rhondda Cynon Taf, from Pontypridd, has done most of the work from Bridgend headquarters in Nodor, for 25 years, but also headed to Kenya where darts are mass-produced for the retail market.

Red Dragon Darts is a family-run Nodor Group that moved its production of darts and darts to Kenya after obtaining the Winmau brand about 20 years ago.

Silk plants grow naturally in East African countries and are the best material for bristle boards, reducing operating costs.

Nodor opened its own sales and distribution center in Dallas, Texas in 2023 and now produces 30,000 sets of darts and 20,000 darts a week from a factory in Kenya and employs 1,000 employees.

Mr Huxtable said: “It’s always about the technology that improves performance and improves darts, which is the most important thing to me.

“In one of my favorite darts, we managed to fuse 85% of the tungsten together behind the barrel and 95% of the tungsten in the front to move the center of gravity forward.

“The concept is that many players like front-weighted darts, but players don’t want to make the darts fatter in the front.”

With the effects of Luke Littler fueling the junior game, the Darts are now described as its third golden age and attracting the second-highest figure in the sky after Premier League football.

In January, more than 3 million people watched 17-year-old Luke Littler win the world championship at the Alexandra Palace.

Mr Huxtable said: “Young people have bounced up the game and we see kids 12 and 13 years old throwing another dart in that era.

“By the 20s, the standard will become higher and as the viewing characters and bonuses rise, it will become more and more popular among young people.”