CO STOMPE has warmed up for the Ladbrokes.com World Darts Championship by playing darts with Engelbert Humperdinck.
The Dutch ace was invited to meet with the darts-mad singer at the weekend in Holland by Rene Froger, who was performing at a Christmas concert with the 74-year-old in Utrecht.
After playing darts with the pair on Saturday, Stompe watched Sunday's concert before being invited by Humperdinck to dinner after the gig, where they continued playing darts.
"It was great fun," said Stompe. "Rene likes his darts anyway and called me up when he knew Engelbert was coming to town.
"He really can play darts and he takes two sets of darts everywhere in the world with him on tour.
"We played a few games of Cricket and he beat me twice! He loves playing the game and didn't even want to stop for dinner on Sunday."
Stompe takes on Peter Wright in the first round of the Ladbrokes.com World Darts Championship on Friday, and could have a celebrity fan in the crowd at Alexandra Palace should he progress to the latter stages for the third successive year.
"Engelbert's got a few more concerts before Christmas but has said he'd love to come and watch me if he gets chance," added Stompe.
"It would be great to have him cheering me on but I'll have to get past Peter Wright first, which will be a hard game."
Stompe has also received a telegram from Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands congratulating him and Raymond van Barneveld on their achievement in winning the Cash Converters World Cup of Darts.
"I usually only get mail in the Queen's name asking me to pay my taxes, so it was a great surprise!" said Stompe. "I'm very proud to have received the telegram and it's something very special for me.
"She said that she was very pleased to find out that we had won the World Cup of Darts and that she enjoyed it as much as we did when she heard that we had won for the Netherlands, that it was a great achievement for us and we'd done our country proud.
"It's great to receive it and I know Raymond was very happy too."
Tickets for the Ladbrokes.com World Darts Championship are available through www.seetickets.com/darts or via 0871 220 0260 (calls cost 10p per minute from a BT landline)
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