YORK’S Rich Corner has won his first PDC title at the age of 52.

Corner emerged triumphant from a field of 204 players, including former world champion John Walton, ex-World Championship finalists Peter Manley and Kirk Shepherd and 1996 World Matchplay winner Peter Evison.

The former Mitre player picked up a winners’ cheque for £2,000 after beating Ryan Searle 5-1 in the final of the PDC Unicorn Challenge Tour’s fourth event at the Robin Park Tennis Centre in Wigan.

Corner enjoyed his maiden victory on the Challenge Tour that has been set up to reward the Order of Merit’s top two players with cards for the main PDC circuit at the end of the year.

Prior to defeating Searle, he had earlier overcome Mike Norton (5-0), Will Harwood (5-3), Dan Russell (5-2), fellow Minsterman John Quantock (5-4), Mike De Decker (5-4), Dan Read (5-0) and John Crossley (5-1).

John Quantock had enjoyed victories over Matthew Wilson (5-4) and Matt Goldie (5-1) to tee up the last-32 meeting with Corner.

His son Chris Quantock, meanwhile, conquered Lee Moffat 5-1 before being knocked out 5-4 by Nick Fulwell.

In the tour’s first event of the weekend, Corner reached the quarter-finals before losing 5-2 to eventual winner and 2008 World Championship runner-up Shepherd.

He made it to the last eight following wins against John Scott (5-3), Steve Collins (5-3), Michael Reilly (5-1) and Matt Clark (5-3).

John and Chris Quantock lost their first matches in that tournament to Peter Hudson (5-2) and Michael Barnard (5-3) respectively.

In event two, the Quantocks reached the second round with Chris losing to Stephen Lovett 5-3 after a 5-2 triumph over Matthew Laws and John bowing out to Searle 5-1 having edged past Oliver Stell 5-4.

Corner fell at the first hurdle to Karl Merchant 5-2.

The same played ended Corner’s interest by the same scoreline during the third round of event three after the York player had defeated Dean Forde 5-1.

Chris Quantock also went out 5-2 to Scott Dale having overcome Lee Gregory (5-1) and John Goldie (5-3), while John Quantock lost 5-2 against Nigel Birch after victories over David O’Donovan (5-1) and Paul Fox (5-4).