The PDC world darts championship is back, but could the new £1m winners’ cheque make this show too big?
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team of assistant referees walks into the Twelve Pins in Finsbury Park carrying linesmen’s flags and whistles. It’s 3pm on a Thursday, you think, they’ve probably just been reffing a local game. Then, you think, there isn’t a football pitch around here. And why haven’t they changed and showered? Then more referees walk in, more linesmen, one of them in a comedy wig. And eventually the penny drops.
Yes, “the Darts” is back: an indispensable festive trimming that – much like Christmas itself – always seems to roll around a little sooner every year. Fire up all the old cliches: “the beauty of set play”, “bent the wire”, “pressure the shot”. Wheel John Part out of the attic. Fingers poised on the 180 zoom. You know it’s serious, because it’s two hours before his match and Luke Littler is already on the practice board.
Littler won on opening night, of course he did. Nobody will be too fussed about dwelling on the finer details of his 3-0 win over Darius Labanauskas, least of all Littler himself. But the Lithuanian can certainly be proud of the way he pushed the defending champion, averaging 95 and taking the first two sets to deciding legs.
