When I was 16 years of age, completing the Junior Cert was Mount Everest. And a power cut during the first day of the State Exams which necessitated me to stay in school until 6.30pm catching up added another uninvited layer of trepidation.
Other than that, becoming more efficient at driving a powered wheelchair, ditto a razor and the unforgettable trilogy of Gaelic football matches between Meath and Kildare covered most of what was consuming my mind.
On the other hand, David Clifford was doing, well, David Clifford things and Jack Kennedy was picking up Grade One winners quicker than GAA men sell Lotto tickets.
Luke Littler, however, is different gravy. I’d tagged on another year before being ballsy enough to bid adieu to school. Even though in that case it could have been done from 15 justifiably such was the shambolic way things had gone.
Jacking up education at 16 to pursue a career in professional darts is either commendable self confidence, signpost of impending stardom or an outrageous dodgy gamble!
With Littler, it’s absolutely the middle criteria in play. Consider that, for somebody of his tender years and paltry experience to have qualified for the Ally Pally at all would be one of the astounding sports stories of the year in its own right.
Littler, however, has given a book which virtually writes itself. Not only did he qualify to compete for the Sid Wadell Trophy. He won a match therein. And then convention said there was no way he could take out the reinvigorated Dutch darting doyen and five time World Champion Raymond Van Barneveld. But it was if the plucky Warrington lad said ‘I’ll see your convention and raise you class and guts’.
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Anybody that saw any golf over the past two decades will surely have seen the video clip of a very young Rory McIlroy chipping a ball into a washing machine. Or maybe before that, hordes of kids doing the “I Am Tiger Woods’ line from the Nike advert.
Well, there’s now another one to rival it. That being Luke Littler taking off RVB’s iconic celebration as a three year old. That the big man from Den Hag is the youngster’s hero should be no shock, he’s that to many of us.
That said, you can imagine the emotional maelstrom it must have been for the lad on Saturday last. Not only playing the biggest match of his young life in front of thousands and on global TV, but doing so against his hero.
If it was getting to him in some way, he sure as hell didn’t show it. Barney has looked like a star reborn since wisely doubling back on his two half hearted attempts at retirement.
Yet, even though he averged 101 throughout the joust with his young protege, it was only enough to keep him clinging by a thread to Littler’s coat tails.
Strangely though, having being handed a 4-1 schooling, there is no sense the valiant vanquished warrior will draw stumps again. Nor should he. Flip the coin and the nearest you might get to assessing what the future might hold for Littler is to ponder the length of pieces of string.
Thus far, everything it was reckoned he couldn’t do, he has accomplished. With bells on. Three hurdles out from the finish line, who would be brave – or foolish – enough to wager he won’t?
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In an earlier post pertaining to the action at the World Darts Championship, the point was made that seeded players had been falling out of the competition like the leaves off the trees. And, while it’s beyond question that the defenestration of household names like defending champion Michael Smith and James Wade and Peter Wright and Gary Anderson and Gerwyn Price and Nathan Aspinall gives the tournament a different look. But that’s no bad thing either.
Simply as it opens up the door to others. Like Littler and Luke Humphries and Rob Cross and Fermanagh’s Brendan Dolan and MVG and Dave Chisnell. Meaning that players themselves, fans and as a consequence the sport itself are all on a winner.
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Of course, as sure as night follows day, where there are winners, their must be losers. Mention has already been afforded to the usurping of recognised stars such as Barney, James Wade, Gary Anderson, Peter Wright, Daryl Gurney et al. However, there was one which, I think, would have left a lump in the throat of Our Lord on the cross.
Joe Cullen is a bit like the Mayo football team. Always contending, capable of rattling plenty of cages along the way but will always find somebody or something to derail their brave efforts at ending their title famine.
Indeed, also similarly, every so often the sporting Gods throw them a bone just to encourage them to stay on the scent. For the footballers from the west, that was winning the National League Div. 1 last spring. Just as, around the same time, the dartist known as The Rockstar was annexing one of the televised majors.
But, unfortunately, Con Houlihan’s iconic line (one of the millions thereof) is an apt illustration of how things played out for the affable and admirable Cullen. “Those whom the Gods wish to destroy, they first make mad”. The underdog on this occasion, he got away to a flyer but, as sure as Cool Hand Luke overcame his early jitters, Cullen’s slowly but surely crept up on him. And as fate would have it, of course the deficiencies would have to manifest themselves at the worst possible time when he appeared to have picked the lock to the next phase of the battle for Sid’s trophy only for his accuracy to desert him when he needed it most. Just as it did Lee Keegan when, somewhat ironically, he thought a flying GPS tracker would throw Dean Rock off course.
Nobody has thrown Humphries off course yet but it wouldn’t take Einstein to figure out who is most likely to do it presently, but, with the way this Championship has played out, it would be dangerous to predict 6PM at half five.
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