After fifteen consecutive Thursday, more than fifty games, and several hundred legs of darts in front of a total of 90,000 fans, Phil Taylor won his sixth Premier League darts last week with victory over The Wizard of Aus, Simon Whitlock.
A record 10,000 fans witnessed events at London’s O2, but for the darting connoisseur the end of the marathon Premier League marks the beginning of darts’ busy summer.
July will see Phil Taylor in Blackpool trying to repeat his feat from 2000-2004, attempting to win his fifth consecutive World Matchplay title. Prior to that, the Reebok Stadium in Bolton appropriately enough hosts the ‘FA Cup of darts’ in early June, with amateur players plying their trade amongst darts’ great and the good in the UK Open finals.
With it’s unseeded draw, the Open is a notoriously difficult tournament to predict. Recent finalists have included Wes Newton, Colin Osborne, Gary Mawson, Vincent Van der Voort and Barrie Bates. What is sure, however is that the tasty games will stack up from the early rounds. And whilst the romantic will be hoping for Dennis Priestley to come through a few rounds in what will probably be his last TV appearance, I’m backing Dave Chisnall to be giving one of his famous interviews late on a Sunday night in one of these summer months (possibly as the losing finalist).
In this unprecedented summer of UK sport, don’t forget the arrows.