Will anyone ever beat dart legend Phil Taylor’s record 16 World Championship titles? I don’t think so, for reasons I will explain. Phil, from Stoke-on-Trent, is now 64 and has retired after hip problems. I have known ‘The Power’ for over 40 years.

Last week, we were together for two days in Birmingham, talking to staff from Volkswagen TPS and commentating on them playing darts. A year ago, few of us had heard of a 16-year-old player called Luke Littler, who reached this January’s World Championship final just before his 17th birthday on January 21.

In doing so, he changed the sport which was already putting up sell-out notices around the world for PDC events. Normally, Sky Sports gets around two million viewers for a top Premier League match. The darts final with Littler hit a record 4.5 million.

He is remarkable. In the last 11 months, he has won 10 major events, netting him over a £1million. He hardly practices and yet he set a new record for the number of maximums – 180 with three darts – in any major tournament when he won this month’s Grand Slam of Darts in Wolverhampton.

The World........

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