Kevin Mitchell darts
It’s hard not to be rude about the town of Purfleet. Well, the bit of it between the railway station and the Circus Tavern. Out the station and south down Railway Cottages. Turn left across the road from Cheggie’s hairdressing salon and plough on through the sludge past the bulk containers, the tank-cleaning plant, various high-wired yards full of trucks and Portakabins, patrolled by vicious dogs you never see … and pretty soon you’ll be shaking hands with the finest darter there ever was, Phil “The Power” Taylor.
Or the Prince of Purfleet, as he is also known. Actually, Taylor is not there when we arrive. It is day one of the world championship and he is not due on the oche until 10.45pm. He is resting up at his hotel, a couple of miles away down the A13, at North Stifford. Previously unaware that there was a South Stifford or, indeed, a central Stifford, we take some time to find the Lakeside Moat House. It’s worth the trip.
Taylor has his mobile home parked outside “although I don’t use it much any more” and has his feet up watching the darts in his room with a mate and his 17-year-old son.
For those not familiar with the frustrations and niceties of darts, it might be stretching it to say we are sitting down with someone Sid Waddell describes as “one of the great British sportsmen of all time”. But he undoubtedly is. Darts, according to its fiercely loyal fans, is the ultimate sport. It is unaffected by any outside force: the dart goes in, or it does not. There is no room to cheat, and, in front of a lager-fuelled hall, nowhere to hide. For a decade now, Taylor has proved himself the supreme artist of the oche.
Taylor is one of those refreshing sportsmen comfortable with his own brilliance, even if he can’t tell you exactly why he’s so good. “It’s all about pressure,” he says, but he cannot break down his action and pinpoint one aspect of it that separates him from the rest. He’s just in a groove. All the bloody time.
Few argue he is the best yet at his sport and, underneath his friendly exterior, the roly-poly man from Newcastle-under-Lyme is as hard as the bodybuilder he once was. He boxed too. Not very well, he admits. But he needed to be good at something, so he did the rounds of sports he liked. He is a fair snooker player but, as his dad excelled at darts, he finally gave it a proper go himself, at the age of 26. Smart move.
Taylor had won eight world titles up until this year’s event. He was 5-2 on to do it again and duly wrapped up his ninth title. “Well, it’s nice for people to say those things,” he says, lounging on one of the twin beds in his hotel room, “but I’ve got a lot to do yet, a few things left to prove.”
Taylor’s darts, weighing 22mg each, are among the heaviest of all the finalists at the Circus Tavern. His heart the lightest. He seems nerveless. And he smiles a lot, a cheeky chappie with a unique talent. “I’ve always looked young,” he says. “Good and bad that, I suppose.” He’s 40 and reckons he’s a got a few years left at the top. Then that will be it. He will gladly put behind him the travelling which he hates and the practice, which he handles.
Watching his eyes sear the board, it’s hard to imagine this was the relaxed father of four I was talking to only a few hours before. But this is work: his right shoulder barely twitches, his weight stays firm over two solid legs and his tattooed right arm pumps. Balletic, in its own little way.
As he knocks over the numbers, he doesn’t have to think about the maths. “You master that after about 12 months,” he says nonchalantly. No matter what the combinations, Taylor slips into the rhythm.
Taylor can’t be bothered talking much about the civil war that threatened to wreck darts. He lost heavily in the split, putting a lot of his own money into the Professional Darts Corporation. But he’s doing OK.
“It’s getting harder. I’m getting older,” he tells Sky. But, when I asked him earlier what he thought about his chances, he just smiled. He knows damn well how good he is.
So does the Queen, apparently. Or whoever it was who recommended she give him an MBE in the New Year Honours List. He got the call a little while ago and can hardly contain himself. “There can’t be anything better than being honoured by your Queen. Lovely.”