The Luke Littler bubble might be on the brink of bursting. The Nuke, 19, has ruled the darting world with an iron fist since bursting onto the scene, but cracks are beginning to show.
The teenage sensation swept the World Matchplay over the summer, but his form has nosedived just as the majors season has gathered pace. His first-round exit at the World Grand Prix was quickly followed by a quarter-final defeat at the European Championship.
But it is not just his results that have made headlines, with the crowd reaction towards Littler also beginning to change. “Interesting, isn’t it,” Ned Boulting, who covered darts for ITV, admitted when speaking to the Daily Star Sport.
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It has almost been three years since a shy 16-year-old first stepped up to the oche at Ally Pally, capturing the nation’s imagination with his thrilling run to the final – eventually losing to Luke Humphries.
“My phone did not stop ringing during that period, and I ended up on The Today Programme talking about it,” Boulting joked. “It was as though the whole country had woken up to darts again!”
The former ITV presenter wanted to tell listeners that darts has had “loads of players like him before”, but Littler was demanding attention because he was so “freakishly young”.
And while Boulting said Littler has backed up all that promise, winning almost every major on the calendar, he admitted he “can’t quite identify with him as the box-office attraction he obviously is for so many other people.”
“When I think of the players I’ve absolutely loved watching down the years, I think of Gary Anderson, Adrian Lewis or even Michael van Gerwen. He was like Mike Tyson, wasn’t he?
“There’s something about Littler’s character that’s being revealed, but isn’t immensely likeable. You understand that he’s under enormous pressure from all sides.
“And the way he throws is obviously on another level, but it doesn’t thrill me quite as much as some players of the past have done. I don’t quite know how I feel about him.
“He seems to be a player very suited to our age and our time. It’s part of this march forward, but in marching forward, it feels as though we’re missing something as well.”
And Boulting knows exactly what we’re missing; adding darts might have strayed too far from its pub roots. He questioned whether the sport’s biggest events have become too extravagant.
There have been arguments that the World Championship, held at Ally Pally, has become an excuse to dress up and drink – with darts taking a backseat – while the Premier League has helped take darts to increasingly large audiences and arenas.
“I think some of the homespun charm it held on to in its early years, during that first decade and beyond, has gone missing. I think the Premier League is a bit of a flush. Ally Pally has become a bit of a circus, to be honest.”
With the money pouring into the sport, Boulting is now questioning whether darts is in danger of losing sight of what made it so special in the first place: “Darts is at a crossroads now.
“The paycheques are getting ever bigger, and I wonder whether the sport has moved too far away from its roots. It was born in a pub, and we’re now a long, long way from the pub.”