As the afternoon grew and excitement built for the most hotly anticipated darts game of at least one of the finalists’ lifetime, new world No.1 Luke Humphries was whisked away from his preparations to deal with some questions from Sky.
“The sport deserves what is happening,” he said, “and if I win tonight it would be great for the sport because you have the world No. 1 who has proven his worth.” Yeah, nice try buddy. Humphries may have been by far the best player in the sport in recent months, but in the build-up to this match, no one saw him as the sport’s salvation. He was just the person who had to answer questions about Luke Littler. And he was the one who answered Luke Littler’s question a short time later.
Relating to: Luke Humphries ends Luke Littler’s tale in epic PDC world darts final
In the afternoon Sky Sports News interrupted its usual broadcast to give its viewers live footage of Littler’s arrival at Alexandra Palace. And so onlookers watched as the young archer stepped out of his car, put on his jacket, and looked the other way. There was no detail of Littler’s journey too small to ignore.
From the afternoon a reporter was stationed at St Helens Darts Academy, where Littler honed his skills as a young boy. Occasionally she would be tasked with asking one of the finalist’s obscure contemporaries how excited they were. “He’s huge for us here because he’s one of us,” said one guy named Matty. “I wasn’t surprised, but I was surprised at the same time.”
There’s no point in playing it cool. In the last two weeks, we have witnessed something completely unprecedented, joyful and ridiculous, unpredictable and unimaginable. Littler was the child who made us all children and made us dream. On Tuesday, viewing figures for the semi-final easily eclipsed those for the Premier League’s only match of the night; To be fair, this wasn’t the most exciting example of its kind. There is no goalless draw in darts. However, as interest in the finale increased several notches, some were left a bit stunned. “He’s doing what he wants to do! Freedom! He already has freedom of thought! In a world final! When he’s 16!” roared Wayne Mardle as Littler tried to fluff up an odd pair of bull shots in an opening set in which he played like a well-oiled punter in a really good Luke Littler costume.
But the speed at which luck turns in this sport is astonishing, and Littler was soon ahead 4-2. “Here we go!” yell. “I told you it would be a bumpy ride. Fasten your seatbelts!” Humphries lost the sixth set so miserably that Mardle berated him for his abject and irredeemable uselessness: “You’ve got to be more determined than that, Luke. Wow. You could literally see he wasn’t shooting straight.” About 45 seconds later he hit a spectacular 170. He got a finish and from then on he barely missed anything.
Still, there were small bumps and bumps in the road, and in the same set, in the seventh, Littler’s control of 122 was briefly decisive. “This might be what breaks No.1’s heart. Look at your face. “This was just spiteful, disgusting, dirty,” we were told. About two minutes later, Humphries won the set and the face we looked at was Littler’s. “This may be the moment we look back on in this match,” said Sky commentator Dan Dawson.
When the real big moments came, they were wide open. Littler’s missed double two, which would have put him 5–2 ahead, was a match later described by Humphries as “a huge turning point”. But when Littler, who was 2-1 up midway through the 11th set and needed to win it, and the others needed to take the title, reached 58, 58 again, 45 and then 60 in successive visits, we knew the battle was over. Against a player with an average of 103.67, such things simply do not work. A few seconds later the incident was over.
After his victory was secured, Abi Davies interviewed Humphries on stage, then interviewed Littler, then interviewed Humphries again. “I’ve been thinking all day: ‘Get this now, because he’s going to dominate world darts soon,'” grinned the champion, still answering questions about Littler. But despite many interviews, Davies still ended the night with a few seemingly unanswered questions, the most important of which ” ‘Cool Hand’ Luke Humphries” or “Luke ‘Cool Hand’ Humphries”.
Meanwhile, the referee in the last world final, Russ Bray of candidate determinism, savored every 180 call, rolling each one around in his mouth like fine cigar smoke, as if he were desperate to never finish exhaling. And there were so many more than in previous finals.
Bray, Littler’s full half-century senior, has a voice so raspy it makes Sean Dyche quite pleasant, and he pneumatically punctured no more than 36 calls throughout the evening. We will remember this tournament for our young people who found a way to make themselves heard in an unforgettable way, and perhaps for our veterans who found a way to make themselves heard in an unforgettable way.