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Each edition offers an in-depth explanation of one of the week’s biggest tactical topics, as well as snippets of other curiosities I’ve discovered during recent matches. There’s even a Q&A section – your chance to have your say on any nonsense that’s been going on recently.
this is a darts article. I appreciate this Adam Cleary football Pillarthat’s what you’re here for, I promise it’s at least football related, but if I don’t spread the following thoughts into the world in some way, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.
This is also a pro wrestling article, but we’ll get to that surreal pastime later. Now, please joke with me on the darts side of things, we’ll get something like “searing football insights” along the way. Scout’s Honor.
Luke Littler is an 18-year-old prodigy who is redefining the standards of his sport. He suddenly appeared at the age of 16 and quickly skipped the “promising young man” stage of development. In early 2024, just three weeks after you first heard his name, he entered the finals of the World Championship with a 4-2 lead, and the No. 1 player on the planet had to do whatever it took to stop him from winning the title.
Twelve months later, he returned and defeated one of the greatest players in the history of the sport to become the youngest world champion in history. Twelve months later, he made it to the round of 16 amid boos, then took the microphone and told a room full of 5,000 people in Kermit the Frog costumes that his winnings had been taken straight from their pockets.
My friends, welcome to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. That’s what we do here.
I think there is an argument wayne rooney Perhaps the most interesting life in human history. You might think that of all the footballers in that conversation you’d enjoy living the lives of Beckham (global fame, pop star girlfriend, richer than God) or Ronaldinho (all those Nike ads, then ending every workday in a hot tub with six Brazilian women), but none have had the highs and lows of Wayne Rooney.
He suddenly appeared at the age of 16 and quickly skipped the “promising young man” stage of development. In the summer of 2004, he seemed to single-handedly lead England to a shock European Cup victory, but suffered a foot injury in the quarter-finals and England lost to Portugal.
Twelve months later, he moved to Manchester United and was regarded as the most promising young player in the world. Twelve months later, at the World Cup, he looked up at Horacio Elizondo’s outstretched arm, brandishing a red card, and his reputation and his life would be changed forever.
He was just 20 when he was sent off in the quarter-final replay against Portugal, and while Cristiano Ronaldo’s wink to the bench ensured he became the match’s pantomime villain, it would largely define Rooney as an England player for the rest of his career. He’s “brainless,” “irresponsible,” a “thug,” and all the other simplistic tropes they use on people from working-class backgrounds when they make mistakes in public.
It’s a pretty common cliché by now, but there are two things inherent in the British view of celebrity. First, we have nearly endless praise, encouragement, and love for people who are making progress. Secondly, once you get to the top you are immediately degraded and treated with the greatest scorn and disdain the country can muster.
They “let it all get into their heads,” “forget where they came from” or “believe their own hype,” etc. It was Rooney at the time, Beckham before that, and you’ve since seen similar stuff about Andy Murray, Lewis Hamilton, Jessica Ennis, Rory McIlroy, Mo Farah, Tom Daley and Emma Raducanu. Next summer it will be Jude Bellingham, but now it’s Luke Littler.
When he next appears, sanity does feel at least partially restored. His video package was met with comedic boos as he destroyed Krzysztof Ratajski, followed quickly by a roar of support from the crowd. I’m telling you right now, for a 17-letter name, vowels are not enough. It’s likely that by the time you read this he’ll be in the final, but coming up against crowd favorite Gary Anderson means his relationship with punters will be on the rocks.
The comical relevance of this story to this column is that, to some extent, football really wants the moment to be darts. If you’ve noticed the emerging trend of treating players as separate brands from their clubs and wondered what marketing trends are driving this, look no further than Oche. Sponsors, agents, followers – they’ll all like you better if you support your favorite players rather than your local team, as it means there’s a stable and lucrative fan base to continue after their current club’s contract ends.
Billy Headers, the hot new striker who sold a million shirts at Manchester United, may have looked on top of the world today, but could he still be charging a £400,000 meet-and-greet fee when he injured his cruciate ligament and ended up on loan at Bury? uncertain. But walk into any pub in the south end of the Netherlands and you’ll still find people telling you Michael van Gerwen is the greatest player of all time and donning his trademark goblin green shirt at the start of the league.
The decimal point here may be very different, but the idea is the same. Cole Palmer’s team wants to sell Cole Palmer to die-hard Cole Palmer fans rather than die-hard Chelsea fans.
But here’s the thing – and here’s your special treat if you persist reading this, because this is the most off-topic thing I’m going to say – while rugby may wish it was darts… darts actually wishes it were pro wrestling.
Glam, drama, legends with fun nicknames, iconic catwalk music are half the reasons why people want to go see it. Luke Littler’s live broadcast on stage, attacking the crowd that supported his rise to the top, was purely scripted straight from the first page of the wrestling playbook. By the way, you can trust me on this because this is exactly where I used to work before I got into football – and no, I’m not going to expand on that.
When you have a rising star who is about to reach the top, they can’t get there on the first try. You write about their erratic rise, get fans invested, make them think they have a hero on their hands, and then take it away in death when they face the company’s top man. Littler would have to lose to Humphries in 2024 to make his eventual win in 2025 feel deserved. It was a bigger deal, one that sweetened the pot for everyone who had to wait to see it, and made him an even bigger star in the process.
But then you get stuck. People get bored. You’ve taken your new hero to the top, and from there, you’ve gotten rid of the storytelling hurdles and made his story interesting. Fans are not going to pay money year after year to root for someone who has had a dominant era. You have to find something else that they really want to see, and like the Rooney Red Card, the simplest plot twist is to bring them back to reality in a way that their own actions warrant.
It’s part of our cultural DNA that he “let it all get into his head,” “forgot where he came from” and “believed his own hype,” and now wants to see them fail because of it. Luke Littler is just 18 years old, and there’s no doubt he’s struggling with how quickly he’s risen from obscurity to stardom. But “The Nuke” is a character on a TV show whose revelry in his fall from grace is as much a reason to tune in as his rise to the top. Both are great ways for promoters to make money.
You’ve seen this play out in football with every generation of talent in England and now you’re darts. It’s pretty grim that it’s an inevitable consequence of the human condition, but the fact that it’s also a narrative pillar of professional wrestling is pretty interesting.
Also, despite what I said at the beginning, I never actually joined the Boy Scouts, so that’s another betrayal for you. Shh!
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