In a puritanical age of wellness, non-alcoholic drinks and going to the gym, an unlikely sport is thriving: darts. On Sunday the World Darts Championship returns to Alexandra Palace in north London, and in its wake throngs of young people dressed as gnomes and traffic cones drinking beer and breaking into song. And at the very centre of this culture stands a kebab-loving hero for our times – Luke “the Nuke” Littler.
Littler has had an extraordinary year. In January, as a barely known 16-year-old, he was runner-up in the world championship. As the Warrington teenager progressed through the heats, huge numbers of fans began to watch, eventually reaching a record high of 3.7 million viewers for the final. Barry Hearn, the president of the Professional Darts Corporation, coined a new term: Littlermania.
Littlermania has not let up. The darts player is now vying for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award on Tuesday night, along with the likes of the England footballer Jude Bellingham and the Olympic 800m gold-medallist Keely Hodgkinson. Should he win, he will be the second-youngest winner in the event’s history. This year he was also the third most Googled person in the UK, ahead of Keir Starmer and King Charles (to be pipped only by Kate Middleton and Donald Trump).
There has always been something compelling about a prodigy. These men and women remind us of the fine meritocratic principles of competitive sport: that true talent can come from anywhere, and, along with dedication, can get you all the way to the top. A video montage of Littler as a toddler with his first dartboard caught the makings of the confident player he would become: he has been playing darts since he was 18 months old.
Michael Phelps, Venus and Serena Williams, Emma Raducanu, Sky Brown: precocious sports stars catch the imagination; each has had their turn in the spotlight. But Littler is doubly unusual as a young darts player, which is a sport that tends to reward experience. Many players peak after 40. At 70, Singapore’s Paul Lim has just finished competing in the WDF World Championships. Littler is breaking all the stereotypes of what is known as an old person’s game. Young people are joining the sport in droves, looking to be the “next Luke Littler”.
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But Littlermania goes beyond this. Unlike many other sports stars, with their relentless training schedules and carefully managed media appearances, the secret to his appeal is that he still appears to be a normal teenager. Despite the overnight fame, his name plastered across headlines and news bulletins, he appears remarkably unfazed by it all.
His life remains endlessly relatable to young fans. Asked about his daily routine, he said that he likes to stay up late playing his Xbox, waking up in the early afternoon, and then practising darts “for like, half an hour, 45 minutes” a day. Plans for prize money have included more Fifa points for his Xbox, a new coat, and paying for all his friends to enjoy the rides at Blackpool or Alton Towers. During his catapult to fame earlier this year, he went for a celebratory kebab after a match. Warrington’s Hot Spot has now offered him free kebabs for life.
Littler’s laid-back attitude will protect him on his journey to the top. It is also why Britain loves him. Darts is a game of great skill, but it is also about banter, irony, camaraderie and not taking yourself too seriously. Littler captures this spirit.
