As Luke Littler made his way to the stage at the start of the biggest evening of his life (until the next one) he shared hugs with those closest to him: his mum, his dad, and, in an unexpected twist, Wolfie, the Warrington Wolves mascot.
Wolfie had turned up in mid-afternoon with a couple of the team’s players to offer Littler some pre-match encouragement and had then stuck around, perhaps enjoying the anonymity: Alexandra Palace in darts season is one of the few places someone in full wolf costume barely attracts a second glance. Besides, all eyes were on one man. Well, child.
Emma Paton, Sky’s host, described Littler as “the most talked-about 16-year-old on the planet”, and at the moment it is probably true. “Luke Littler by name but bigger and bigger by reputation,” said the commentator Rod Studd, inevitably. And still it grows.
It is not just with his sporting success that Littler’s life has taken a turn for the downright ridiculous over the last week or so. Being stalked by a 7ft wolf is the least of it. The latest surprise twist came earlier in the day, when several major news outlets covered the fact that Carol Littler was getting time off from her job as a hygiene operative at Runcorn Town Hall to watch her grandson in action. “Here at the council we’d like to congratulate Luke, who is from Runcorn, on his fantastic achievements,” a spokesperson for Halton Borough Council enthused.
“We are delighted at how he has performed in the World Championships so far and, of course, we are more than happy for Carol to have the time off to go and watch her grandson.”
Meanwhile, a holiday company offered the takeaway-bothering Luke a job touring their Turkish resorts as “kebab taste tester” if he does not win the title and a restaurant in London offered him free kebabs for life if he does.
For all that, it turns out Littler’s diet is not all about the red meat – at least not if he’s in action, and you’re a darts commentator engaged in a rather desperate degree of extemporised analogising. “There’s that treble 19 again,” roared Studd, riffing on the colour of Littler’s favourite bed. “He does not forget his greens. He’s eating up the treble 19.”
Towards the end of his semi-final against Rob Cross, Studd compared Littler with “Usain Bolt running 9.6, easing up at the end”. For all their evident differences, that is not the only way in which the 6ft 5in Jamaican, fastest of all humans, and the diminutive and not obviously athletic Littler are alike: Bolt was fuelled to two gold medals at the Beijing Olympics by a diet of “nothing else except chicken nuggets”. At the end of his semi-final, before departing for his customary kebab, Littler revealed to Sky how he would prepare for Wednesday’s showpiece finale: “I’ll do what I’ve been doing,” he said. “In the morning I go for my ham and cheese omelette, then come here, have my pizza, and then on the board. That’s all I’ve done every day.”
This is all entirely appropriate. In these bewildering, life-changing few days Littler must seek out normality, those quiet, private moments he is able to fully control. As opposed to the wild, public moments he is also able to fully control.
There is nothing as surprising about televised darts as the pace of it. At the venue, it’s all about the din and the dancers, about pints, placards and people pretending to be penguins, but for those at home there is nothing but darts. The most minimal of introductions and then it’s either action or ad-break, with perhaps the most occasional interlude for a bearded man in a giant pink babygrow to explain why he admires a child for acting like a grown-up.
The pace of it all is relentless. There is barely time to draw breath, a particular challenge if you happen to be commentating, and at times it is all Studd can do to get words out in vaguely sensible order. “Reliefus maximus, as they used to say in ancient Rome,” he says, as Rob Cross equalises the third set at 1-1. I’m fairly sure they didn’t, but it’ll do in the circumstances.
Next to him for the opening semi-final sits Wayne Mardle, who has always saved his smithery for arrows rather than words. It is his job as a former professional to provide the technical analysis and he duly gets right to the heart of Cross’s issues: “His darts were all hoopy, that’s what they were.”
Littler loses the first set before settling into his game, which involves making a former world champion, a player firmly established in the world’s top 10, look like, well, a highly gifted 16-year-old debutant. Cross averages 102.77, which is excellent by any measure. “He didn’t play badly by any means, he was just swatted aside like an irritating fly,” Studd says. Littler averages 106.05 and is all but flawless.
“He scores for technical merit and he scores for artistic impression,” Studd says at one point. “Yeah,” responds Mardle. “I wish I’d said it like that.”
