“You’ve obviously seen the video of me in the Jacuzzi,” Steve Beaton says in a languid, assumptive tone. As if this is simply a statement of fact. Imagine being able to say those words to a complete stranger with the utter confidence that they are, indeed, true. The clip in question dates from 1993, and Beaton – then one of the world’s greatest darts players – is conducting an interview with the BBC’s Dougie Donnelly from the hot tub at the Lakeside Country Club: luscious locks flowing, moustache proud, a gold chain around his neck.
Thus was born the legend of the Bronzed Adonis. For a generation that grew up watching darts in the 1990s, Beaton is one of the last remaining links to that smoky golden age. He was the 1996 British Darts Organisation world champion, an icon of his era, a 6ft 4in tower of suave sophistication and sex appeal. And he may be pushing 60 these days, the curly mane pared sensibly back, the shirt now mostly buttoned up. But somehow the nickname coined early in his career by the commentator Tony Green still fits him perfectly: the easy charm, the smooth fluid action, the way he strolls on to the stage as if he’s just stepped off of a sunbed.
“No!” he interjects in mock outrage. “I’ve never been on a sunbed in my life. Everyone says that. ‘You’ve been on the tanning beds again.’ The worlds used to be in January, so I always used to go away for Christmas and new year – Tenerife, Canaries, anywhere where it was warm. And I’ve never had a perm. It just tightened up because I never combed it. I look back at some of the photos now and think: ‘Gee, what were you doing?’”
I’ve interviewed a lot of athletes over the years. Players and coaches and personalities from every sport and every walk of life. But I don’t think I’ve ever encountered someone as fundamentally content in their own ochre skin as Beaton. This, perhaps, is the secret to his remarkable longevity. On Tuesday he begins his 33rd consecutive world championship at Alexandra Palace. Nine of them took place before his first-round opponent Wessel Nijman was even born.
“This year,” he confides, “was actually going to be the last year. But I haven’t done too bad. I’ve qualified for the Worlds, and I’ve got my tour card. So it looks like I’m going to be giving it another year.”
Modern darts is utterly ruthless. Under the Professional Darts Corporation, at the end of every year everyone outside the top 64 gets chucked off the tour (unless it’s their first year) and forced through a brutal requalification process. Form comes and goes with terrifying speed. Hungry new contenders spring up from all over the globe. There are players who were winning tournaments just a few years ago who have now basically fallen out of the sport and can’t get back in. Simply to survive in this sport is a constant uphill struggle. So how has he done it? And – tangentially – how does he make it look this easy?
“The simpler you can keep the game, the better,” he replies. “The way I throw has never changed much. My darts haven’t varied much. I just stand, throw, and that’s it really. If I had to physically aim every single dart like Dennis Priestley, the concentration would take its toll.”
Of course, keeping things simple is rarely that simple. The greats of the game have often sustained long careers through relentless practice. Phil Taylor did up to 11 hours a day at his peak. Gary Anderson used to hit eight. So how long does Beaton spend on the practice board?
“Probably half an hour, hour a day.”
Hang on. What?
“I was never a huge practiser. Even back in the day, my practice was really going down to the pub. And it’s funny. You say you practise an hour a day, but it’s amazing how many times you stop, go off and get a drink, come back.”
Instead, Beaton preaches the benefits of an active lifestyle. “I’ve got a pushbike, so most days when I’m at home I tend to cycle to the gym,” he says. “So that’s probably 10-15 miles there, I’ll swim for 45 minutes, then I’ll cycle home and then I’ll get lunch. That’s the only way I can keep myself going. If I didn’t do that, I know damn well I’d never be playing now.”
Though he now rarely challenges at the major tournaments, on his day he can still throw with the best. In the past couple of seasons alone he has amassed an impressive list of scalps: world No 3 Luke Humphries, Dave Chisnall, Nathan Aspinall, Peter Wright – twice the champion – three times. Last year he averaged 118 in a qualifying tournament. And so it is one of the weird anomalies of his career that since switching over to the PDC from the rival British Darts Organisation in 2002, he has never actually been beyond the last-16 of the world championship.
But he’s not overly fussed about any of that. It’s the earlier ones that still bug him. “I was at my best in the 90s,” he reckons. “I reckon I should have won the world championship in 1993. Lost in the semis to [Alan] Warriner, just couldn’t hit a double against him. In 1996 I went all the way, but I should have won it again the following year. I lost to Marshall James, last leg.”
All the great names from the era are now long gone. Now when he goes to Pro Tour events he sits backstage with the likes of Ross Smith and Chris Dobey, men barely half his age. But there’s still something in this sport that hooks him in, the roar of the crowd, the thrill of putting three darts exactly where he wants to put them. “At school, I never thought I’d be a dart player,” he says. “I mean, it was the last thing on my mind. It just happened. You’ve just got to find what you’re good at.”
He knows, deep down, that the end is coming soon. “Sooner or later, it’s going to happen. Hopefully they still want me to do the exhibitions. There’s the seniors tour, maybe I’ll play in that. The wife would like me to be home a bit more now. It’s not all glitz and glamour, it’s a lot of travelling. Three or four days out of the week, and it’s catching up on me, really.”
But first things first. He’s heading down to London soon, and before he does he reckons he can fit in a couple of hours on the bike, pounding the coastal roads of Norfolk. Then, there’s a 33rd world championship to try to win. And when that comes to an end, as all good things eventually do, there are other priorities to be taken care of. “I definitely need a holiday,” he says with a glint in his eye. “I’m probably the whitest I’ve been for a long while now.”
