The PDC World Darts Championship has created sporting legends for three decades and more but Phil Taylor truly stands heads and shoulders above them all. Read our profile piece on the former 16 x World Darts Champion Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor, exclusively for kwiff.
PDC World Darts Championship: The Legend of ‘The Power’ Phil Taylor
Phil Taylor: Humble Beginnings
It’s hard to believe Taylor, already a two-time BDO world champion, arrived at the Circus Tavern in Purfleet for the inaugural PDC World Championship just after Christmas in 1993, seeded No.6. The tournament itself, featuring 16 defectors from the BDO ranks and eight invitees from North America and Ireland, was an unmemorable affair with Taylor going on to reach the final.
There he was crushed 6-1 by his big rival at the time, Dennis Priestley, with Taylor picking up a runners-up cheque for £8,000. It wasn’t quite a failure, but it certainly wasn’t a success for Taylor, who had never liked losing – and he would make sure that a few years would go by before he felt that sensation again.
Phil Taylor: First of Many
Twelve months later Taylor returned to the Circus Tavern seeded four but determined to become No.1 and he didn’t disappoint, seeing off two of the game’s greats in Bob Anderson and John Lowe before beating Rod Harrington in the final. And so began a dynasty. Taylor had got the taste and quickly became an unstoppable force, the best player in the world by some considerable distance.
In an incredible show of dominance The Power would win eight successive world titles, producing higher and higher averages and was a hero of the 2,000 or so fans who would pile into the Circus Tavern. Finally, in 2003, the crown was lifted from his head by Canada’s John Part who, two years after being humiliated by Taylor 7-0 in the 2000 final, came back to stun The Power 7-6 in one of the epic matches.
Phil Taylor: The Barney Rivalry
Taylor was visibly chastened by that loss to the likeable Canadian but showing the steel of a true champion returned to win the next three titles, giving him 13 in total. At the next finals in 2007, the last to be staged at the Tavern, Taylor was odds-on to bid farewell to the Essex venue by retaining the trophy – but a Dutch debutant had other ideas.
Raymond van Barneveld had arrived from the BDO with world titles, pedigree and a massive following and fearlessly ventured into Taylor’s domain and threatened to unseat the champion. And in one of the greatest finals ever witnessed he did just that, stunning Taylor and the Circus Tavern with a 7-6 success in a tie-break leg. The world of darts had never seen anything like it.
Phil Taylor: Power Outage
Taylor would go on to win three more world crowns at the new home of the championship, Alexandra Palace in London, but the decline had started. Taylor was still producing dizzying averages on the biggest stage of them all – but so too were dozens of newcomers, the likes of Michael van Gerwen, Gary Anderson, Adrian Lewis, all of whom knew they had what it takes to win the world title.
Eventually Taylor knew the time was right to hang up his darts, to bid farewell to Ally Pally and a tournament that he had made his own, and took his leave at the 2018 finals, which would be his 29th and last. And even though he knew the darting stars were aligning less and less as the years ticked by, he even reached the final, losing to newcomer Rob Cross. The glorious finish for the record 16-time champion never quite happened – and the PDC World Championship said the fondest of goodbyes to the game’s greatest ever player.
By James Mason
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