Roll up, roll up for the greatest darts show on Earth

It’s that time of year again when the World Darts Championship takes centre stage at Alexandra Palace and now it’s bigger and better than ever

For decades fans of darts have had to endure tedious questions about whether it is actually a sport. These days a more pertinent question may be: “Is it the best sport in the world?” Right here, right now, no other sport has the same stratospheric standard, unpredictability, characters and ceaseless dramatic tension.

This surely is the second golden age of darts, three decades on from the days of Eric Bristow, John Lowe and Jocky Wilson. Now it’s time for the yearly showpiece: the World Darts Championship, a tournament that turns adults into children and makes Christmas almost as exciting as it was when you still believed Santa had successfully worked out the logistics of going down every chimney in the world in just a few hours.

Related: Darts stars take flight to the movies – in pictures

Related: Michael van Gerwen: I see more of Phil Taylor than of my wife

Continue reading...