“The wee one is coming up to 20 months and he’s absolutely darts daft,” Gary Anderson says as he describes how much his young son, Tai, loves the game. Anderson is about to defend his world title and he is determined to stress how ordinary he remains. His baby boy, however, sounds like a darting prodigy as remarkable as Anderson is plain and decent.
“Darts is in his blood and I don’t think we’ll get it out of him,” Anderson says. “From morning to night it’s darts, darts, darts. It’s the only thing that interests him. I was going to get him to play something else like golf but my brother and his girlfriend got him a wee Velcro darts set. He’s now got a cracking wee stance and he just loves it.”
The Scot chuckles cheerfully because concentrating on his son seems a smart way of deflecting attention away from himself as he enters the PDC world championships, which start on Thursday, as the title-holder who defeated Phil Taylor in an epic 7-6 final just a few days into 2015. It was one of the greatest finals in darts history but Anderson smiles ruefully.
“Being a quiet person I found all the attention embarrassing,” he admits, while acknowledging that his past is not quite as uncomplicated as he pretends. He picked up a set of darts for the first time on a caravan site at the age of 24, 20 years ago, and his natural aptitude for the game was undermined by psychological frailty and, more crushingly, when he lost his desire to play after the death of his brother and father in close succession. His brother, Stuart, had struggled with a heroin addiction and their dad was ravaged by cancer.
It takes a while to steer Anderson down this tangled path and, at first, it seems right to allow him to resume his flowing homage to a mini maestro of the oche. “Tai’s taught himself,” Anderson says. “I’ve not taught him how to stand, no one taught him how to throw a dart. Even before he was walking he was watching the darts. He knew right away – throw three darts, turn and walk away. I know it’s not a nice thing to say, as he’s only a baby really, but he’s been throwing steel-tip darts since he was 13 months. He’s very careful because he knows that they’re sharp.”
The way Anderson marvels at the youngest of three sons – his two teenage boys live with his first wife – suggest that young Tai would be a favourite should there be a world championship for under-fives. “He might be,” his father grins. “The wee man’s shown me a thing or two.”
Anderson becomes more serious when reflecting how Tai, and his two older sons, helped him escape the depression that had clouded his life. “Three or four years back it was difficult. I lost my brother and my father in a short space of time. I just didn’t want to play again. I dropped out of the top 16 and down to 21 in the rankings. That shows how much I didn’t want to play.”
Stuart’s heroin addiction, before he died from heart failure in September 2011, is still a painful subject that makes Anderson pause as he searches for emotionally neutral language. “Such is life nowadays,” he says quietly. “There are so many bad things around and some people just fall along the way. It’s all over the world. It’s in every town and every city.”
Anderson seems too rooted to have fallen into the same spiral. “I wouldn’t have gone that way. If I didn’t have darts I’d probably still be fitting fireplaces. I was with that company 19 years – you just get on with it. I enjoyed that work. Even now I like getting the toolkit out.”
His brother, he stresses, was trying to rebuild his life: “I think he was over the addiction. He was in hospital waiting to have something done to a valve but they never had the time to save him. He went to the toilet and collapsed on the floor. It was a total shock. And when my dad went I lost my desire to play darts. He’d been ill for 16 months. It wasn’t nice to see, as every time I went to visit him he was thinner and thinner. He had cancer of the throat and stomach. So no wonder I had no interest in darts.”
Anderson brightens when asked how he pulled himself out of such dejection. “Everything lifted when the baby came along,” he says as he remembers Rachel, his partner, giving birth in the spring of 2014. “When the wee one arrived I pulled myself up. I thought I’ve got him and my two other sons. I’ve got this lot to look after. Hopefully I can do something special for them.”
Eight months later Anderson had won his first world championship – but he also pinpoints a defeat in the 2014 tournament, a year earlier, as a sporting catalyst. In the third round he should have beaten the eventual champion, the brilliant Michael van Gerwen . “That defeat was a definite turning point,” Anderson confirms. “I was 3-1 up and lost 4-3. I’m not one of these people who gets narky when they get beat. I just say well done. But that one really got me. I went straight back home and went to the practice board – because I chucked it away and I was not a happy chappy. That defeat spurred me on. I went on a roll and won seven big tournaments before we got to the world championships last year.”
Anderson had a tough draw and he was tested in every round before he beat Van Gerwen in the semi-finals and then Taylor in a see-sawing final. There must have been creeping doubts because he endured some terrible luck and twice saw significant leads undercut by the 16-times world champion. “Yeah,” Anderson winces. “I was 3-1 up and then 4-3 down. But I kept with it. At 6-4 up I’m buzzing but before I know it I’m back at 6-6.
“That’s when you think of how things are going against you – like that moment when I went treble, treble and then the third dart knocked them all out. When that happened I just thought it’s not meant to be. You think you will be getting the runners-up cheque because if anyone knows how to win a final set, it’s Phil. But I started with a 180 and just settled right away. It was 3-0 in the final set.”
After such a tumultuous match, and considering where he had been three years earlier, Anderson would have been excused for celebrating wildly. Instead, he was a model of restraint. “I never gave it a big celebration. I just slipped a wee wink to the family, shook hands with Phil, did a few interviews and went back to the hotel,” he says. “I had a cup of coffee and went to bed. I did a few more interviews the next day, jumped in the car and went home. I didn’t fancy making a fuss.”
Anderson, clearly, has not changed much despite the £250,000 winner’s cheque and an increasingly busy schedule over the past 11 months. “Nah. I’m still the same old Gary. I’m quite strange like that. I just wanted to forget about it and move on to the next one,” he says. “When I get asked to sign anything I never add ‘world champion’. If people ask what I do I say: ‘I play darts.’ They’ll ask: ‘Are you any good?’ I’ll say: ‘Sometimes.’ You get some superstars but not me.”
He seems unimpressed when reminded that genuine superstars, like Toni Kroos of Real Madrid and Germany, tweeted congratulations to him on the night he became world champion. “Yeah?” Anderson says hesitantly, as if he might not even have heard of Kroos. “Well, Rachel sorts my Twitter account. I’m no good with technology and I can’t use these new mobile phones much. I’m terrible. People send me a message but I might not look at my phone for five days. I’ve never sent a message myself on Twitter. I’ll tell Rachel what to say and then she’ll send it. I’ve got more important things to do in life.”
Anderson nods emphatically at the suggestion he answered many of his critics who doubted he had the mental toughness to win a world championship. “Yeah, I shut a few of them up,” he says, showing a flash of the tenacity that lurks beneath the ordinary facade. “It’s easy to give grief if you’re a keyboard warrior on Twitter or Facebook. They can’t shut up – but come down and show us how to do it.
“I did it against Phil which meant a lot to me. I’ve won quite a lot of titles but the two that stick out were against the best player that’s ever lived – Phil Taylor. The first was the World Darts Trophy in 2007 [when Anderson, who then played on the less illustrious British Darts Organisation circuit, beat the world No1 and king of the PDC or Professional Darts Corporation]. Beating Phil in the world final this year topped everything. If you’re going to win something it’s got to be against Phil Taylor. Even now he’ll fight and fight. People says he’s finished. They’re wrong.
“I’ve beaten Phil a few times this year and it’s one of the reasons I came across to the PDC – so I could play him. I always wanted to play the best. It was a big thing to beat him in 2007 because he was on top of his game and 7-3 was a hefty defeat. Since then he made me suffer a lot. If you beat him he always wants to put you in your place. He’s beaten me many more times than I’ve beaten him because he’s a fantastic player. Michael has incredible talent but I don’t think we’ll see a player like Phil again. Sixteen world titles? Michael has one. That means he has to win the next 16 in a row to take over from Phil. It will never be done.”
Anderson is ranked the world No2, behind Van Gerwen, despite being short-sighted. “I can see a dartboard fine but my problem is if it ends anywhere near the wires. I struggle to see if it’s a double or treble. Soon as they go near that wire I struggle to see. I’ve tried with glasses but it put me off my throw. And there’s not a hope in hell I’d ever wear contact lenses as I hate anything going in my eyes.”
Would Anderson, at the age of 44, consider laser surgery? “No. I’ve seen what they do and it scares the life out of me. I can see well enough to get by. It’s just old age. It’s like when you struggle with the small print in a newspaper.”
Anderson shakes his head. “Not that I read many newspapers. I don’t like knowing what’s going on in the world. I prefer to stay within my own little bubble. That’s the life I live. I like to watch the wee one playing darts more than anything …”
Sky Sports Darts will show the William Hill World Darts Championship from 17 December
