PDC World Darts Championship

That is his best that he's ever played.

You know, won the Grand Prix, won the Slam, won the Players, won the Worlds.

Absolutely brilliant.

More than 87 days it was.

And the same in the women's game.

Yeah, well, of course, like, you know, again, we had the Taylor period, you know, to a certain extent, the MVG period of when he was doing what he was doing.

And everyone said, you know, then Humphreys had a bit of a dominating spell, obviously won the match play in 24 and won, you know, the Worlds and the Grand Prix and the Slam and the players.

And everyone's like, well, this is the only time we're ever going to see it again, dominating darts and then Luke Littler's done the same.

That's the only issues.

I think for me it's a little bit different for new tour card holders because they don't get the chance to play on TV probably until the players in the Worlds.

So I think judging the new tour card holders, I kind of judge them from minehead onwards into the next year because then they've got a chance to qualify for the match play and so on in that time period.

So When you

Because once you start to chase it down and the pressure comes on, it gets harder and harder.

and harder and harder well

on that note right we've always judged keeping your tour card that you probably need to qualify for mine ed twice and the world twice now as it stands scott williams is potentially going to lose his tour card on 109 000 pounds Have we got to readjust our expectations and put the bar higher for new tool card holders to keep their cards? Because if you get to the Worlds and you don't win that first-round game for two years, that's only £30,000.

If you get to Minehead twice and don't win your first-round game, I think it's £4,000 now.

So I'll just straight up ask you.

Is Matt going to go to the PDC World Championship qualifier for UK and Ireland?

Maybe.

If it's an open event, I think I'd go just for the crack.

did, but he went to boot school as well.

Okay.

So just for the sake of the point, this is a big theory, but what if you qualify for Lakeside and you also qualify for the PDC World Championships? What does Matthew Ecker do?

Simple, isn't

Indoor Sporting World Championships produced by Nick Hunter back in the day at BBC North.

So BBC Sport in the North, the World Snooker Championship, of course, the World Darts Championship, the World Bowls Championship.

The World Darts Championship at the Lakeside is long gone from the BBC.

Of course, it's moved on very successfully on Sky with the PDC.

The World Snooker Championship, of course, does continue very much on the BBC, but they've got rid of the bowls, apparently for cost-cutting reasons.

The

song has appeared in various media, including a Brazilian TV show, Go Diego Go, Family Guy, and Rob Cross' Walk and Music for the 2018 PDC World Darts Championship.

Alphonsus Cassell wrote the infectious tunes.

I know you as a

Clue number two.

He won back-to-back PDC World Championships in 2011 and 2012.

Phil Taylor still, he's still playing, isn't he?

It's the main man.

Yeah.

Um, he then made the last 16 of the, uh, 2026 PDC World Darts Championship.

So that was really and truly where he announced himself, uh, to the world of darts.

And I'm very pleased to say that he's joining me today for this episode.