From a £9-a-week sheet metal worker to darts superstar. Now the fairytale ending awaits...
PHIL TAYLOR & HIS AMAZING RISE TO POWER
HE has powered his way from being a £9-a-week worker in a sheet-metal factory to an allconquering world darts champ. Having once struggled each day to make ends meet, Phil “The Power” Taylor is now one of the most successful players of all time.
Tonight, with bookies putting him as favourite against 27-year-old rookie professional Rob “Voltage” Cross at the William Hill World Darts Championship, Phil could end his 30-year career by winning a record-breaking 17th world title, five years after his last.
But while Phil, 57, could be about to retire on a high in his last competitive match, his rags-to-riches rise to the top has not always been easy.
Living on the breadline, a conviction for indecent assault and a costly divorce – Phil has led a life far more colourful than many would imagine.
And while he is now worth an estimated £7.4million, it was only because his family were too poor for a TV that he ever picked up his first dart.
Born in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffs, to bricklayer dad Doug and mum Liz, they had no running water and the electricity was accessed through a hole in the wall from the next-door neighbour’s supply.
The family couldn’t afford a TV so the dartboard became a focal point – with Doug being the first to spot his talent.
Phil said: “I used to wipe the floor with my dad and knew I was good even as a kid. Dad knew I could make it as a darts player, but said I had to put the work in.”
Phil left school at 16 and started his working life as a sheet-metal worker before moving on to make ceramic toilet-roll handles for £52 a week.
“I left school on the Friday and started working on the Monday,” he said. “That was the way I was brought up.”
He soon married childhood sweetheart Yvonne, now 54, and had the first of their four children: Lisa, now 34, Chris, 32, Kelly, 28, and Natalie, 22.
It was only when the family moved near to Eric Bristow’s pub The Crafty
Cockney, in nearby Burslem, when Phil was 26, that he first began to play seriously.
He started winning and his prize money grew from £10 a time to £1,000.
Bristow then offered him £10,000 sponsorship to turn professional – a moment that was to change his life.
“I was a cocky, aggressive little player – a lot like Eric,” Phil recalled.
“He taught me to mentally bully players – to beat them up and not show any fear. He was like a brother to me.”
Phil showed no mercy when his first
World Championship final saw him up against mentor Bristow in 1990. He had been the 125-1 rank outsider, but beat Bristow 6-1 to scoop his first title.
It was the start of his road to success which saw him dominate world darts, winning 13 World Championship titles from 1995 to 2010.
He was also getting used to having money. In 2011, he recalled how he first realised he was wealthy when he won £60,000 in three consecutive nights, playing at Doncaster Dome. “In three nights, I earned more money than my dad earned his whole life. It’s mad,” he said. But there was a darker side to his fame. He was named in the 2001 New Year’s Honours list, but his MBE was annulled before he could collect it after he was convicted of indecently assaulting two 23-year-old fans in the back of his van after a darts exhibition in Fife, Scotland, in 1999.
Phil vehemently denied the charges, but was found guilty in May 2001, and fined £2,000. Leaving court he referred to it as “the worst two years of my life”, later admitting he even contemplated suicide. In 2011, he split with Yvonne after 23 years, with a settlement of £3.4million.
Although generally shunning the limelight, Phil does have one close showbiz friend – fellow Stoke son Robbie Williams.
“Rob’s dead down to earth and we’re very similar,” says Phil. “His schoolteacher told him he’d amount to nothing, just as mine had done.” Robbie’s dad Pete even became like a second dad to Phil after his own father passed away from bowel cancer in 1997. And it was Williams senior who helped him decide to retire. Phil said: “I said to him, how do you know when to retire? He said, ‘You’ll know. You will wake up one morning and you’ll just know that’s it, you’ve had enough’.”
Taylor may have had enough, but one thing is for sure – he will want to go out on a high and leave his fans walking in a Taylor wonderland for one last time.