I started 2018 as world champ but I’ve had a year of turmoil and chaos
PDC WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
months. It’s like I’m watching a movie at times. Yet at the same time I knew this was going to happen.
“I’m dealing with a lot of stuff in my life but I’m trying to get my mind back in focus.”
Perhaps the scariest part was when his sidekick Archer was plunged into hospital and Cross feared the worst.
He said: “It hurts me to think I almost lost him. At the start of last month we were in Vienna for the World Series. Jon said he didn’t feel that well on the Sunday morning, he said he felt like he had the proper flu.
“He was freezing cold one minute and sweating buckets the next, real fever stuff.
“We flew back to Heathrow on the Monday and he was struggling to even walk from the plane.
“I drove back home to Sussex and he went back to the Midlands and said he just wanted to get to bed.
“Next thing I know I find out he’s in hospital with blood poisoning sepsis.
“Jon decided at the last second to go to hospital instead of going to bed.
“The docs told him if he hadn’t gone to hospital he would have died in his sleep.
“Just six hours after landing at Heathrow he was in intensive care fighting for his life. He didn’t even wake up until Wednesday night.
“It’s crazy to think he came so close to not making it.
“The docs don’t even know how he got blood poisoning. It could have just been he knocked his leg or even a spider bite.
“Jon and I have been on this rollercoaster journey together. It would have been devastating to lose him so I’m grateful for everything. It has been such a tough year but I couldn’t have coped without him.”