Oche legend Phil the Power hits 60
PHIL TAYLOR hits treble 20 today savouring a career rich with success – even if the cheque for one of his biggest bounced.
The Power, a 16-time darts world champion, will celebrate turning 60 with no more horizons to conquer.
Only a handful of torchbearers find the greatness to bend history itself and let us not pretend that Taylor is in the same class as Muhammad Ali or Usain Bolt for transcending fame.
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, others have greatness thrust upon them.
But in the pages of sporting history, The Power belongs with the greatest.
When he retired in 2018, Taylor brought the curtain down on the longest-running success story in Britain since the 29 years that spanned Lester Piggott’s nine winning rides in the Derby.
The Englishman said: “I forget which one it was but
BY MIKE WALTERS when I banked the winner’s cheque from one of my world titles in the 1990s, it bounced.
“At least my success made me happy – even if it didn’t always make me rich!”
He won more world crowns than Tiger Woods has won Majors and those 16 titles still outnumber the league trophies Bill Shankly, Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan, Kenny Dalglish and Jurgen Klopp have claimed between them at Liverpool.
Taylor, a world-class namedropper by any yardstick, loves the fact he shares a landmark birthday with Three Lions legend Alan Shearer, who brings up his half-century.
Taylor said: “Alan hits the bullseye and I hit treble 20 – we’re going to need a lot of candles between us.
“They say age is just a number, which is true enough.
“But you can’t stop the passage of time and my time competing for the big prizes in darts has come and gone. Would I go back and do it all over again? Of course I would – even if I don’t miss all the travel, the late-night pit stops at motorway services and being away from home for weeks at a time.
“But I’m happy with what I achieved and if anyone else wins 16 world titles in 23 years, good luck to them. I hope it makes them rich and happy.”
Age-old arguments among saloon bar bores persist about darts being a proper sport.
If you are drug tested under the auspices of the UK AntiDoping programme, surely that is good enough to satisfy most critics.
But in the sporting pantheon, a 60th birthday is as good a place as any to induct a darts player in the cast of greats.
Federer, Tiger, Fergie, Bradman, Power.
Taylor is not out of place in exalted company and that may be his greatest achievement of all.