Farewell to a champ who took his leave in style
LAWRENCE LUSTIG
In the end it wasn’t nearly enough. Perhaps, on reflection, it never could have been. Better this way: a last, unavailing roar from the ageing lion; the safe transfer of the baton; a mutually affirming embrace. And then Philip Douglas Taylor, surely one of the greatest sportsmen ever, is finally done with darts.
The crowd would have scripted it differently. Romantically, they rolled up in droves to see the grand knight of the oche have his final tilt at a 17th World Championship title.
“There’s only one Phil Taylor,” they sang, the familiar anthem ringing round Alexandra Palace. “Walking along, singing a song, walking in a Taylor wonderland.”
Darts may not be everyone’s idea of serious sporting endeavour – the pint-pulling ghosts of Fat Belly and Even Fatter Belly, aka Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones, still pluck the memory strings of anyone over 45 – but try telling that to this lot.
Enter the dragon: a bald one from Hastings by the name of Rob Cross, breathing unfriendly fire. Clearly he hasn’t read the script. Within minutes it is apparent that the younger man, in his first World Championships, is intent on demolition, as set after set goes his way.
An embarrassed half-silence descends. Just 48 hours ago Cross was the underdog, padding his crowd-pleasing way to victory against the reigning champion, Michael van Gerwen. Now, in a flash, he has become the dreamkiller, consigning fairytales to the mortuary slab.
All changed, changed utterly. For two decades Taylor was the pummeler, the asphyxiator, the predatorial nonpareil. Fifteen World Championship titles in 21 years, including one run of eight in a row, failed to purchase universal affection – more than one vanquished opponent left the stage in high dudgeon – but it did bring a tungsten hegemony unrivalled in professional sport. Around eight years ago the ice cracked and vulnerability began to set in: just one more World title since 2010. But still he was a dangerous man at court.
Yet now, at the very last call to arms, this brutal dismemberment; a reassertion of gravity; an end to all pretence that mortality may be checked or stalled. Taylor, to his lasting credit, beamed broadly through it all. A smile of resignation, perhaps, but it was gracious and unfeigned. The old lion, ready to retreat, was not about to fluff his walk-off lines.
And therein lies the paradox: greatness is at its loveliest when it is at least partially diminished. In his book on sporting heroes, Simon Barnes reflects on the near-deification bestowed upon an ageing, battered Muhammad Ali.
“And always I wonder: were his injuries, his terrible deterioration, the prerequisite for this love? Did the world need to see him more or less castrated before love became unconditional?”
Phil Taylor’s emasculation poses similar questions. Or so it seemed to me as he strode, still smiling, out of Taylor Wonderland and sealed up the rabbit-hole for ever.
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