Michael Smith’s throw is quick, fluid and deadly. He doesn’t hang around, and so nor will we. Let’s begin right at the start: Cherry Tree Drive in St Helens, where the riot vans roamed the streets and there were plenty of distractions for a teenage kid with a set of darts and a distant dream.

“There was fighting, we had a lot of users in the street, so there were lots of drugs raids and stuff,” he remembers. “Of course I had a lot of friends that were users, friends who did stuff. But then I got into darts. So it was either stay in and practise, or go out and do stupid stuff. I left when I was 23, so I’ve not been there for nine years. It wasn’t the greatest of places, but it’s still home.”

Are great darts players born or made? Smith has a theory about this. His first love was rugby league; he remains a massive St Helens fan. But even though his family were in the pub trade and he grew up around all the traditional pub sports – dominoes, darts, snooker – he never showed the slightest interest himself. He admits he still finds darts “a bit boring to watch”.

Then one morning he fell off his bike, broke his hip and rugby was off the menu. Sat in the pub watching his dad practise, he asked to have a go. “I instantly fell in love with the game,” he says. “That’s why I think I was born to do it.”

And when Smith is in full flow, he can make darts look like the easiest thing in the world. The strong, set stance; the smooth flow of the arm, the 180s that float from his hand like music. Smith has long been talked about as one of the most naturally gifted talents in the sport. But until six months ago, it was a talent unfulfilled.

Nine major finals had come and gone. Only in November last year did it all begin to come together: a first major at the Grand Slam, then world champion and world No 1 for the first time. The nine-dart leg he hit in that final against Michael van Gerwen – in which Van Gerwen also hit eight perfect darts – was replayed across the globe. At the age of 32, Smith had finally achieved the destiny many had written for him.

But Smith’s first few months as the sport’s hottest new property did not go entirely to plan. There were high-profile exits at the Masters and the UK Open and it took him until April to win his first ranking event. A mixed start to the Premier League raised the possibility of missing out on the top four and the playoffs.

The extra scrutiny and outsized commitments of a world champion were beginning to take their toll on his family life. Smith was discovering what many first-time world champions discover: that this is a very different sport when the target is not in your eyeline, but on your back.

“It was my fault,” he says, sitting in the restaurant of a London hotel, just a short walk from where the Premier League finals will take place on Thursday night. “I’m telling myself I’ve got to play like a world champion. Putting that added pressure on myself. I met Phil Taylor at an exhibition in Germany and asked how he dealt with it. He just said: ‘Learn the word no.’ That’s not me. I say yes to everything. I wanted to be the centre of attention, I wanted people to sing my name, I wanted people to like me. It’s part of the job. If you don’t want it, don’t win it.”

I ask Smith who the current best player in the world is. “Gerwyn Price,” he says. “I know on paper it’s me, but at the moment Gerwyn is showing it with his averages.” This is not something you would ever catch the ultra-aggressive Price or Van Gerwen admitting. But Smith is built differently: less alpha, less egotistical, less motivated by clout. Above all, he has learned that he plays his best darts when he remembers not to care so much. This is why, for example, he spurns the mind games that so many of his rivals adore.

“Van Gerwen’s the prime example,” he says. “He’ll start talking to you the day before you play him. My first world final [in 2019], I was with my oldest boy, and we’d ordered everything off the room service menu. So we’re tucking away, and then Michael FaceTimed me, saying: ‘You can’t sleep!’ I’m trying to spend time with my son, and he’s sending me messages. And it worked. He beat me 7-3. I just want to get on with it. I don’t want to win by cheating, I don’t want to win by antics, tactics, anything.”

In order to win, first Smith had to learn to lose. During that first world final, he broke his hand after punching a wall in anger. After losing his second to Peter Wright last year, he tearfully admitted to his father that he felt he would never win again. But becoming a champion at last has granted him a certain freedom.

“Now I’m a world champion and world No 1 I could happily retire after this interview,” he says. “I’m still hot-headed, I just don’t show it any more. I know when to breathe. I’ve thrown three bad darts, no one’s died. If I win, I win. If I lose, I go home to see my kids, and I’ve won.”

This sense of perspective is what continues to make Smith one of the most dangerous players in the sport. And recent weeks have seen something of a resurgence: three consecutive nightly wins in the Premier League to ease him into Thursday night’s playoffs, a season bubbling menacingly to a peak. “It’s once you start getting that feeling,” he says.

“Last year I won seven events in a row, and that’s where you feel untouchable. Hopefully I can find it again here, get ready for the Matchplay [in July], and then I could be the only person to hold all three in one year.”

He lives just outside St Helens now, in the Cheshire countryside, with a farm full of animals and a seven-foot wall around it to maintain his privacy. The hunger is still there, and he dreams of playing until 50, but already this game has taught him to make his peace with uncertainty.

“The minute I fall out of love with this game, I’ll call it a day,” he says. “I can’t see it happening, but if I lose tomorrow and enough is enough, I’ll go and find something else. I’ll invest the money from winning the worlds in something smart. The peace in me comes from knowing that when I go home, I’ve won no matter what.”