“It’s a lonely place,” Stephen Bunting reflected as he sat quietly in Alexandra Palace on Saturday night, the tears welling in his eyes. “If things don’t go right, you can look at your family, your management, you can look at your sponsors. But it’s down to you. And yeah, I’m getting a bit emotional, but … ”
These are stories darts is less keen on telling. Ever since this sport burst out of the smoky pubs and on to our television screens, it has possessed a kind of hedonistic, hyperreal quality, a game in which normal guys slip on their superhero suits and take a shot at unimaginable riches, unimaginable fame. The crowds dress up, get the drinks in and chase the ultimate high. The winners are brought into the press conference room to be feted; the losers slip out through the back door. From its start, darts has been conceived as a vehicle for joy and transformation.
But real life has a habit of creeping through the curtains. Increased scrutiny. Social media. Merciless crowds. The temptations of alcohol and substance abuse. A brutal schedule. Time away from family and friends. The absence of a support network.
For many of the performers in this 12-month circus, there is a growing sense that the untold wealth and boundless opportunities come with certain conditions attached.
The fact that even Bunting, one of the most successful and popular characters in the sport, occasionally feels bereft should be a warning sign in itself. The shocking implosion of Cameron Menzies earlier in the tournament should be another. The fact that Nathan Aspinall used his post-match interview on Saturday to warn that “there are a lot of guys suffering” should be another. Indeed there are times when it is possible to survey the dreamscape of elite darts and wonder how many of them are actually enjoying themselves.
“Just the money,” answered Gerwyn Price earlier this year when asked what still motivates him in this sport. And if you delve beneath the surface you will find this is an increasingly common theme: a whole cadre of elite athletes whose sole or primary motivation is to set themselves up for retirement, unable to love the thing they do, but for reasons of self-esteem or finance, unable to leave.
“Everyone thinks it’s all roses and you travel to these amazing places, but it’s very lonely,” said Aspinall in July. “I’m not a big darts fan any more. I don’t sit at home and watch it. I treat it as my job now, and I’m here to make as much money as I can. I’m the one who has to make the sacrifices so my family can have a good life.”
Of course the money is life-changing these days, even for those who have already made a good living in the sport. This year’s world champion will take home £1m, but given the substantial increases the Professional Darts Corporation has made in the lower reaches of the game, even a solid top-64 player can expect to make six figures in prize money from next year, before you factor in the likes of exhibition revenue and commercial deals.
Yet while players in the top 16 get direct entry to most tournaments and thus a generous minimum income, for the rest there are precious few guarantees, however much work you put in, however many miles you clock up, however much family time you miss. “The tour is soul-destroying,” the world No 41, William O’Connor, said this year. “It’s relentless. You go and play the best darts of your life and still go home and put no money in the bank.”
The darts you see, on the lit stages with the bouncing crowds, is really just a fraction of the darts that exists. The vast majority of the sport takes place “on the floor”, mass-start tournaments in empty leisure centres and sports halls, where journeyman players desperately try to accumulate enough ranking points to prolong their career. It’s a windowless and often thankless existence. Lose your first game and you go home with nothing.
“I used to look forward to tournaments,” says the world No 32, Joe Cullen. “Now I mainly look forward to being with the lads. There are guys with less talent than me but who’ve got a hundred times more hunger. But you can’t force that every match, especially not on some random floor event in Leicester.”
The two-time world championship quarter-finalist Callan Rydz is another who struggles with the week-to-week demotivation of the floor. “I did fall out of love with the game last year,” he says. “I didn’t want to play, I didn’t even want to go there. But in my head, if you just win a couple of games, there’s a good bit of money.”
At the upper echelons of the sport, there are subtly different problems to contend with. More demands – World Series, Euro Tours, Premier League – and more rewards, but often at the expense of the really important things in life. Michael van Gerwen has said that having children has recalibrated his relationship with the sport, but with a knock-on effect on practice time and motivation. “A lot of us are dads,” says James Wade, who was knocked out on Monday. “Family is more important, but it’s hard. I’ve really struggled.”
It’s important to note that not everyone feels the same way. This is still a good life, a thrilling life and a lucrative one to boot. Most people wake up in the morning and go to jobs about which they feel, at best, ambivalent. “I don’t see it as a job, I see it as the greatest privilege in the world,” Bunting says. Darts did not invent depression, the jeering crowd or the social media troll, the crisis of purpose in western capitalism. Menzies has issues with darts but he might have had issues without it. The same goes for Rob Cross, who spoke so candidly about his own mental health struggles on Sunday night.
But at its most extreme, darts can act as an accelerator and a multiplier, putting normal guys under deeply abnormal pressures. Over the years I have spoken to many players – too many to be a coincidence – who have struggled with depression, despondency, even apathy. “We are no longer dart players, we are elite sportsmen,” Aspinall says. And perhaps the real test for the sport in the coming years is whether it can match its promise of increased prize money with increased support, increased pastoral care, the recognition above all that these guys are humans and not simply freelance performers.
So what is the secret to a happy life in darts? The world No 54, Alan Soutar, has an answer, of sorts. Unlike most players on the tour, he maintains a full-time job as a Tayside firefighter, fitting darts around the rest of his life. “It’s not my job,” he says. “I’m just here for a jolly. I’m back on night shift tomorrow night. And I’m happy with that.”
In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org. You can contact the mental health charity Mind by calling 0300 123 3393 or visiting mind.org.uk
