It’s September 2017, and a humble Challenge Tour quarter-final at the Robin Park Leisure Centre in Wigan is about to change the course of darting history. Luke Humphries and Martin Lukeman are two promising young throwers making their way on the Professional Darts Corporation’s second-tier tour, dreaming of the big time. But there’s one problem.
Humphries has styled himself “Cool Hand”, based on the 1967 Paul Newman film that to date he has still never watched. Lukeman, meanwhile, has decided to call himself “Cool Man”: less catchy, doesn’t really scan, but still just about works. And though the pair are firm friends, when the draw in Wigan pits them against each other, they decide that this best-of-nine match will settle matters once and for all. Winner gets the nickname. Loser has to think of something else.
How different might the undulating paths of these two men have been had Lukeman and not Humphries won that match? Of course, Lukeman has had a perfectly fine career: finalist in the Grand Slam last season, a couple of promising runs in the other majors. But the man they now call “Smash” has also struggled for consistency at the highest level. He goes on a hot streak and then fades for months. What he so sorely lacks – in those big pressure moments – is a little coolness.
By contrast, Humphries and his nickname have proven a perfect fit for each other: a stage identity and a sporting identity that have fused together so perfectly that they may as well be one and the same. He’s unflappable, unerring, keeps his calm under pressure, keeps plugging away on that 60-bed. “It was fate,” he later remembered of the Lukeman game. And perhaps the lesson here is that in a sport so built on persona and self-projection, there is often a lot more to a darting nickname than a little coloured thread on the back of a shirt.
When new players register with the Professional Darts Players’ Association before their first tournament, among the details they are asked to enter is the nickname they will carry with them into their careers. And look, quite a few appear to have gone with the first thing that came to mind as they were filling out the form. Ross Smith is “Smudger”, Luke Woodhouse “Woody”, Josh Rock “Rocky”. Mervyn King is “The King”. Ryan Meikle, a barber, is known as “The Barber”. Which is fine. Not everyone has to be an all-singing, all-dancing brand.
There are the inevitable puns: Darren “Ice Cold” Beveridge, “Beau and Arrow” Greaves, Jan “Double” Dekker. There are the players whose have carried their nicknames into darts from a previous life. Jonny Clayton has been known as “The Ferret” ever since his days as a jackalling scrum-half for Pontyberem. Chris Dobey got the name “Hollywood” from his mates in Bedlington because of the way he dressed.
For players from the more peripheral countries of the darting universe, their inevitable fate is to be assigned a name based on their nationality. Krzysztof Ratajski, “The Polish Eagle”. Antonio Alcinas, “El Dartador”. Nitin Kumar, “The Royal Bengal”. Xiaochen Zong of China is known as “The Panda Man”, which probably isn’t going to date that well.
But the most catchy and consequential nicknames are very often the product of a more polished and collaborative process. When new players arrive on tour they and their agents will often meet with the PDC’s publicity department to discuss how they want to be branded and marketed. Nicknames and walk-on songs will be thrown around the room to see what sticks. Daryl Gurney’s nickname “Superchin” was a suggestion from his agent. He still doesn’t like it. But he’s stuck with it now.
Broadcasters will often have a say as well: it was a Sky Sports production manager called Peter Judge who came up with the idea of calling Phil Taylor “The Power” after hearing the song of the same name by Snap! on a CD. The commentator Dan Dawson dubbed Dirk van Duijvenbode “the Aubergenius” due to his previous job on an aubergine farm. Which brings us neatly to the final category: the nicknames deemed too hot for television.
Earlier this year the Australian player Tim Pusey got a sternly-worded communique from the PDC that his long-standing nickname of “The Magnet” would no longer be acceptable to a global family audience. The same fate befell the young Devon player Owen Bates, whose attempt to dub himself “The Master” were also kiboshed by the fun police.
All guffawing aside, the perfect darting nickname is more than a catchy jingle. For Peter “Snakebite” Wright and Eric “The Crafty Cockney” Bristow, for Ted “The Count” Hankey and Andy “The Viking” Fordham, it was an entire personality, a source of power, a character expressing to the world – and their opponents – how they wanted to be perceived.
For modern players like Stephen “The Bullet” Bunting and Luke “The Nuke” Littler, it has become an intrinsic part of their commercial armoury, used to sell everything from replica shirts to children’s lunchboxes to pet bandanas. Increasingly we live in an age where the professional athlete is a kind of personal brand. In this respect – as in so many others – darts was ahead of the curve.
