Any sleepers in the WORLD DART MATCHPLAY Championships??

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Phil Taylor to me is going to be one tough SOB to beat IMO.

I just in no way can bet him at anything less than +150 and the best I have seen thus far is I believe +110.

[This message was edited by FISHHEAD on July 14, 2004 at 10:00 AM.]
 

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Meet PHIL TAYLOR......darts superstar

Courtesy of smh.com

03philtaylor-darts,0.jpg


It's not all beer and skittles at the sharp end of the darts world, writes Donald McRae in London.

'The baggage of celebrity," Phil Taylor sighs, "can be very heavy." The world's greatest darts player sinks back into a plush leather chair at the Paddington Hilton and contemplates his surreal fate. "You're a target for everybody. If you let it get to you, the world can suddenly seem a very wicked place. You have to harden yourself. I'm not as trusting now and that's a real shame because I'm a very open person. But when you get to a certain level you have to start growing up a little - just like Michael Jackson has got to do now."

Taylor has an endearingly bizarre habit. He mentions the most famous and inappropriate celebrities while describing his own level of stardom. "Expectations are enormous. You put a huge amount of pressure on yourself. And people phone up saying they've put money on you and it turns out that the whole street ... have a bet on you to win the world championship for an 11th time. Daft things like that creep up on you. I don't get an eighth of the attention of David Beckham, but it's still pretty heavy."

"Well," I say, trying to bolster the King of Darts, while adding a reassuring realism to his starry appeal, "I guess you don't have to put up with even a 50th of the stuff Beckham goes through daily."

"Yeah," Taylor muses, seemingly unsure whether to sound relieved or disappointed at this relentless fractioning away of his fame, "you're probably right."

Taylor, however, is unfazed when fevered imaginations describe him as the Don Bradman or Tiger Woods of darts. He has won the world championship 10 times - twice the British Darts Organisation title and, eight times, the Professional Darts Corporation version he is determined to regain this week in Purfleet.

"I'm a little like Roy Keane. Mentally I'm very strong. I'm very hungry. I'm very dedicated. You can't throw me off my stride. That's how I break people. I just don't care what they do. They can throw 180, 180 and 180 again and I'm like, 'So what?' They've got to keep it up to beat me. Inside I'm actually a lot like Roy Keane.

"It's like a fight. You walk through this screaming crowd at the start and you've got one thing on your mind. Get on and off stage a winner as quick as you can. It's like Mike Tyson at his best. No matter how hard his opponents trained, inside that ring they saw him and felt the fear. You could see them thinking, 'Oh, shit, I wish I had trained even harder.' They knew he was going to hurt them."

Taylor may still be the world No.1 but this week his quest to renew the full extent of his former dominance has resumed. "Roy Keane gave me the smartest reminder that I lost the last final. I was being shown around the Man United training ground and this young lad took me into the gym. Keane was on the treadmill and the boy went over and told him I was the world champion. Roy looked at me, took a great big sniff, and said: 'Ex-world champion...' What an attitude. Winning's all that counts. I said, 'Thanks, son!' because me and Roy have spoken often in the past."

When asked to assess his world-title loss in a titanic clash against Canada's John Part last year, Taylor sounds melancholic. "I was jaded. I'd had 14 years at the top, won it 10 times and everything just overwhelmed me. I'd been through a terrible year. My dad died, my daughter lost a baby and I was getting over that court case. That's when some celebrities go silly and become druggies or alcoholics. I never did, but it cost me my world championship."

In October 1999, Taylor was accused by two female darts fans of "indecently groping" them in his camper-van during an exhibition tour of Scotland. Insisting on his innocence, despite the £2000 ($4750) fine he was eventually made to pay by the Scottish courts in May 2001, Taylor reiterates his belief that he was the victim of a tabloid smear.

"I was devastated. I'd made a little money and a little name for myself and suddenly people assume I'm nasty or big-headed. I considered suicide. That's when my wife, Yvonne, and my mates rallied round and looked after us. I came through it. I was lucky that my celebrity status built up slowly over the last 14 years. It's different for these young footballers. They have fame thrust on them - bang - and they don't know how to cope. I survived. I want my world title back now. It belongs to me."

Taylor's legacy is built on a hard-edged work ethic which does not square with the stereotypical image of the beer-swilling darts masters of the past. "I've always stood out," he explains, "because I rarely drink. I go to the gym. I look after myself. But I've set an example to the new breed of darts players. They're now more like boxers locking themselves away. It's tough for me because these young lads practise hard and go to bed early. They see a good living in the game. Meanwhile, I'm out on the road three nights a week, doing exhibitions, getting back to the hotel at midnight and then up early to drive to the next town."

Asked why he continues to flog himself on the exhibition circuit, Taylor responds with a question of his own: "Would you turn down a grand a night? I do 120 to 150 exhibitions a year ... £ When you've worked, like I did, earning 70 quid a week for making toilet and beer-pump handles, you can't turn down a grand a night. The world championship is different. If I win I'll get a cheque for £50,000, but that's not why I want my title back. It's far more important than money."

Outside the hotel, unlike Beckham, we are not followed or mobbed. We struggle instead to hail a cab to take Taylor to his next engagement - a photo opportunity with David Campese in a south London pub. On a mundane morning not even the trudging pedestrians seem to notice us.

People saunter casually past, too cool to look straight at Phil "The Power" Taylor dressed dashingly in a dappled grey sports jacket, black shirt, silver tie, sensible trousers and trainers. "I'm going to buy me some shoes as soon as we get to Borough," Taylor promises. "Can't have some Aussie looking smarter than me
 

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