Darting superstar Luke Littler wrapped up his maiden world championship last week as he defeated the great Michael Van Gerwen 7-3 in his second consecutive final.

He became the youngest world champion, doing so by a seven year margin.

The current World and Premier League champion has torn through darts since his senior debut last year and he’s showed absolutely no signs of stopping.

His rise through darts at such a young age has surprised many, but one person who isn’t so shocked is St. Helen’s Dart Shop owner Karl Holden.

Karl was Luke’s first official darts coach at the St. Helen’s darts academy and has spoken about how much talent the teenage sensation had, even back then.

Karl said: “He was different to all the other kids. He was too good for the beginners group, so we’d promote him to the next group, he was too good for that, so we promoted him to the under-21’s. We didn’t want to, he’d just turned 10.”

Luke showed even back then though, if you’re good enough, you’re old enough.

“After a couple of months, he was winning the under-21’s when he was 10! It’s just remarkable how good he was.”

“When he got to about 13 or 14 and we just couldn’t help him anymore because he was too good for our group.

“We told him, ‘Try playing against men” so he went playing in the men’s league on Monday’s instead and then started playing Super League and county level for Cheshire when he was about 13.”

Karl added: “At that age, he was exceptional. He was averaging 90 all the time at 14. It’s beyond what anybody else could do at that age.”

To put into perspective how remarkable that average is for a teenager, an average of 90 was higher than 2018 world champion Rob Cross managed at the World Championships the same year Luke began to consistently put those numbers up.

An Inspiration

Luke Littler has sparked a renewed interest in darts that has never been seen before and has inspired many more kids to try and follow in his footsteps and reach the pinnacle of the sport.

Holden commented on the effect the teenage sensation has had on young hopefuls: “Worldwide darts is growing, but in this area it’s growing even more. Obviously, Mike Smith being world champion and (Stephen) Bunting a few years back in the BDO. But darts is booming everywhere.

“Wherever you go, even some of these posh hotels have bought darts equipment off me now because residents are saying ‘Lets get a dartboard’ which, never really happened in the past.”

“Everybody who played darts in the past would tend to be, on average 30-60 years of age. That’s changed, he’s changed that.

“The average now is probably about 20-35. We get 90 kids at our academy and there’s 50 at the other academy in St. Helens. We’ve got about 55-60 on the waiting list too. If we had a big enough venue and the right place, we could accommodate up to 250 kids playing darts.”

What the future holds for wonderkids of any sport can never be certain … but you wouldn’t bet against Luke Littler to reign for decades to come.

• For the full interview with Karl watch James McWiggin’s video report:

Featured image (c) Wikimedia Commons