For the second time in three weeks, Luke Littler has rankled a significant figure in the world of darts. Five-time world champion Raymond van Barneveld, who Littler beat on his way to the World Championship final, has complained that the 17-year-old hasn’t been responding to his texts.
“I then understood that I am one of his idols. I can understand why you don’t talk at the World Championship, but at other tournaments… I recently walked up to him to shake his hand, then he takes off his earplugs and only says the essentials.
“He responded: yes, I only respond to text messages. I don’t actually use WhatsApp. Well, fine, I sent a text message. And then unfortunately still no message back here either.
“Unfortunately, I was a little bit disappointed about it. Because; how nice it is to have contact with one of your idols. Perhaps also exchange advice and learn something from your idol. My thoughts a few days later were “leave it then, when he isn’t responding back!
“I understand that you receive thousands of text messages, but of course I am not just anyone. If I have been your source of inspiration for years, then I also expect a text message in return.”
This exchange emerged two weeks after he won the Belgian Darts Open in Wieze, when 29-year-old German Ricardo “Pikachu” Pietreczko had moaned his showmanship was arrogant.
But here’s the thing about these complaints – Littler was bigger than darts by the end of the World Championship, now he’s multiple magnitudes more popular and powerful. He’s operating on a different plane. Maya Jama called him “the sports star of the moment” during his Comic Relief appearance. Like all his public events away from the oche, he looked somewhere between overawed and inconvenienced at that statement.
Littler has become a walking billboard advertising an entire sport, something he’s well aware of. He was dragged out to hit a comically large bullseye at Comic Relief, a trick anyone on that stage would have a fair chance of managing first time, a list which included David Tennant, Davina McCall, Paddy McGuinness and Lenny Henry.
The next day he was en route to winning in Wieze, hitting a nine-darter in the final. The week after, he was throwing a pie at Stuart Broad on Sky Sports’ Fantasy Football League.
“It’s just been crazy, as everyone knows since the World Championship,” he said to Romesh Ranganathan during Comic Relief. “It’s changed my life and it’s changed many other people’s lives, particularly the youngsters. So many people are getting into the game now.”
A week earlier Littler was a guest on the Jonathan Ross Show, alongside a bona fide A-List cast. Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown, who’s engaged to Jon Bon Jovi’s son, told him she was a fan. He acted as if she’d told him she was really into skimmed milk. He’d had the same reaction to Jurgen Klopp referencing him in a press conference – “I gave it a like and went on to the next video. That was literally another day in my life.”
But put yourself in Littler’s shoes for a moment. If he were to react to everything, feel everything, fully experience life as he’s living it, there’s every chance he’d be checked into a local institution by tomorrow morning. He’s always been destined for greatness, but the reality is so all-encompassing nothing could ever prepare you for it.
His aloofness can be taken for arrogance, and there’s probably some truth in those accusations. But how could he not be? When everything you’ve touched so far has turned to gold, why would you not believe the next thing will too?
Darts is now Luke Littler, and that’s a co-dependent relationship with a clear propensity towards toxicity. The PDC will do everything they can to extract maximum value from a teenager who already has more than twice the amount of Instagram followers they do.
But perhaps more concerning in the long term is that Luke Littler is now darts. His sport is inextricable from his identity. He will likely be in his 50s before he has any reason to go long periods without playing elite darts. Discovering who he is away from the oche is going to be one of the great challenges of his career, part of the overarching battle to keep his ego somewhere in Earth’s orbit.
To their credit, the PDC do appear to have some regard for his wellbeing. Speaking on the Love the Darts podcast recently, PDC Chief Executive Matthew Porter said: “What’s been really positive is Luke’s recent wins are going to help his schedule because it will reduce the number of qualifiers he has to play in which will be good for him.
“The media demands are high, still getting a lot of requests for high-end content. We saw him on The Jonathan Ross Show, he’s doing Comic Relief, there are a lot of A-list people that want to speak to Luke which is great for him and great for darts and it’s important that is managed properly.
“His manager Martin (Foulds) is excellent, his family are very supportive, we’re involved and it’s a team effort really just to make sure everything is geared around giving him the optimal opportunity to be the best he can on the oche and just get enough rest and time to himself to be a normal 17-year-old as best he can away from that.
“It’s early days, it’s hard to think we’re only three months into the Luke Littler story but who knows how long it might last?”
For all his successes so far, Littler is still yet to win a night of the eight-man Premier League tournament, and he is fifth in the overall table, albeit level on points with Nathan Aspinall and Michael Smith above him.
Van Barneveld and Pietreczko will not be the last darts players to take issue with Littler’s on-oche showmanship and star bigger than the sport they’ve devoted their lives to. Learning to live with that will be one thing for the teenager, but learning to live as an A-Lister will be quite another.
