Van Gerwen’s pursuit of darting greatness heads to Newcastle

Michael van Gerwen, the successor to both Eric Bristow and Phil Taylor as the towering behemoth at the top of world darts, turns 30 in April, but the point still stands. If you have achieved everything there is to achieve in your chosen profession, what motivates you to keep coming back for more?

Had Waddell still been alive, he would have been ruminating on that point in his native Newcastle this evening as the Unibet Premier League circus rolls into town. In front of thousands of baying fans at the Metro Radio Arena, van Gerwen will begin his pursuit of a fifth Premier League title, having claimed his third World Championship trophy when he triumphed at Alexandra Palace on New Year’s Day.

When Bristow was playing, multiple successes meant winning two or three tournaments over the course of a year. For van Gerwen, it points to a relentless pursuit of excellence that will take him to all four corners of the world in the next 12 months, pitting him against opponents who think nothing of regularly recording the kind of three-dart averages that would have been unthinkable less than a decade ago.

Darts, with its gladiatorial head-to-head nature, places special mental pressures on its exponents. What is it that keeps driving on a multiple champion like van Gerwen?

“I just don’t want to get beat,” said the Dutchman, who takes on Michael Smith in a repeat of last month’s World final tonight. “It’s as simple as that really. It takes you so long to get to the top, but it only takes a couple of bad matches or tournaments to start falling back down.

“That’s the motivation – to know there’s a bunch of guys out there who want to be in your position, and knowing you’re the only one that can stop that from happening.

“I’m used to that now. Every time I play, whether in the final of a major or an exhibition, there’s a target on my back. It’s a big old target, but it’s a nice position to be in.

“If you want to be the best, you have to learn how to deal with that. It’s the same for big sports people or big football clubs – getting to the top is the easy part really, it’s staying there week after week, year after year, that’s hard.”

There will always be those that decry darts’ position in the sporting pantheon, but in terms of the way in which he currently dominates the world scene, van Gerwen towers over his sport in the same way that Roger Federer or Tiger Woods once held sway on the tennis court or golf course.

He is a winning machine, churning out victories and racking up an increasingly remarkable record of tournament successes. Only last weekend, he followed up his World title win with a fifth successive victory in the Masters in Milton Keynes.

When Taylor retired just over a year ago, it was feared he would leave a gap that would never be filled. Twelve months on, and van Gerwen, with 31 Major PDC titles to his name, has already slipped seamlessly into his shoes.

“I admire anyone who can stay at the top for a long time because it’s really not easy,” he said. “I know there’s a lot of eyes watching me, but I’ve learned how to be comfortable with that. I’d much rather have it that way. People say to me, ‘You’ve won everything, you can relax now’, but that just makes me want to win more.

“I want to win more titles, achieve more things. I love what I do. It’s also my living – don’t get me wrong. I get a good living out of it, and I’m grateful. But I think if you want to really succeed at anything, it has to be about more than that. It has to be something deep in you that makes you want to keep pushing.”