It took Luke Littler approximately three weeks to prove he wasn’t a flash in the pan. ‘Littlermania’ had swept through the UK when an unheralded 16-year-old from Warrington downed former world champions and established stars to shockingly reach the final of the 2024 World Darts Championship.
Sure, he was ultimately beaten in that showpiece but the talent and the buzz were undeniable as he lit up not only Alexandra Palace but darts as a whole. Thoughts turned to whether this had somehow been a fluke but just 16 days after that final, Littler landed his first televised nine-darter in victory over Nathan Aspinall at the Bahrain Masters and went on to win the tournament for good measure.
Yeah, the kid was for real.
Since that spectacular bursting on to the scene last Christmas, Littler has gone from strength to strength. He was quickly handed his Premier League debut and any potential questions over whether he could hang with the best in the world across the gruelling, 16-week Thursday night schedule were immediately answered.
He easily qualified for finals night at the O2 Arena and, in front of a raucous London crowd, went on to lift the prestigious trophy, landing another nine-darter in the final to prove once again that he has an eye for the spectacular and thrives when under the most pressure.
As he returns to Ally Pally, the scene of his coming out party, 12 months on, Littler is no longer an unknown outsider but favourite to win the tournament with the bookies and ranked No 4 in the world despite the ranking list working on a two-year cycle and the teenager only having little more than a year worth of results to his name.
That’s because he has won an astonishing 10 titles during his debut campaign on the main PDC Tour, with last month’s Grand Slam of Darts the biggest of those, alongside that Premier League crown.
The man he beat in that Grand Slam of Darts final, Martin Lukeman, summed up the aura Littler has already accrued. “I can’t compete with that, it was godly,” said a shellshocked Lukeman after being smashed 16-3, with the teenager reeling off 15 legs in a row at one point. “He was relentless; he is so good it’s ridiculous.”
All this might make you think Littler is a shoo-in to go one better than 12 months ago and win his maiden world title come 3 January. That’s certainly a real possibility, but there is one man in particular standing in his way – the other half of a rivalry that is coming to define darts. Luke Humphries.
Amid ‘Littlermania’, it almost got forgotten that Humphries actually beat him in the world final to complete his own ascent to the sport’s highest echelons. He was also the man on the receiving end of that nine-darter in the Premier League final.
The two Lukes have metaphorically been knocking seven bells out of each other all season long as darts’s two standout players – winning a ludicrous 17 titles between them and sharing around £2.5m in prize money.
Humphries has nabbed more of the big ones, including the World Matchplay and Players Championship Finals, meaning £1.3m of that prize pot is in his bank account, but Littler leads their head-to-head 8-6 in 2024. They both average around 100 when they face each other, meaning that darts fans are the other big winners in this rivalry.
Providing neither slip up against an opponent they are fancied to beat, they will clash again in the World Championship semi-finals on 2 January. There’s a genuine possibility that a last-four meeting between the pair will have a larger peak TV audience than the 3.7m that watched last year’s final – which was Sky Sports’ highest viewing figures of all time for a non-football event. Darts is becoming must-see TV, something the sport could only have dreamed of a few years ago.
Yet there is an odd disparity in the rivalry that may define darts for the next decade. Littler is the one constantly followed by a media storm, Littler is the one held up as the future of the sport, Littler is the one with the branded junior magnetic dartboard that has supposedly sold more than 100,000 units ahead of Christmas, Littler is the one who is just the second darts player in history to be nominated for BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year (after Phil Taylor), where he’s second favourite to win the trophy behind only Olympic hero Keely Hodgkinson.
It would be easy for Humphries to feel under-appreciated and denied the accolades he deserves, especially given he’s world No 1, has won six of the 11 major tournaments played in the past 13 months and would make history as the first man to reach £2m on the two-year Order of Merit system if he retains his World Championship crown.
He might be the better darts player and he’s certainly currently the more successful of the two but he’s 29 years old rather than 17 and doesn’t capture the public imagination in the same way as Littler. It’s the perfect recipe for animosity towards his younger foe, yet he’s entirely, genially accepting of the circumstances – instead creating a friendly rivalry that does darts credit.
“He’s more recognised than me but that’s fine because I didn’t dream of being a famous person,” Humphries told The Guardian in a recent interview. “I dreamt of being world champion – and I achieved that dream. I’m an older guy, I’ve got a family at home. That’s my priority. At the moment, he’s young and free and living the celebrity lifestyle. Fair play to him.
“I can’t be jealous of it. I can only admire him as a 17-year-old. The last time we’ve seen anything like this would maybe have been with Boris Becker – when you show no fear and fight your best under pressure.”
In an interview with Sporting Life he added: “When you’ve got a bigger following and a bigger superstar you get more attention. It happens in all sports. You see it in snooker where Ronnie O’Sullivan will always be the star no matter who wins the World Championship. So that will be the same with darts now. I could probably win five world titles and he’ll still be the star but rightly so. He’s the biggest we’ve ever seen.”
Some of darts’s biggest rivalries in the past have been marked by dislike or at least needle on the stage between the two protagonists – think Taylor vs Raymond van Barneveld, Gary Anderson vs Michael van Gerwen or Adrian Lewis vs just about anybody...
But that doesn’t mean Littler vs Humphries has to suffer in comparison because of its relatively benign nature. Two darting superheroes desperately trying to one up each other is entertainment enough, even if it ends in a smile and a hug rather than pushing and shoving or snubbed handshakes. Anything else would be the two Lukes not being true to their personalities.
“I’d rather be friends,” explained Humphries. “There’s nothing to dislike about him. He doesn’t say anything horrible, he’s quite placid and down-to-earth and that’s why you see a friendly atmosphere when we play. There’s no animosity as we’re privileged to be the two top players in darts.
Darts is booming and it doesn’t need manufactured hatred to fuel that rise – Littler and Humphries’s friendly rivalry is more than enough and that, quite frankly, is refreshing.
