For the third time in this match, Gian van Veen is lining up the bull finish for a 170. This time, though, he steps away from the oche, and as the noise builds and swells around him, as the applause hardens into a tribal rhythm, he smiles. And in that moment, with millions of pairs of eyes on him, with glory within his grasp, he just knows. Knows that after all the years of hope and toil, of dreams and dismay, his moment is here at last.
That’s the thing about the future: you spend lifetimes waiting for it, peering into the glass, reading the tea leaves, and when it arrives it happens all at once. It was a little after half past nine on the first evening of the year, and already the throngs were streaming out of Alexandra Palace and back down the hill, convinced beyond any fraction of a doubt that they had just seen the next few years of darts take shape.
