GARY ANDERSON has revealed that his darts career was “a mistake” after starting out playing pool.

The Flying Scotsman admits he’s been struggling for form in 2022 after a disappointing run – including an opening round exit in the World Matchplay last month.

But he has vowed to get it right and how he got into the sport 26 years ago.

He told Unicorn: “Playing-wise I’ve been terrible. I’ve lost my touch now but I’ll get back into it.

“But darts is just through the roof now, it’s in every country on the planet which is great for the sport.

“Darts was a mistake really. I used to play a lot of pool in clubs. But it got to the stage that it was a pound for a game of pool which, back 26 years ago, was a lot of money. That was your pocket money gone.

“So the dartboard was there, darts were lying about so I just started playing from then.

“I was in the BDO and then onto your county games, Super League and did that for many years and then signed up for the PDC about 13 years ago, which I wish I’d done a lot earlier. It got drummed into us that we didn’t want to do that.

“My parents were my role models. They taught me everything I knew. I was always taught to be polite and have manners.”

Anderson has, of course, gone on to win two world titles but also admits that his first BDO Worlds still haunts him.

He added: “I remember my first time on TV playing. That was in the BDO World Championships and it felt miserable, I had an absolutely terrible game. I got beat 3-0 in sets by Stefan Nagy from Sweden. Probably my worst game ever. It took a while to get over that.

“It happened the next two years. But I started with the PDC and fell right into it.

“My original nickname Dream Boy was given to me at the BDO by Martin Fitzmaurice because I was always sleeping. The more I kicked off about it, the more it stuck.”

By Phil Lanning

Image by Taylor Lanning