EIGHTEEN days before his 18th birthday, the boy became king.
In a dead-eyed display which made William Tell look like Elmer Fudd, Luke Littler confirmed himself as the finest arrow-slinger on the planet and the youngest world darts champion of all time.
Littler broke the record set by his opponent, Michael Van Gerwen, who won the first of his world titles aged 24.
But the phenomenal darting manchild did more than that. He broke the spirit of the finest player of the previous generation.
The man from the Netherlands had no answer to a kid in Never-Never Land, as Luke the Nuke ran out a 7-3 winner.
And Littler, a year after he’d reached the final on his first visit to this great jamboree at Ally Pally, lifted the Sid Waddell Trophy, named after the great bard of the oche.
One of Waddell’s greatest quotes went like this: ‘When Alexander of Macedonia was 33, he cried salt tears because there were no more worlds to conquer…(Eric) Bristow is only 27.”
Well that is a decade older than Littler is now.
All the fancy-dress shenanigans in the crowd make this PDC event an enormously joyous one, but they almost did the 17-year-old a disservice.
Because, seriously, this wasn’t panto. It was one of the finest performances you could ever witness from a 17-year-old in any sport.
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After just 24 minutes of playing time, Littler led by four sets to nil. It was a magnificent display of cruelty.
This was Van Gerwen’s seventh world final but, especially in the early stages, he was made to look like a panic-stricken novice.
There had been a sense of inevitability and destiny about Littler reaching this final – especially after reigning champion Luke Humphries was knocked out before the duo could meet in the semis.
But before the start this one had seemed a far tougher one to call. Van Gerwen had Littler had met on 12 previous occasions and the head-to-head was tied at 6-6.
Van Gerwen has been the dominant figure in the sport since the end of Phil Taylor’s long period of dominance.
Yet six years had passed since the Dutchman was last crowned champion and he had lost two world finals since, undergone two serious operations to correct a jaw problem and suffered from debilitating bouts of gout.
Littler has been throwing darts, literally, since he was in nappies. Which is presumably about five years before he started sporting a full beard.
From tossing arrows at a magnetic board as a toddler to last year’s miraculous march to the final, Littler had been on a mission to win this title.
That debut campaign was sensational, as the previously-unknown kid slayed some of the sport’s biggest names. This time, the hunter has become the hunted.
Littler’s game had not been at its fluent best until he thrashed Stephen Bunting 6-1 in Thursday’s semi-final – after Van Gerwen had triumphed by the same empathic scoreline against Chris Dobey.
It was a brass-monkeys night outside this Victorian folly on the top of a north London hill.
Men dressed as traffic cones and baked-bean cans navigated the icy pavements in the knowledge that they held golden tickets for one of the most widely-anticipated darts matches of all time.
After being widely booed by a partisan crowd, Van Gerwen squandered two chances to kill off the first leg and Littler took the opening set against the throw – with neither player looking entirely relaxed.
In the second, Littler was into machine mode, throwing maximums, nailing finishes, looking like the man with all the experience and composure.
A leg up in the third, Van Gerwen missed three darts at double top to concede the leg and ultimately the set.
The three-time champ had succeeded with two of his first 11 attempts at the outer ring and was fearing something like a whitewash.
Next it was Littler striking bullseye, followed by his favourite bed of double ten.
It was cocksure stuff and Van Gerwen looked horribly rattled and severely wonky at the oche – Littler had taken 11 of the first 13 legs.
After just 20 minutes of playing time, Littler led 3-0 in sets and 2-0 in legs. Soon, Van Gerwen was missing three more doubles – 14 out of 17 – and Littler was 4-0 up.
The older man glowered as he marched off the stage at an interval, desperate to pull himself together and find some Dutch courage.
And that he did, getting into his rhythm and onto the scoreboard, nailing bullseye to take the fifth.
Every time he had the throw in the sixth, Littler opened with a 180. He wasn’t giving his opponent a sniff.
Van Gerwen was playing properly now, seizing a second set, but Littler broke him with an 11-darter and took a 6-2 lead.
For the first time in the match, the Dutchman broke the Littler throw to wrap up the ninth set.
But it scarcely mattered, the final set was an utterly nerveless Littler whitewash.
