Phil Taylor

Philip Douglas Taylor (born 13 August 1960) is an English former professional darts player.

Nicknamed "The Power", he dominated darts for over three decades and won 214 professional tournaments, including a record 85 major titles and a record 16 World Championships.

Taylor was born to Doug and Liz Taylor on 13 August 1960 in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent.

He left school at the age of 16, and after holding a few jobs including sheet metal worker, he spent most of his early working days making ceramic toilet roll handles, for which he earned £52 a week.

From a peak during the 1980s, the game of darts had lost many sponsors and almost all television coverage.

Players felt that the BDO was no longer serving the interests of the game at the top level.

Although he had liked to play darts and football as a child, he never took up the games seriously until 1986 when he moved into a terraced house in Burslem, living near to Eric Bristow's pub the Crafty Cockney.

A few months later, his wife Yvonne bought him a set of darts for his birthday and he started playing weekly, occasionally at Bristow's pub.

By 1986, he was selected for the county team and playing at Super League level.

Bristow started sponsoring him by loaning him £10,000 later that year to help him get started as a professional darts player, to take care of his family and on the condition that he give up his job in the ceramic industry.

Bristow sponsored Taylor and they travelled to Las Vegas where Taylor was beaten in the first round of the North American Open as he struggled during his first year on tour.

Bristow had been suffering with dartitis since 1986 but had recovered his world number one ranking to be the top seed in the event.

After sharing the first two sets, Taylor beat Bristow 6–1 in sets to claim his first world title.

Taylor's first title came at the Canadian Open in 1988, defeating then World Champion Bob Anderson in the final.

After reaching the quarter-final of the British Open and the semi-final of the Winmau World Masters in 1989, he qualified for the World Championship for the first time in 1990.

Although he had achieved some success in Open events, he went into the 1990 World Championship as a 125–1 unseeded outsider.

He beat number six seed Russell Stewart 3–1 in the first round, Dennis Hickling 3–0 in the second round, Ronnie Sharp 4–2 in the quarter-finals and Cliff Lazarenko 5–0 to reach the final.

He would then meet his mentor, Eric Bristow.

For the rest of 1990, Taylor dominated the Open events taking the titles in the Isle of Man, Finland, North America, Denmark as well as the British Pentathlon, British Masters, Europe Cup and the game's second major tournament at the time, the Winmau World Masters.

Taylor's defence of the World Championship in 1991 ended at the quarter-final stage with a loss to Dennis Priestley, who went on to win his first world title.

He picked up fewer titles in 1991 losing both his Danish Open and World Masters titles in finals to Rod Harrington.

Taylor regained the World Championship title the following year beating Mike Gregory 6–5 in the final in a deciding leg.

Gregory had missed six darts to win the title himself.

Taylor has described the win as one of the favourites of his career.

Taylor played in competitions organised by the British Darts Organisation (BDO) until 1993.

Amidst growing disenchantment with the BDO, he was among 16 top players who broke away to form their own organisation, the World Darts Council, now known as the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC).

In 1993, Taylor became the landlord at the Cricketers Arms in Newcastle-under-Lyme.

In 1993, Taylor was among a group of top players, which included every previous world champion, who broke away from the game's ruling body, the British Darts Organisation, and formed their own organisation, the World Darts Council (WDC), later renamed the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC).

In the 1993 World Championship, the last unified World Championship to be held, Taylor lost in the second round to Kevin Spiolek.

The BDO refused to allow the new organisation to set up and run their own tournaments, so the WDC players decided that they would no longer compete in the BDO World Championship.

Taylor won eight consecutive World Championships from 1995 to 2002, reached 14 consecutive finals from 1994 to 2007 and reached 21 world finals overall, all of which are records.

He held the world number one ranking for thirteen years in total, including eight in a row from 2006 to 2013.

He won the PDC Player of the Year award six times (2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012) and was twice nominated for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year, in 2006 and 2010; in the latter event he finished as runner-up, making him the only darts player ever to finish in the top two.

He was inducted into the PDC Hall of Fame in 2011.

In 2015, the BBC rated Taylor among the ten greatest British sportsmen of the last 35 years.

Taylor retired from professional darts after the 2018 World Championship.

In 2022 he entered the inaugural 2022 World Seniors Darts Championship, and lost to Kevin Painter in the quarter-finals.

He won 70 PDC Pro Tour events, which was a record until Michael van Gerwen passed it in February 2019.

Taylor hit a record 11 televised nine-dart finishes (and 22 overall).

He was also the first person to hit two nine-dart finishes in the same match.