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Eric Bristow and Bobby George

Double trouble: Five agonising 'what if' moments in darts history including Bobby George, Mervyn King, Ian White

By Paul Nicholson

Darts

Tue December 05, 2023 · 1y ago

Paul Nicholson looks back at five more costly missed doubles in the second of a two-part feature about the biggest 'what if' moments in darts.

Agony of missed match darts

Last week former major winner Paul Nicholson picked out five heartbreaking moments which summed up the pain of missing crucial doubles and what effect it can have on a player's career long-term. The Asset concludes this two-part feature with another five, including one that could feasibly have changed the course of darting history dramatically!

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Gerwyn Price 10-9 Ian White, 2017 UK Open quarter-final

In the deciding leg of a phenomenal UK Open quarter-final, Ian White hits a 180 and a 140 to set up double 10 for victory. You think he's got Gerwyn Price just where he wants him and is about to reach his first major semi-final.

He steps up to the oche with three darts at double 10 but his first comes out wrong and hits double 15 before Price takes a wonderful 160 to snatch a dramatic win and goes on to reach the final of an event that provides the launchpad for his career.

A lot of people have talked about the greatest players not to reach the latter stages of big events – or win them – and for me, Ian has to be talked about in that light. This miss will have haunted him for a little while and although he finally reached his first semi-final last winter, he could feasibly have achieved a lot more were it not for this miss.

Ian White v Gerwyn Price | Quarter-Finals

One of the reasons why I chose this one is because he's so far away from the middle of the double 10 – it’s not as though he missed it by a fraction inside or outside. One of the great things about doubles on that side of the board is they’re very tall. So if it comes out the hand a bit early at least you’ve got a margin for error, but this one came into the double 15 bed by a centimetre, so it's a big, big miss.

White probably wonders “what if I missed out on the outside, where would the other two darts have gone?” He didn't give himself the luxury of three darts at double 10 and something went wrong with his mechanics. Under the pressure, I think his tricep got too tight and caused one of biggest bust shots that we've seen.

There were other major performances that he could potentially think about and, like me, could be the kind of guy that looks at the ones he didn't get across the line in instead of the ones where he did.

This was an era when he’d beaten Michael van Gerwen 6-0 in a floor final so definitely had the game to have troubled Peter Wright in that final – and possibly win it.

Ultimately though, he had to lick his wounds and get off the canvas and try again, and he's still trying now.

Eric Bristow 5-3 Bobby George, 1980 World Championship final

We're going to go back to Eric Bristow's first world final against Bobby George, when it was the shorter format of first to five sets.

It's a very interesting situation in how counting has progressed through the course of the last 30-40 years, and I think everyone in the game right now needs to watch this entire final, especially that final five minutes.

Bobby George has got 141 left and leaves himself on double nine after his three darts. He had 66 points left with one to throw and hits treble 16. I don't know why he did that and I haven't seen anybody do it since with one dart in their hand.

Eric Bristow v Bobby George - 1980 Embassy Darts - Final Leg 🔥👏🎯

Eric misses one shot at tops for the title but then Bobby George goes inside on the double nine and then it hits 20 going for a single one. Now, if he gets that double and he goes to four sets all he has the momentum going into the decider.

Bobby was arguably the second best in the world back then but he was the existing News of the World Champion and therefore very strong at the short-format stuff and really good under pressure. I just wonder what would have happened had Bobby not left himself the tricky double nine – and indeed gone on to force the decider.

Would we instead be looking back on Bobby George's first of many World Championship titles that effectively denied Eric winning as many as he did? We just don't know but Bobby only made one more world final in 1994 – when he had a broken back – so I do feel this was a real sliding doors moment even though he did achieve icon status in many other ways.

Eric was very special player so probably would have bounced back just like he did when losing to Keith Deller in 1983, but bare in mind Bobby’s miss on double nine came just after he’d missed tops for a title-winning 120. Had he lost the final after spurning a golden opportunity, it could have left a big mental scar early in his career.

This final could have still made this list after all - but in the context of a completely different reality!

James Wade 11-10 Mervyn King, 2014 Masters final

At the 2014 Masters, Mervyn King was unquestionably the best player of that tournament. by a very, very long way and halfway through the final you can’t help but think it’s his title. He's just rolling towards it and nobody thought about what was going to happen.

He led 5-0, 9-2 and 10-6 in the race to 11 but missed eight match darts at the title across the next five legs before James Wade takes out 135 on tops for the win.

It's noted as the ‘really’ game, when Mervyn says ‘really’ to James when he celebrates the win, but I feel sad for him because I don't think he’s recognized for the talent that he has shown in his career. I think he's better than some world champions. It just so happens that he hasn't been able to get over the line in finals that would’ve fluffed his CV a little bit more.

THE GREATEST EVER COMEBACK? | Wade v King | 2014 Masters Final

I think he’d have definitely got back into the Premier League again, but it would have also laid the ghost to rest of the 2012 Grand Prix, when he was the best and most consistent player in that tournament, too.

If he’d won the Grand Prix, he’d probably have won this as well because the same seeds of doubt wouldn’t have been there. Confidence gets shattered because of situations like this, then you have to build it up again from the very bottom and that's very hard to do.

That season he also reached the semi-finals of the UK Open, European Championship and Grand Slam of Darts so perhaps with a major finally behind him, he could have reached more finals and consequently more titles.

I’ve spent a lot of time with Mervyn in my career but he doesn’t open up a lot, especially to his opponents and the media, so in order to know how much the 2012 Grand Prix and this 2014 Masters hurt him, we may have to wait for his book one day.

Glen Durrant 4-3 Paul Hogan, 2017 BDO World Championship, second round

I was quite fortunate to commentate on three Lakeside championships and in every single one, Glen Durrant won the title.

During the first of those tournaments in 2017 I was gifted one night off when Glen played Paul Hogan in the second round. I was meant to be relaxing and researching for the following day but I couldn’t take my eyes off it.

He was in big trouble after Hogan put himself in a match wining position but with 16 required for victory he hit double 16 to bust his score.

Glen somehow got himself out of jail and looked really strong after that as he went on to win the first of his three titles and cement the beginning of his legacy, that still hasn’t been finished yet.

2017 BDO World Darts Championship Round 2 Hogan vs Durrant

Every great player needs a bit of fortune at some point in their career and for Glen, that was his moment and he made the absolute most of it.

But what about Paul Hogan? He was playing unbelievably well until things went wrong but had he pulled off the victory, maybe he’d have won the title and changed his career by joining the PDC and be known more as being the ‘professional amateur’.

Had it not been Paul who won the title, it could well have been the eventual runner-up Danny Noppert, who’d then have made the switch with an even greater platform for the rest of his career.

As for Glen, he’s done a lot of work around psychology, mental strength and controlling heartbeats at crucial moments so I really think how he handled that match against Paul Hogan back in 2017 helped set him up for where he is today.

Peter Wright 11-10 Michael Smith, 2020 Masters final

Michael Smith is a player right now who has the baggage of plenty of major final defeats and mental scarring of missing title darts – not once but twice.

The first occasion came in the World Series of Darts Finals against James Wade in the autumn of 2018 and I think had he converted that opportunity, he wouldn’t have had that extra pressure to win his first major when he stepped up to the oche with three darts in hand at tops for this year’s Masters.

Peter Wright, who had suffered the pain of missing multiple title darts in the 2017 Premier League final, punished him and his career continues to go fron strength to strength.

TITLE DECIDING DRAMA! | Final Highlights | 2020 Ladbrokes Masters

There are examples of players who can recover from these setbacks – like Snakebite - but there’s also those who didn’t win early and were unable to achieve what they were expected to. Let’s hope Michael doesn’t fall into that category because he’s far too talented.

Michael isn’t the finished article yet. We just want him to find that little one percent of mental strength that he needs just to get over the line and from then the floodgates to more glory will open.

I think there's a an almost old school attitude towards psychology within our game, so maybe he needs to take a leaf out of Glen Durrant’s book and get some really good mental training. It’s worked immensely for him and could do the same for the likes of Michael and even Dave Chisnall, who is another talented star yet to win a major.