DARTS
Who is the player with the most World Darts victories in history?
We wouldn’t be able to see any of Taylor’s greatness if his wife hadn’t bought him a set of darts after moving to Burslem and used them in the local bar.
Peter Taylor was born in Stoke-on-Trent on 13 August 1960. He left school at sixteen and worked various jobs, including as a sheet metal worker, before making ceramic toilet roll handles for fifty quids a week. He only started taking darts seriously in 1986 when he moved near Eric Bristow’s pub, the Crafty Cockney in Burslem. Bristow, a famous darts player, became his friend and mentor in playing darts.
His wife Yvonne gifted him a set of darts for his birthday, and he started playing weekly. By 1986, he played at the Super League level after being selected for the county team. Soon enough, other players and darts media called him “The Power.”
Peter Taylor and his darts accolades
The player known as “The Power” dominated darts for over two decades, winning 214 professional tournaments, including 85 major titles and 16 World Championships. In 2015, the BBC rated Taylor among the top ten British sportspeople of the last 35 years. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest darts players ever.
Taylor won eight consecutive World Championships from 1995 to 2002 and reached 14 straight finals from 1994 to 2007, setting records for both. He also got 21 world finals overall, which is another record.
He held the world number-one ranking for a total of thirteen years, including eight in a row from 2006 to 2013. He won a record number of Pro Tour events, but Michael van Gerwen later broke this record in February 2019. Taylor hit a record 11 televised nine-dart finishes (and 22 overall) and was the first person to hit two nine-dart finishes in the same match.
Taylor played in competitions organized by the British Darts Organisation (BDO) until 1993. He was one of 16 top players who broke away to form their own organization, the World Darts Council, now known as the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC), amidst growing disenchantment with the BDO. He won the PDC Player of the Year award six times and was twice nominated for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year, finishing as runner-up in 2010, making him the only darts player ever to finish in the top two.
He was inducted into the PDC Hall of Fame in 2011. Taylor retired from professional darts after the 2018 World Championship, but in 2022, he participated in the inaugural World Seniors Darts Championship, where he lost to Kevin Painter in the quarter-finals.