IA modest Challenge Tour quarter-final at Wigan’s Robin Park Leisure Center in September 2017 is about to change the course of darts history forever. Luke Humphries and Martin Lukeman are two promising young pitchers on the Professional Darts Corporation’s second tier tour hoping to make it big. But there’s one problem.
Humphries named himself “Cool Hand” based on the 1967 Paul Newman film, which he has not yet seen. Lukeman, on the other hand, decided to call himself “Koolman”. It’s not very catchy and doesn’t scan much, but it still works well enough. Despite being firm friends, the pair ended up drawing against Wigan and decided to settle the matter in a best-of-nine match. The winner will be given a nickname. Losers have to think otherwise.
How different would the ups and downs of these two men’s paths be if Lukeman had won that fight instead of Humphries? Of course, Lukeman has had an absolutely incredible career. He was a Grand Slam finalist last season and had some promising results in other major tournaments. But the man now known as “Smash” has also struggled to maintain consistency at the highest level. He goes on a strong streak and then declines over a period of several months. What he crucially lacks in such moments of great pressure is a modicum of composure.
In contrast, Humphries and his nickname have proven to be a perfect fit for each other. My stage identity and my sports identity blend so perfectly that they are almost the same. He doesn’t get upset, he doesn’t make mistakes, he stays calm under pressure and continues to work hard in his 60 beds. “This was destiny,” he later recalled of the Lukeman match. And perhaps the lesson here is that in a sport built on personas and self-projection, darts nicknames often mean more than the little thread of color on the back of a shirt.
When a new player registers with the Professional Darts Players Association before their first tournament, among the details they are asked to enter is the nickname they will carry into their career. And it seems like quite a few people ended up following the first thing that came to mind when filling out the form. Ross Smith is ‘Smudger’, Luke Woodhouse is ‘Woody’ and Josh Locke is ‘Rocky’. Marvin King is “The King.” Barber Ryan Meikle is known as “The Barber.” That’s fine. Not everyone has to be a brand that only sings or dances.
There are the inevitable puns: Darren “Ice Cold” Beveridge, “Bo and Arrow” Greaves, Jean “Double” Dekker. There are some players who have inherited nicknames from their past lives into darts. Johnny Clayton is known as ‘The Ferret’ from his days as a formidable scrum-half for Ponty Bellem. Chris Dobey was given the name ‘Hollywood’ by his Bedlington friends because of the way he dressed.
For players from remote countries in the darts world, being assigned a name based on nationality is an inevitable fate. Krzysztof Ratajski “Polish Eagle”. Antonio Alcinas “El Daltador”. Nitin Kumar “The Royal Bengal”. China’s Xiaocheng Zhong is known as “Panda Man”, but he is probably not that famous.
But the catchiest and most consequential nicknames are very often the product of a more sophisticated collaborative process. When new players arrive on tour, they and their agents will often meet with the PDC’s public relations department to discuss how they would like to be branded and marketed. Splash nicknames and walk-on songs around the room and see what sticks in your mind. Darryl Gurney’s nickname “Superchin” was a suggestion from his agent. He still doesn’t like it. But he’s stuck with it now.
Broadcasting stations also often have the right to speak. It was a Sky Sports production manager called Peter Judge who came up with the idea to call Phil Taylor ‘The Power’ after hearing Snap’s song of the same name. On CD. Commentator Dan Dawson called Dirk van Duijvenbode an “Ober genius” because of his previous job on an eggplant farm. This brings us to the final category, nicknames that are considered too hot for television.
Earlier this year, Australian player Tim Pusey received a strongly worded statement from the PDC stating that his long-standing nickname “The Magnet” was no longer acceptable to family audiences around the world. The same fate befell young Devon player Owen Bates, whose attempts to call himself a ‘master’ were thwarted by the amused police.
Funny jokes aside, Darting’s perfect nickname is more than just a catchy jingle. For Peter “Snakebite” Wright and Eric “Cunning Cockney” Bristow, for Ted “The Count” Hankey and Andy “The Viking” Fordham, it was a whole persona, a source of power, a character that expressed how they wanted the world and their adversaries to think of them.
For modern players like Stephen “The Bullet” Bunting and Luke “The Nuke” Littler, it has become an essential part of their commercial arsenal, used to sell everything from replica shirts to children’s lunch boxes to pet bandanas. We live in an era where professional athletes increasingly become a kind of personal brand. In this, as in many other respects, darts were ahead of their time.
