🎯 Darts Hotbeds - Where do the Best Darts Players Come From?

Following Luke Littler's electrifying performance at the 2024 World Darts Championships, a surge of young enthusiasts are flocking to darts, signalling a new dawn for the sport. We delve into the origins of darts’ rising stars, analyzing data from the last six years to reveal which areas are cultivating these talents. Join us as we uncover the hotbeds of darts prowess.

As the world of darts finally cools down from Luke Littler’s scorching performance at the 2024 World Championships, a new era of the sport has seemingly got underway and it is an era which is tapping into a whole new audience.

An audience of youth and with young people up and down the UK now searching out their local darts club, a whole pipeline of talent looks ready to develop the next star in the years to come – something that suggests that the sport itself is in rude health.

Growing numbers in terms of participation, growing numbers in times of prize money and with this swell of interest, our interest comes in where the current crop of darts talent comes from. Is there a hotbed in a certain area of the UK, that is developing some of the very best to play the sport?

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To carry out such an exercise, we have looked at all the entrants of the Darts World Championships from 2019 to 2024 and in capturing their home nation and in some instances their place of birth, we can start to get a better idea of where the best in darts played in the formative years/

This means that our sample data includes no less than 224 unique players that have turned up at Alexandra Palace in the past six years and after researching their location data, this is what our analysis has come up with.

Top Darts Players by Country

First, we will look at the location of the 224 players and see what countries have the biggest representation within the world of darts: 

Here we can see that England has seen its flag flown on 70 separate occasions and this equates to nearly one-third of the sample itself. 31.25% to be precise and there are two and half times more Englishmen than the next most represented nation on the list.

An accolade that is currently bestowed to the Netherlands and with the Dutch legion of supporters coming to Alexandra Palace every year, their 28 players have made up exactly one-eighth of our player sample size.

More than three times as much as a trio of nations behind them and with the sport being well supported in both Australia and Germany, it is no surprise to see such high representation when it comes to nationality.

Two of three nations to supply just over 4% of the overall player sample and the same can be said for Japan. Not as well known in terms of darts circles, but it seems as if the bars of Tokyo have recently become a real hunting ground for international talent.

Sven Mandel, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

While closer to home both Scotland and Wales offer up eight players each (3.57%) and when you add Northern Ireland’s own six players to the mix, it means the United Kingdom as a whole has 92 players in the sample. 

41.07% players coming from the four corners of the United Kingdom and those four corners are part of a total of 37 nations that have at least one representative in the player sample – a big shout to outposts such as Guyana and Singapore.

Of course, we should also give honourable mentions to the likes of the United States, China and Republic of Ireland who have supplied six players and even more so to the Philippines who have put forward a half dozen of their own.

Top English Players by Town

Now that we know the breakdown of these players are represented internationally, we can also take a further look at how they are represented on a national scale. To do this, we have also tracked the birthplaces of each of our 70 English players:

Here we can start to see some geographical clusters and with four towns or cities putting forward three players each, the quartet of Ipswich, Newcastle, St. Helens and Stoke-on-Trent find themselves at the top of our list.

Four towns or cities are at the top of the list, six more in the bracket behind and with Bradford, Coventry, Doncaster, London and Newbury responsible for five of them, the other in the list is none other than Runcorn.

Why is Runcorn so prominent lately? Because that is the birthplace of teenage sensation Luke Littler and he joins Ian White as residing from the Cheshire town and with so many teenagers now inspired by the 17-year-old’s performance, one wonders if this figure could swell over the years.

Runcorn is one of 56 towns or cities to be called home by an English player, although it must also be noted that Deta Hedman was born in Kingston, Jamaica not Kingston-upon-Thames or Kingston-upon-Hull.

Top English Players by County

Staffordshire Sign by Chris' Buet, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Now that we know the 56 towns or cities that put forward an English darts player to the World Championships since 2019, we can also look at representation in terms of counties and where representation is found the most.

At the top of the list, it is Staffordshire that is the most represented county in terms of world-class darts players. Of the 70 English players in the sample, five of them come from this particular county and it is a quintet that includes former World Champions Adrian Lewis.

While had the data sample gone back another year, it would have also included the 16-time World Champion Phil Taylor and with ‘The Power’ also residing from Stoke-on-Trent that would have meant another entry from Staffordshire.

Therefore, we can say with some certainty that Staffordshire is a real hotbed when it comes to darts but not the only one either and although London can be considered a rather catch-all location, the same cannot be said for Merseyside, Somerset or the West Midlands. 

With the size of London being as it is, it is no surprise that four of the 70 players reside from the English capital. However, the same number also reside on Merseyside and three of them come from St. Helens, add Stephen Bunting’s Liverpool location into the mix and you have the fourth member.

Four there and also four in the West Country and the West Midlands. Therefore, if you are someone reading this in Yeovil or Coventry and are yet to get to the oche, you may want to consider this as a future career move.

33 different counties or geographical areas representing 70 English players and even though a large majority of Darts’ top class are playing for St. George, there is no doubt that the global footprint of the sport continues to grow with each year and who knows where its next frontier will be?

Editorial and Source info

Dan Tracey

Data scientist and football editor

Dan Tracey is a multi-talented writer, data analyst and podcaster whose six-year career in the sports data sphere has seen incredible successes. From helping UEFA create their annual technical reports to writing articles for Sports Betting Websites including sites like TheLinesUS and Goal - there's no shortage of areas where his expertise shines through! In addition, he can be heard on podcasts lending an insightful voice as well as providing weekly betting angles - all culminating with him teaming up OLBG.com in the present day. Simply put: wherever you find angled data being crunched? You'll also likely find Dan not far behind!

👨‍🏫 Specialist Subjects🔬📚

Dan's specialist area is data; and lots of it! Wherever we need numbers to create our unique deep dive articles, Dan is our go-to. Dan is also a Tottenham Fan and a football commentator for Newcastle Blue Star

Source

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_PDC_World_Darts_Championship

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_PDC_World_Darts_Championship

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_PDC_World_Darts_Championship

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_PDC_World_Darts_Championship

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_PDC_World_Darts_Championship

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_PDC_World_Darts_Championship