Gary Anderson unveils darts retirement plan that would ’cause a lot of grief’ after conversation with his manager
GARY ANDERSON has revealed his plan to retire from darts that will “cause a lot of grief”.
The Scot, 53, is a two-time world champion who won back-to-back titles at Ally Pally in 2015 and 2016.
But in recent years he has dropped down the rankings to 20th as he picks and chooses his events more carefully.
Anderson is sympathetic towards the younger darts players due to the amount of travelling they now have to do every season.
And he has claimed if he was to return to being the No1 ranked player in the world, he would call it a day.
He said: “I’d like to get to number one and retire on the spot.
“That would cause a lot of grief! I’m enjoying what I’m doing. I’ve spoken about it with my manager.
“The Premier League, I’ve done it for so many years and it’s fantastic but I couldn’t do it now.
“You’re 16 weeks away from home and then you’ve got Europeans, ProTours, you know? I just couldn’t do it.
“Hats off to the youngsters who are doing it, because they’ve got some travelling to do in the next couple of years.”
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Aside from his two world titles, Anderson has also won the Premier League twice.
And in 2018 he won a host of trophies in the same season including the World Matchplay, UK Open and Champions League.
He reached the third round of the European Championships on Sunday, before losing 10-5 to Ritchie Edhouse.
List of all-time Darts World Champions
BELOW is a list of Darts world champions by year.
The list does not include winners from the pre-Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) era or BDO world champions.
That means Raymond van Barneveld, for example, is only listed once – Barney also won four BDO titles – and none of Eric Bristow’s five BDO titles are included.
- 1994 – Dennis Priestley
- 1995 – Phil Taylor
- 1996 – Phil Taylor (2)
- 1997 – Phil Taylor (3)
- 1998 – Phil Taylor (4)
- 1999 – Phil Taylor (5)
- 2000 – Phil Taylor (6)
- 2001 – Phil Taylor (7)
- 2002 – Phil Taylor (8)
- 2003 – John Part
- 2004 – Phil Taylor (9)
- 2005 – Phil Taylor (10)
- 2006 – Phil Taylor (11)
- 2007 – Raymond van Barneveld
- 2008 – John Part (2)
- 2009 – Phil Taylor (12)
- 2010 – Phil Taylor (13)
- 2011 – Adrian Lewis
- 2012 – Adrian Lewis (2)
- 2013 – Phil Taylor (14)
- 2014 – Michael van Gerwen
- 2015 – Gary Anderson
- 2016 – Gary Anderson (2)
- 2017 – Michael van Gerwen (2)
- 2018 – Rob Cross
- 2019 – Michael van Gerwen (3)
- 2020 – Peter Wright
- 2021 – Gerwyn Price
- 2022 – Peter Wright (2)
- 2023 – Michael Smith
- 2024 – Luke Humphries
Most World Titles
- 14 – Phil Taylor
- 3 – Michael van Gerwen
- 2 – John Part, Adrian Lewis, Gary Anderson, Peter Wright
- 1 – Dennis Priestley, Raymond van Barneveld, Rob Cross, Gerwyn Price, Michael Smith, Luke Humphries
