He also pocketed a cheque for £100000 but there was no celebration not even a bottle

He also pocketed a cheque for £100,000, but there was no celebration, not even a bottle of champagne.”I’ve still got the first one I won, in 1990,” he says “It’s in the shed outside. Taylor obliterated Peter Manley 7-0 inside two hours, his third whitewash in five years. Did you have a bet this year, Yvonne?” “No,” says Yvonne, delivering two mugs of coffee “My dad did, though He bet you’d win 7-1.” He should have had more faith. Well, there was one year when my mate went to fetch a Chinese, and he owed me £10 in change, so I said put it on a nine-darter.”I’d thrown a couple [of nine-dart finishes] in practice, see The odds were about 14-1, and I got one But I don’t bet on the darts, no Yvonne does sometimes. “Someone bet 40 grand on me this year and must have won a pound or summut,” he says, with a huge grin Has he ever bet on himself? “Never Not once.

I used to work behind the bar at The Huntsman back then, and people kept coming in to tell me I’d paid for their new cooker, their new carpets, whatever.”His success is still paying for people’s home furnishings and kitchen appliances, the difference being that they now have to wager their mortgage to win a kettle. She said she never betted, but she’d had her last fiver on me and won £750. That’s how we were then.”In 1990 he did the community a good deed in return, by winning his first World Championship (then sponsored by Embassy) at 125-1, beating his mentor and sponsor, Eric Bristow, in the final A few days later an old lady stopped him on the street “She’s probably gone now, but I’ll never, ever forget her Shaking, she was. “In return my mother paid her catalogue for her, see.” Monty Python’s Four Yorkshiremen could not have competed.

But Taylor’s recollections evoke community spirit as well as dire poverty. “When my mother had a miscarriage, one neighbour came in to look after me, one would do my dad’s sandwiches for work, one came in to clean up, another did the shopping. The house had no running water and electricity was accessed through a hole in the wall by tapping into the next-door neighbour’s supply. A home in the sun? I’ve been offered a brand-new villa in Turkey by a Turkish development company in return for their name on my shirt.”The significance of this particular sponsorship deal is not lost on a man who grew up so poor that he had to live on the ground floor of the house in nearby Tunstall that his parents bought for £50, because the upper half was condemned. It’s a big compliment, really.”The younger players all have their little chips on their shoulders, their cockiness, they all say they’re going to be the ones to beat Phil Taylor, and that inspires me, too That keeps me going. They all have their tactics against me, like the slowdown, where they take the darts out slow, or they’ll mumble things as they’re walking past, or if they’re getting beat they’ll put their darts in their pocket, so you think, ‘I’ve got this’.

But how about a second home in the sun? In 2001 he told me that within three or four years he would be retired and living in Spain or Florida.”I know, but I keep setting myself targets My target was 13 world championships, and now it’s 15 You need a tape you can run for And the gamesmanship inspires me. Dave across the road is a policeman.”Not for the first time, Taylor’s manifest decency, and contentment in the bosom of his family and friends, makes me feel a heel for even thinking that he should be living behind carriage lamps at the end of a gravel drive somewhere. I bought her a bungalow, Yvonne’s mum and dad own their place now, I sorted out my mum and dad The thing is making sure your family are OK And the neighbours all know us here They look after the place when we’re away. “I’ve got plenty of money, that’s not a problem, but this is handy for the children, for the schools, my daughter Lisa lives just round the corner with my grandson, little Matthew. The only conspicuous sign of affluence is an enormous TV – “Yvonne went out to buy a coat and came back with a 42-inch plasma” – yet his world championship winnings alone must give him a vastly higher annual income than most families in the neighbourhood.”Yvonne likes where we are,” he adds, reading my mind as accurately as he throws an arrow.