Luke Littler turns 19 this month. In darts years he hit the “the man” stage in record time, finalist on debut at 16, champion at 17. That’s good.
In human years he’s barely a fresher at university. In this context that’s complicated. Indeed, at the Ally Pally on Tuesday it broke bad, then, rapidly and excruciatingly, ugly.
His turn on the mic after extinguishing the spirited challenge of Rob Cross roused the parent in all of us, a painful lesson in the dangers of too much too soon. The panto animus of a tanked-up crowd, expressed in peels of boos, felt to the bruised teen like infidelity, like losing a partner to a friend.
He wanted to retaliate, to obliterate, to spear the unfaithful in their seats and set fire to their fancy dress. Given the floor by the MC, “What’s going through your head, Luke?”, Littler went for the “big fish”, the highest checkout in darts, treble, treble, bull.
“I’m not bothered. I’m really not bothered, really not bothered,” he said feigning indifference when in fact his eyes tattooed his reddening face in iridescent blue to betray just how bothered he was. A bout of hysterical laughter punctured his response before he raged on.
“Can I just say one thing? You guys pay for tickets that pay for my prize money, so thank you. Thank you for my money. Thank you for booing me. Thank you.” He signed off his adolescent adrenalin hit with a primal yell. “Come on.”
It was the best and worst of televised sport, an unmissable yet unwatchable spectacle, mortifying yet compelling. Littler, hitherto the hero, was suddenly the villain and like the kid he is, sought to punch his way out of a tight spot in the playground.
Littler had surrendered control of the moment and his power over the audience. He would later admit he lost his head, an important step in remaking fences, but not before his mother, Lisa, got stuck in online.
“Aww, Luke won’t sleep now,” she posted on X in response to the criticism. One dissenter was dismissed as “a silly sausage” whilst another, she said, led “a sad little life”. Thanks mum, I’ll take it from here.
Luke Littler's response to those in Ally Pally booing him pic.twitter.com/QHszE1z4ua
— Sky Sports Darts (@SkySportsDarts) December 29, 2025Littler is essentially passing through the dialectical rite familiar to the megastar class. Sport requires the audience to care, one way or another. Love or hate oppose each other, mostly in cartoon form. Federer or Djokovic, Verstappen or Hamilton, Ronaldo or Messi, with whom do you stand?
Embrace of the new is always a winner. Then comes respectful acceptance, which in turn begets critical scrutiny, and finally, depending on sensibilities, absolute resentment or unconditional support.
Luke The Nuke went straight from caterpillar to butterfly without the pupa stage. This left him learning on the job, with neither the tools nor the experience to fathom the appropriate response when sentiment settled on the underdog.
Parents should know better but frequently need more careful handling than their prodigious offspring, especially in the social media age. When McLaren’s world-champion-elect Lewis Hamilton needed dispassionate advice after colliding with Kimi Raikkonen in the pit lane at the 2008 Canadian Grand Prix he instead had a protective father acting as his manager and taking criticism personally.
At the following race in France, Hamilton Sr vetoed scheduled interviews with the Dutch media in retaliation for reports that offended, causing serious tension between the McLaren hierarchy and the team sponsors who relied on media exposure to get bang for their bucks. Hamilton went on to lift his maiden world title that season, his second, just as Littler did.
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Hamilton went from darling to diva overnight. He would have lost his innocence eventually, but had he been better prepared and managed differently he might have avoided the reputational push back from which to a degree he still suffers to this day.
The sport’s first £1m jackpot in darts awaits the world champion on Saturday. Hardly Hamilton money, but sufficient to add another degree of separation between Littler, should he prevail, and the audience that ultimately funds him.
The panto boos are inevitable now. He can, however, choose how to react, even win back favour. But not without wise counsel and a compliant mother. Mum’s the word, eh Luke?
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