Michael van Gerwen: I see more of Phil Taylor than of my wife

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/dec/15/michael-van-gerwen-phil-taylor-world-darts-championship

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Michael van Gerwen’s face is like nothing else in sport. A favourite Van Gerwen expression occurs when the world champion has just achieved something so miraculous with the little arrows that he spins away from the board, pumps his arms, butts the air with his bald head and opens his mouth so wide it becomes professional darts’ exhilarating answer to The Scream. Edvard Munch, on one of his happier days, might have wanted to paint the Dutch master of the oche.

There is also the pouty look when, raising a solitary arm and jiggling nonchalantly in his lime-green shirt, Van Gerwen purses his lips as if he is about to plant a big smacker on his defeated opponent. All the while he is nodding his bald noggin and muttering the Dutch equivalent of “Get in my son!” while offering us his kissy face.

Van Gerwen nods sagely when hearing that Rob Smyth in The Guardian once compared him to “a bulldog kissing a wasp.” The 25-year-old smiles. “Yes, that sounds right because my first nickname was The Bulldog. Now I call myself Mighty Mike. Someone else already had The Bulldog. When I was younger I had a scooter and my cousin called me Mighty Mouse. He said, ‘Why don’t you change it to Mighty Mike?’ I thought: ‘That’s quite good’.”

It’s time for Mighty Mike to order lunch on a typically drab December day. He now looks a little like Uncle Fester when, hunched over a menu in a restaurant next to the Tower of London, he scowls in confusion and scratches his head as he says, dolefully, “Linguine? What’s linguine?”

A shy waitress explains that linguine is pasta and Van Gerwen’s brooding expression suddenly lights up. “OK,” he says. “Spaghetti bolognaise. I’ll have that. Soup and spaghetti bolognaise.”

The young woman hesitates, as if she really has ended up in an episode of the Addams Family, and then makes a hasty dash for the kitchen to place an unexpected order.

Her response is not quite the same as when a roaring crowd at Alexandra Palace reacts exultantly to the many faces of Mighty Mike during the PDC world championship – which starts on Thursday with Van Gerwen playing Joe Cullen.

You don’t need to know much about darts when watching Van Gerwen to sense a rare talent at work. He still only has one world championship to compare to Phil Taylor’s imperious 16 titles, but not even the greatest darts player in history can match the surreal euphoria generated by Mighty Mike.

Of course, not everyone warms to Van Gerwen. Mervyn King, one of his middle-aged opponents, suggested that the wild celebrations were “disrespectful”. Van Gerwen, now looking like a bulldog which has swallowed that pesky old wasp, shrugs. “Maybe. But I don’t care what people think. I just need to be me. 100%. They are always looking for excuses. So I don’t worry about them. I just love the Ally Pally atmosphere. Everyone’s in a good mood because it’s Christmas and New Year. I love playing for the big crowds and, yeah, I like to celebrate when I win. I don’t see the problem.”

Last year he won £250,000 when he became world champion. Yet, beyond the prize money, Van Gerwen simply hates losing. He cried openly after he was defeated by Taylor in the final of the World Matchplay at Blackpool’s Winter Gardens in July.

“I did have tears after that game against Phil because I love darts,” Van Gerwen says earnestly. “I was desperate to win. It’s a tournament I’ve never won and, when you don’t show what you’re capable of, it hurts. Then a couple of tears fall because I don’t like losing – especially when you want to win a tournament and you know that you’re better than someone.”

It’s difficult to know if, right now, Van Gerwen is better than Taylor. He is the defending champion, and the world No1, with Taylor, who is 54, just behind him in the rankings. Yet their head-to-head record shows that Taylor is ahead 26-11. This year Taylor has won five matches to Van Gerwen’s two, but the Dutchman dominated their first encounter in 2014 with a 7-0 whitewash.

“That was a great win,” Van Gerwen says, “especially as all the pressure was on me as the new world champion. Phil was a bit off that day but I played really well. In the early days against Phil, I lost eight in a row. But the first time I played Phil on TV I beat him in Holland 3-0. In television matches he’s 9-7 up. That shows we’re close in the big matches. We have a great rivalry and we like to play each other.”

Van Gerwen made his PDC World Championship debut in 2008 when he was just one dart away from knocking out Taylor in the first round. “Yeah,” he says, “I still had hair back then. It’s all gone now – because Phil gave me too much stress, didn’t you Phil?”

Taylor, sitting at a nearby table, smiles quietly. The world’s two best darts players rarely escape each other. “I see Phil more than my wife,” Van Gerwen says. “What can you do? We had 150 days of darts this year. And all the travelling and exhibitions mean I’m away 250 to 260 nights a year. You can see why I’m bald now. It’s the stress.”

Van Gerwen chuckles. “No, I’m joking. I was about 20 when I started going bald. At the beginning everyone thought I was sick. I said, ‘No, I’m only sick when I lose.’ And it’s toughest when you lose in the worlds.

“I remember that first time against Phil in 2008. I had a chance to beat him but before you can know how to win the worlds you have to learn how to lose it.”

He came a little closer in January 2013 when, in his first world championship final, he had a chance for a 5-2 lead but missed two darts. The initiative swung back to Taylor who swept through five successive sets. “There was a little bit of nerves when I was so close to 5-2,” Van Gerwen remembers. “Phil took advantage and after that he played phenomenal. The next morning I felt sick. You never know if you will make another final. But then, exactly a year later, I did it.”

On New Year’s Day 2014, in the final against Peter Wright, the Scot who favours a colourful Mohican and paints a snake on the side of his shaven head, Van Gerwen “was a huge favourite”.

He says: “I didn’t want to lose that one. I had a big lead but then you start looking at the trophy and that’s the worst thing … but I pulled it out at the right time. That was my sweetest moment in life. Nothing beats becoming world champion unless, maybe, you do it a second or third time. I would love to catch Phil but it’s not going to happen. 16 world titles is amazing. I’m trying to win 10 but there are so many good players. When Phil was on top he was so above everyone else. Now, it’s much more competitive.”

Taylor remains his fiercest rival. “Definitely,” Van Gerwen says. “He’s always my main rival. But we both have a long way to go before this next final. They say the most difficult one to win is the first world title and I really hope it is because I’d like to become a three-time world champion in the next four or five years. But the aim now is to win the first round on Thursday, go to the horse racing at Ascot on Friday and home to Holland on Saturday.”

Van Gerwen will practise every day before he returns to London for the rest of the tournament and, even on Christmas Day, “I will throw some darts for an hour. But you also need to relax.”

After a year in which he became world champion and got married, in August, Van Gerwen deserves a break to reflect on his unlikely life. “It’s strange,” he admits. “Until I was 12 I played football. I was supposed to be a defender. But I really was a little Michelin Man walking around the field. It was horrible – especially when it was cold. I’m more a summer person.”

Mighty Mike flashes a gruesome summery smile. “We had a dart board at home and sometimes I’d throw three darts at it but nothing more. When I was 13 it was winter and we needed to do something inside. So we started a darts round robin. There were three of us. One of the guys was really bad but us other two had a real rivalry.”

Does his boyhood rival still play a decent game? “No,” Van Gerwen exclaims, “he likes to go on the piss! But, back then, my dad organised a youth tournament. I came third and won a little trophy. I was the happiest kid in the world. After that I practised every day. I wanted 20 more trophies. You’re getting greedy. By the time I was 15 I was European youth champion and I won tournaments in Norway and Northern Ireland. We’d had never gone on holiday [abroad] as a family. There were six of us and it was too expensive so we just went camping in Holland. Suddenly, at 17, I’m in Vegas and New York playing darts. At 18, I was in Japan. Incredible.”

Van Gerwen was, then, still working as a part-time tiler in Holland. One of the internet’s typically overblown stories claims he tiled Dennis Berkgamp’s bathroom. “That’s not true,” Van Gerwen says. “I did the tiling at a house across the road from Bergkamp. But, sure, it was a very posh area. I was 18 and working two days a week. It’s different today. I own two houses and, well, I’m married to Daphne. We’ve been together seven years. She was only 14 when we met, and I was nearly 18. They had a music evening and she was with her parents. I asked if I could watch a movie with her. Life has changed since then because darts has got really big.”

The continued rise of darts has been escalated by Van Gerwen’s colourful emergence – and his compelling rivalry with Taylor. “Darts gets bigger every year,” he says. “It’s really popular in Holland and, after football, it’s our most-watched sport. It’s the same in Britain and it’s amazing Sky are having their own darts channel for the world championships. That shows how popular darts has become. So I get stopped all the time now. Everyone notices me, the green shirt and my bald head. Daphne’s a hairdresser and of course she can’t do anything with me. But that doesn’t matter because it’s become like my brand.”

It might seem mildly disturbing to hear a darts player talking about his “brand” but there is nothing contrived about Van Gerwen’s blistering talent or explosive celebrations. “It’s just me,” he says with a final shrug. “The Bulldog has gone. It’s 100% Mighty Mike.”

Sky Sports will show the William Hill World Championship exclusively live on its darts channel from 18 December