Nathan Aspinall's appearance in a high-profile darts match against Littler was overshadowed by the latter's dominance. The article describes Littler's captivating performance and the almost surreal atmosphere surrounding the event.
Nathan Aspinall probably thinks he just took part in a game of darts. And look, his name was definitely on the scoreboard, and you may have glimpsed him on your television grinning away in the background, and in a few days’ time there will be a hefty bank transfer from the But while Aspinall may have been here corporeally, in a very real sense he wasn’t actually here at all. He was essentially a tower of pixels, a mannequin, an uncredited extra, the silent letter in the middle of a word.
He was one of those characters in a noughties video game who walks into a wall and disappears. He was the latest player to stand between Federer at Wimbledon; Messi at the Camp Nou; Littler at Ally Pally. This has become the hottest ticket in town, a bucket-list event, the sort of experience you mean to tell the grandchildren about, if you can stay sober enough to remember what happened. They sing along to his Pitbull walk-on music as he enters the stage, and carry on singing it long after the backing track has died away. They plead with him the way people used to plead to gods. Come on. Show us magic. Show us miracles. Turn water into nine.What a leg from both that was... Six perfect from Littler and four from Aspinall, but it's Littler who levels with a 12, sealed on double 12.In fact, there are times watching Littler when the sense of spectacle is so visceral, so direct, so transactional, that you occasionally forget this is actually a sporting contest with an opponent and a winning line. Pretty much the only times Aspinall was even a peripheral force came when Littler briefly got caught up in his own hoopla, missed a few doubles, cooled and blunted a little, offering him a fleeting and largely undeserved sniff.
DART LITTLER ASPINALL WIMBLEDON SPECTACLE
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