Before the sixteen world titles. Before the nickname. Before he became the measuring stick against which every other darts player is judged and found wanting — there were three years in the BDO, two world championships, and a story that starts in a pottery factory in Stoke-on-Trent.
Graham doesn’t find it easy to write about Phil Taylor. Not because the talent was ever in question — it wasn’t — but because the way things ended with the BDO World Darts Championship left a mark that doesn’t fully fade. Taylor walked. Lakeside carried on without him. The sport split in two. Here’s the honest attempt at an account.
Before the World Championship
Philip Douglas Taylor was born on 13 August 1960 in Stoke-on-Trent. He worked in a factory. He played darts in pubs and was clearly very good at it — but clearly very good at pub darts is not the same as being a world champion in waiting. The gap between those two things is enormous, and for most people it stays that way.
What changed for Taylor was Eric Bristow.
Bristow was five-time world champion, the biggest name in British darts, and he had an eye for talent. He spotted Taylor in the mid-1980s and backed him financially — reportedly around £10,000 of his own money — to cover flights, hotels and entry fees for international tournaments. He told Taylor to quit the factory and commit properly. Taylor quit. Bristow expected repayment. But he did it, and the investment was real.
Taylor worked. Tournaments in North America and across Europe. Hours at the board every day. By the time he qualified for the 1990 BDO World Championship, he was already a different player from the Stoke pub circuit regular he’d been five years earlier.
1990: The First Title
Nobody gave him a chance. That’s not revisionism — the bookmakers had Taylor at 125/1, which tells you everything about how the field was assessed. He was unseeded, largely unknown outside regional circuits, and standing in a tournament that Eric Bristow was expected to contend for.
He didn’t just contend. He dismantled it.
Taylor beat Russell Stewart 3–1 in the first round, Dennis Hickling 3–0 in the second, Ronnie Sharp in the quarters, and Cliff Lazarenko 5–0 in the semis. Then came the final. Against Bristow. The man who’d paid his way here.
Taylor won 6–1.
Bristow was suffering with dartitis — the focal dystonia that had plagued him since 1986 — and wasn’t the force he’d once been. That’s true and it matters. But it doesn’t diminish what Taylor did. You still have to stand at the oche, in a world championship final, at 29 years old, playing the man who bankrolled your career, and throw the darts. Taylor did that without flinching. The 6–1 scoreline wasn’t fluked. It was controlled, composed, and very slightly merciless.
Lakeside erupted. Bristow smiled. Taylor had arrived.
1992: The Second Title
Two years later, Taylor was back in the final. This time against Mike Gregory — a Wolverhampton player who had reached his only world championship final and very nearly won it.
Very nearly. Six times nearly.
Gregory had six darts at a double to take the title — two at double 20, two at double 8, two at double 10. He missed all six. Gregory later called that stretch of the board the “Bermuda Triangle of darts,” and the name stuck, because what else do you call it when the title slips through your fingers six times in one leg.
Taylor won 6–5 in a sudden-death deciding leg. The 1992 BDO World Championship final is still widely regarded as the greatest match in the sport’s history. It showed something the 1990 win hadn’t: Taylor could hold on when everything threatened to unravel. The match had gone the distance. Gregory was throwing well. Taylor found the double anyway.
Back-to-back BDO world titles. Among the greatest BDO players of the Lakeside era, he was already the reigning champion twice over. It should have been a foundation. Instead, it was almost the end of his BDO story.
The Split Decision
The BDO–PDC split of 1992–93 is one of the most significant moments in darts history and one of the most painful, depending on which side you were on. Sixteen players — Taylor among them — broke away to form the World Darts Council, later renamed the Professional Darts Corporation. Their argument: prize money was too low, the BDO wasn’t developing the sport commercially, and top players deserved better.
Taylor was one of the sixteen. He went.
Bristow went with him — which matters, because the Taylor–Bristow relationship didn’t fracture over the split the way some others did. Taylor would later say that Bristow was like a brother to him. That bond held, even as darts fractured around them. Mike Gregory, who’d come so close in 1992, initially joined the rebels then returned to the BDO — and was not forgiven. The sport calcified into two camps, and the bitterness lasted years.
Taylor won his first WDC/PDC World Championship in 1995, beating Rod Harrington 6–2 in the final. He’d go on to win eight consecutive PDC titles from 1995 to 2002. Sixteen in total before retirement.
What Might Have Been
Here’s where Graham has to be honest, even if it’s uncomfortable.
Taylor was already superior to the rest of the BDO field by 1992. Probably earlier. The 6–1 final in 1990 — yes, Bristow had dartitis, but Taylor’s performance wasn’t just better than an impaired opponent; it was the kind of display that suggests a player operating on a different level entirely. The 6–5 against Gregory confirmed it. He was ahead of everyone in that building.
Had he stayed, Taylor would almost certainly have accumulated more BDO titles than anyone in history. He wouldn’t have reached sixteen — the BDO calendar didn’t allow for that kind of accumulation — but five, six, perhaps seven titles at Lakeside is not an unreasonable projection. He would have owned the venue in a way no player since has managed.
Whether the PDC was right for the sport is a separate argument. Prize money grew. Coverage expanded. Those are real gains. But Lakeside lost the best player it had ever produced after just three years. The BDO world Graham grew up watching never quite recovered from that loss. That’s not bitterness. It’s just true.
Phil Taylor was exceptional here first — in the BDO, at Lakeside, before anyone outside darts circles had heard of him. That part of the story deserves remembering.
