wins in each of the opening two sets. The man
nicknamed The Fella had already validated his
position on the grandest stage of all but the Crafty
Cockney responded by taking the third set.
The fourth set was the first to go to a deciding leg
as Deller held his throw to reestablish a lead of two.
Bristow suddenly upped his game, the world number
one firing in consecutive sets (3-2, 3-1) to restore
parity at 3-3. After six sets the two competitors
were tied on 15 legs a piece and the pair could not
be more evenly matched.
Nonetheless, back-to-back sets meant the momentum
– as well as the fans – was now truly behind Bristow.
A man of Deller’s youth, much slimmer physique,
and tendency not to drink as often as most over
players should have made the Ipswich lad a favourite
amongst fans but there was no hiding that the Stoke
crowd wanted to see the world number 1 claim his
third title.
Deller wasn’t to be disheartened by Bristow’s
comeback though and instead returned consecutive
sets of his own after following a 3-2 win in the
Of All Time...
seventh with a 3-1
in the eighth. The
23-year-old
was
now potentially only
three legs away from
claiming the biggest
crown in darts and
needed to win just
one of the final three
sets to become the
first qualifier to ever
win the tournament.
Two-time champ Bristow had previously won both
the 1980 and ‘81 titles having trailed at some point
so was no stranger to making required comebacks
in world finals. However, he had never allowed an
opponent to get so close to victory before and would
need a quick response if he was going to prevent the
biggest upset in the game’s history.
Those previous experiences were put to great use by
Bristow as he broke Deller in the opening leg of set
nine before holding throw to race into a 2-0 lead in a
must-win set for the former champion. However, the
23-year-old recovered well and brought the scores
back to 2-2 to put himself within one leg of the title.
Darts in hand, Deller was first to a double in the
pivotal fifth leg but missed double 16 by drifting into
double 7. However, Bristow could not checkout on
117 so the 23-year-old returned to the oche. With
the first dart hitting single nine he then also missed
double 4 with the last dart to allow Eric a chance to
seal the set with double 12.
Bristow fluffed the chance, allowing Deller another