Quotes from Phil Taylor

I used to go into the practice room when I played county. Sometimes I wasn't playing until five or six o'clock in the afternoon, and I was there at 9 A.M. The cleaners were hoovering around me.

After I left school at 16 I had three jobs: I worked in a ceramics factory, where I made toilet handles, I repaired cars for people and in the evenings and weekends I worked in a bar. I had to do them all to make ends meet.

I'd ban drinking from darts.

I eat, breathe and sleep darts.

Do I miss the darts? No, not at all. It has been great not to get up in the morning and have to be dedicated anymore. That is the best part.

When we play in the Pro Tour there's no crowds in, so you can concentrate better. The others play better as well, there's players who can't play too good on TV but on the floor when it's nice and quiet they can bang them in, let me tell you.

Everything goes with age. Your eyesight, your energy levels.

I can sit down and watch the Discovery channel and see something on nuclear submarines that gets me thinking about torpedoes and darts . Or I can see a documentary about someone preparing for a big challenge and I'll use the same techniques. You always need to aim to get better.

There are a few things I lost which I shouldn't have lost. I know what I did wrong. I was lazy.

People will know if you are telling the truth or lying. If you are doing commentary, why not tell the truth?

When I first started doing exhibitions, you'd have 20 people down the pub, if you were lucky.

Made a fortune, made millions but it's not everything.

I'm good friends with Robbie Williams because we both grew up in Stoke and our dads went to the same pubs. His dad, Pete, is like my second dad, I can talk to him about anything and I see him most weeks. And Rob is brilliant, a really generous, lovely bloke.

With darts it's just one against one, it's blow for blow. The only thing I could compare it to is boxing. It's dead exciting. You're reacting to each other, the adrenaline's pumping. You don't feel calm at all. But it's all about being able to win when you're pumped up. People say you don't play the player; I play the player every time.

I grew up in Mill Hill. All potteries, mining. Then once Maggie Thatcher closed the pits down, it became a bit depressed.

I used to body build six or seven days a week. I was really, really fit. I wasn't naturally talented but I was fanatical at it. That's the problem with me, I've got a one-track mind.

In 1990 I qualified to play in the World Championships for the first time. I was ranked 125-1 to win but I knew I could do it.

You don't realise the power of TV, it's all over the world obviously, and it's lovely.

I think we've got every chance of being an Olympic sport and, if they did put us in, I know they'd sell a lot of tickets and the atmosphere would be fantastic. I would love to see it, I really would. If you want to sell tickets and get thousands of people there, then do it.

The world is a dangerous place and I've had a nice fanbase without any of the hassle.

I'll never be able to stop working or playing darts.

Stoke's a depressed area, so people are working hard to get out of it.

When I was 30 I became world champion and that's when I started to make a living.

I would never dream of telling them how to play but it would be amazing if England won the World Cup.