Phil Taylor, the 38-year-old Stoke maestro, won his seventh world title when he carried off the Skol PDC Championship for the fifth year in a row at Purfleet - to be universally acclaimed as the greatest player ever.
Taylor beat Peter Manley, who missed chances to make the contest much closer, 6-2.
Yet, for the vast majority of darts players in this country Taylor will never get quite the praise due to him until he takes the Embassy championship at Frimley Green again, which he won in 1990 and 1992 before leaving the British Darts Association for the breakaway Professional Darts Corporation, with its generally lower averages.
Taylor said: "I'll be back next year. Winning an eighth title would mean as much to me as the first."
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