Ian Holloway's love for darts

Ian Holloway on his love of darts: It’s taught me more about life than football has

IAN Holloway is best known as a football manager who twice won promotion to the Premier League – most notably with Blackpool – and for his humorous post-match interviews.

But while the former Queens Park Rangers midfielder has earned his living from football, he told DartAsylum how darts is the sport that has taught him most in life.

In an exclusive interview in his home city of Bristol focusing on his love of darts, Holloway revealed how the mental side of the sport – and the fact you cannot blame a team-mate when things go wrong – had taught him so many life lessons.

Having first picked up a dart before he could even reach the board, darts has been a huge part of Holloway’s life for more than five decades.

“It’s human to have doubts, and those doubts keep you safe sometimes,” said Holloway “But if you’re going to be an elite dart player, you can’t have any doubts. You’ve got to bin that. They’re not allowed.

“You can’t throw one unless you believe you’re going to hit what you need to hit. And if you do fail, you’ve got to sort that next dart out, because you could still get 121. Sixty, sixty. That’s still a good score.

“In life, I’ve probably learned more off my wife, who had cancer. I probably learned how she now deals with the rest of her life and that’s taught me more than darts.

“But darts would be second, football would be third. Because in football you can blame someone else. It’s the referee’s fault, it’s this fault, it’s that fault. With darts, you can’t even blame a referee. You can think you’re unlucky because it might hit the wire and bounce out but shut up mate, you still didn’t throw it right!”

Holloway’s love of darts has got him in trouble a few times, not least when he was Grimsby Town manager during the Covid pandemic. His club was the first in England to be punished for breaking Covid rules – because Holloway and his players were sharing darts at the team’s training ground.

Another time, when he was Blackpool manager, he was thrown off the practice board at the World Matchplay and told he hadn’t earned the right to use it.

“Darts teaches you so much about your mind,” he said. “I’ve always had one at a training ground or brought one in and made sure people can have a go. And even if they’re not very good at the start, most footballers can – hand-and-eye coordination – get better at it, and then the difference makes you believe in what else you can improve. I’m a massive fan of it, honestly.

“I was at Blackpool. I was invited along. I got thrown off the practice board because I wasn’t a pro. And I went: ’How do you know I’m not a pro?’ He said: ‘Well, you’re Ian Holloway!’

“He said: ‘You were throwing all right but get off that board, you haven’t earned the right to be on that board.’ And do you know what? That was painful. ‘You’re not a pro.’ Because I would have loved to have done that as well.”

When it comes to favourite players, Holloway has admired many over the years, including Eric Bristow (“his darts floated – I just loved it”) and Michael van Gerwen (“I didn’t like his celebrations but I love him really”).

But there is one player who stands above them all – and it probably won’t surprise you to know that is Phil Taylor.

“You could see people wilting on the stage against him,” said Holloway. “It was like a bouncy castle going down because murdered them mentally. Honestly, sometimes it was horrible to watch.

“People will tell me playing and watching Phil, he was probably the most arrogant of the lot – I didn’t see it that way.”

Of the current crop of players, one in particular has made a positive impression on the veteran football manager: Luke Littler.

“I think he’s quite amazing,” he said. “You look at him and think how can he be that mature at that age? Luke looks to me like no matter what happens, he’s going to be there, he can deal with it. I’d be worried if I’m the rest of them.”

Some celebrity darts fans like to turn up at Alexandra Palace at Christmas and make sure they are seen at the big events – but Holloway’s love for the game is a genuine passion and runs deep.

And he is deadly serious when he credits darts with helping him to punch above his weight in football, where he made more than 100 Premier League appearances and then went on to manage almost 1,000 professional games.

"How did I end up as a football manager after I finished playing for QPR, when I played with all those wonderful players who were a million times better than me?” he said. “Why weren’t they QPR manager? Why was it me? It was something to do with my Dad and his mindset and how he made me believe. I think Dad moulded me with that, darts helped me with that.

“I can’t give it all to darts but a huge part of my whole life has been totally and utterly: ‘Why can’t I hit what I want to hit there?’ and then: ‘I’m going to do it and I'm going to practice.’ I was lucky that I found sport, particularly darts, because it’s a mind-numbingly brilliant game that helps you in the rest of your life if you can master it.”

Written by Steve Cotton