What happened when I played Michael van Gerwen at darts

The march of technology has ensured a multitude of means through which people pester you: telephone, text, WhatsApp, DM, MSN, ICQ and all the rest. But, every now and again, you are delivered a nugget of corn in the morass of turd, such as:

That’s what I thought at the time; that’s what I thought through the next day. And then, that evening when I found myself stepping up to the oche, I realised that I’d effectively been stripped, doused in blancmange, and chained to a motorbike.

I am not a remotely good dart player. Nominally and by temperament a lefty, I am also semi-ambidextrous, which is to say that I do different things with different hands and some things badly with both hands. Which is to say that I am excitable, clumsy, fidgety, slapdash, impatient and easily distracted; if I didn’t know where it’d lead people – erroneously of course – I’d confide that my wife is often heard bemoaning the incompetence of “Half-job Harris”.

Michael van Gerwen, on the other hand, is the greatest dart player in history. Though he won’t win as many world titles as Phil Taylor, who has 16, he is victimising a far higher standard of opponent with even greater prejudice and alacrity. At the recent world championships, in both semi-final and final he destroyed greats of the game playing at the top of their game, and is still going away from his closest rival, Gary Anderson, who is himself going away from a dazzlingly good chasing pack. Often is the word “awesome” used; seldom is the word “awesome” fitting; Michael van Gerwen is awesome and then some.

I am certain of this not just on account of what I’ve seen on telly, or even on account of what I’ve seen in the arena. For eight glorious months between November 2015 and June 2016, I had bestowed upon me the frankly unfathomable joy of making a film about darts. This means that I know that Michael van Gerwen is equally as phenomenal in practice as on stage, and also that I know him as “Michael”, however weird, pretentious and Arsenal it feels when I refer to him thus.

“Michael” loves winning significantly more than he loves darts. He expected to win the world championships at which we shot, didn’t, and as such hasn’t seen the film in which he is a central character. Furthermore, he is a joker who under no circumstances will pretend that he’s not better at darts than anyone has ever been at anything. Breaks will not be cut; other ways will not be looked.

So I say hi and congratulate him on his recent win, receiving the sloppy handshake of a man with nothing to prove. It sits perfectly with his complexion but not at all with his character – he is as larger-than-life as he looks and a lot of fun to be around, the friendly backsmacks and punches that he liberally disburses a far more accurate representation of who he is.

After minor additional smalltalk, I’ve nowhere left to go, so the board is chalked: “Daniel” on the left, above 301; “Michael” on the right, above 501. The adjacency of our names is surreal and befuddling, causing me to wonder if I’ve the remotest idea who I am, causing me to feel uncomfortable at the disrespect to my opponent. He is not “Michael”, he is “Mighty Mike”, he is “MvG”, he is “The Green Giant”; he is a symbol and he is a concept. All of this is unso of Daniel Lawrence Harris.

“That film,” says yerman. “You guys bothering me, asking me questions. Now I’m going to get you back.” “Yes,” I reply. “You probably are.” Well, that or “You’ve never seen me play, you don’t know how good I am”; definitely one of the two.

Most professional players discovered their brilliance literally the first time they picked up a dart, immediately able to do things beyond the scope of the rest of us, and “Michael” was no different. It occurs to me this is like playing tennis with Roger Federer, but it isn’t; Federer could serve a double fault, I could take a swing and connect with a lucky return, or hit one off the frame that goes somewhere unexpected; unlikely, but possible. Darts, though, does not brook luck, and is a proactive rather than reactive activity. This is not like playing tennis with Roger Federer; this is like running with Usain Bolt, like painting with Picasso.

We pose for photos in front of the board and then it’s time to go. To make things as intimidating as possible, one of the PDC scoring officials is on one side of the board as I step up, with “Michael” on the other already sniggering. I try and get my front leg straight, line up my hand with my eye with the treble 20, and let one go. Amazingly, it goes in the fat 20, so while the going’s good and everything’s in the right place I quickly chuck another; naturally it goes down the other end of the board. But somehow it ends up in 19, I follow it with which flies over to 11, and I’ve scored 50. As Ryan Giggs would say, I’d’ve took it.

I am exceedingly relieved, swimming towards the board to retrieve my darts and exiting on my natural left side, to be admonished by the official that I’m risking my eyes as three darts pile into the treble 20. The call of one hundred and eighty goes up and we all laugh at the hilarious ridiculousness of this hilariously ridiculous genius, this hilariously ridiculous genius included.

My go again and this time, I achieve a more consistent grouping: 1, 1, and outside the board but close to the 1. “Two scored” is announced, the additional word emphasising and prolonging my gross incompetence; everyone laughs again. I’d like to say I was intimidated by what went before, but the reality is more prosaic: I’m rubbish. “I’m a hustler,” I say.

“Michael” returns and this time I stand close by, telling him that the one improvement I’d make to darts would be to allow the players to disturb one another while they’re throwing. He is not disturbed, adding another treble 20 before moving to 18s and hitting two fat ones.

My go again, and I’m all over the place, throwing faster even when I tell myself not to as the leg slips away. Keeping head, torso, arm and hand in the same place, then throwing with the same power, line, trajectory and release sounds like it should be doable, except that it isn’t; of course it isn’t. “Michael”, on the other hand, has an amazingly repeatable action: not the most aesthetic or flowing, the arm drawing back in two stiff, robotic stages, before unleashing at intense velocity – but still perfect. “I don’t aim,” he once told me. “I throw on instinct”. And it is this which allows him to maintain his pace whatever happened the throw before; whether he hits or whether he misses, he keeps going, not because he tries to make it so but because it is so.

I ram home 27, then tell “Michael” that he ruined my accumulator last week, drawing his Premier League match with Gary Anderson. He apologises while depositing a paltry 95 and I say that I’m trying to leave myself 121 which I call “the Barney”; the last time “Michael” was beaten in a major, more than a year ago, Raymond van Barneveld turned the match with that finish. To be clear, I’m not labouring under the misapprehension that my “mindgames” might earn me a competitive advantage, but I am rather hoping that crap patter might misdirect from my uselessness. It does not.

Instead, it’s me who’s totally lost concentration, two more low visits leaving me on 171; I say that I miscounted trying to leave myself “the big fish”, the highest possible checkout of 170, and everyone rightly ignores me. “Michael”, meanwhile, is now moving around the board trying to fill various double beds until he gets down to 4 required; I then punish a mammoth 42, and he puts everyone out of their misery.

A few days later, Michael dispatched Peter Wright in the Premier League, and then, the day after that, became only the second man in history to hit two nine-darters in the same game. What, or who, could possibly have facilitated the relaxed confidence which enabled such a feat? Exactly.