Fallon Sherrock: ‘I love to hustle people at the pub. And then I say

When you’re one of the most famous darts players on the planet and you want to pop to your local cafe in Milton Keynes without being recognised, there is a certain protocol to be followed. A mask at all times. A big beanie hat to hide your blonde hair. No make-up, obviously. Even then, it’s far from foolproof.

“Every time I go in someone recognises me,” says Fallon Sherrock, sighing. “As soon as I take the hat off, people are staring. I’m like, I just want to eat my burger …”

Fame hit Sherrock like a hand grenade. In a way, she’s still processing the aftershock. Nothing could really have prepared her for what followed her groundbreaking run at the world championship in late 2019, becoming the first woman to reach the third round. There were TV bookings, invitations, photoshoots, messages by the thousand. Then came the vultures and the internet men, with curiously pointed opinions on everything from her darting ability to her appearance. For a regular 27-year-old with no particular craving for public attention, it was a lot.

“When it first started happening,” she says euphemistically, “I just got thrown in at the deep end. I had to learn how to deal with it.”

She has a management team now, who filter her social media feeds so she can still see the deluge of positive messages without having to sift through the trolls. But she’s still too timid to Google herself. “I’m scared of what I might see,” she says. “I’ve come off all the darts groups on Facebook. Otherwise I’m just sitting there looking and then I’ve wasted three hours.”

Does she get recognised a lot? “Sometimes. Not all the time. Sometimes when I’m at the pub, people will ask if I want to play a game of darts and if they don’t know who I am I’ll say I’m not very good.”

Hang on. You hustle them? “Yeah, I love it. I last did it a couple of months back. But before lockdown I used to do it all the time. Just for a fiver. Or a drink. And then they go: ‘Oh, you’re actually quite good.’ And then I say: ‘Google me.’”

This is the point when you realise that there is more to Sherrock than meets the eye. For the past two years, you feel the entire sport of darts has been learning a similar lesson.

Sherrock’s world championship success was widely written off as an unrepeatable fluke. But in September, at the Nordic Masters, she became the first woman to reach the final of a televised PDC event, beating the world No 5, Dimitri Van den Bergh, and leading the great Michael van Gerwen 6-3 before losing 11-7. Then last month, at the Grand Slam, she shocked us again.

In her final group game, she played the imposing Gabriel Clemens. With the German on 68, needing one more leg to progress, Sherrock pulled off an incredible 170 finish – two treble-20s, then the bull – to win.

In the video of her checkout, which has been viewed almost 2m times online, you see her contorting herself in disbelief, unable to grasp how she had done it. “I’d not taken out 170 in about three years,” she says. “Like, it doesn’t happen.” She went on to reach the quarter-finals, where she pushed the world No 2, Peter Wright, all the way in a 16-13 defeat.

The curious part of all this is that there was very little in Sherrock’s record to suggest any of this was feasible. She was a decent women’s player – good enough to reach the Lakeside world final in 2015 – but still some way behind Lisa Ashton and Deta Hedman, legends of the game.

Week to week, in the smaller “floor events” that form the bread and butter of the tour, she generally posted three-dart averages in the 70s and 80s: competent, but hardly elite.

But on the biggest stages, under the biggest pressure, she becomes something else entirely. Clutch doubles are nailed. Everything goes where it’s meant to.

Against Wright she averaged 99, a shade under Gerwyn Price’s winning average in last year’s world championship final. Put her on the stage, with a crowd at her back, and she ascends to the godly plane. It is, quite simply, one of the most breathtaking and baffling phenomenons in the world of sport. Ask Sherrock why it happens and she’s not really sure.

I’d say I was confident, but realistic at the same time. I’ve shocked myself at how I’ve dealt with situations

“People ask me and I cannot explain,” she says. “Because on the floor, I can’t do it. I feel like I’m at the same level as everyone else and they’re all looking at me and I don’t like people looking at me. I get distracted. My head’s away. But when I’m up on the stage, even though there’s cameras and millions of people watching, I just feel like I’m … away from everyone. There’s so much space. No one can get me. I don’t understand it.”

Often you hear darts players talk about inhabiting a character: a stage persona that allows them to shed their inhibitions and be whoever they want to be. A disguise, almost. For Sherrock, the distinctive pink shirt and men’s prescription glasses (women’s glasses don’t suit her face, she says) are her costume. “I put the glasses on, and it’s like tunnel vision,” she says.

All of which leads to the question preoccupying the sport: is this simply a brilliant purple patch? Or on the other hand, is there still more magic to be unlocked? In short: how good is Sherrock? “I don’t know,” she says eventually.

“I’ve never been asked that one. I know I can average 100, same as every other player. If you can do that, you’re in any game, unless your opponent does something ridiculous. So I’d say I was confident, but realistic at the same time.