'Chase the Sun' at the World Cup, FIFA tickets and a boxing detour: Luke Littler's extraordinary week as darts takes over New York

Luke Littler has had some week in New York despite him losing the final of the US Darts Masters to Luke Humphries as darts continues to showcase itself as a global phenomenon with England also using 'Chase the Sun' as their goal music.

Using Chase the Sun as their goal music for the rest of the tournament after they beat Croatia in their opener, they soundtracked it with the classic music which is best known at least also to British ears for being the music on the darts coverage in between breaks unless it is ITV in the past who have used Chelsea Dagger by The Fratellis.

It was belted out by 15,000 England fans in attendance and will have been by Luke Littler on Saturday night as they defeated Panama in their last group game with the World Champion in attendance.

Supposedly the track was chosen specifically because of the darts as per the BBC and because it is played regularly during the World Darts Championship. The FA decide on a goal music every tournament and previously it has been Freed from Desire from Gala. For instance, Scotland picked I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles) by The Proclaimers.

But how does Littler come into this? He visited the England squad camp in March to host the Three Lions Darts Championship. He was also given tickets to the Panama game knowing he was in town.

Albeit Littler stopped short in regards to claiming he was the reason and said he had no part in it being chosen but was pleased it was and hoped to belt it out while celebrating glory for England.

"I didn't have any part in it being chosen, but it's good to see," he said this week.

"It's the main song in darts and hopefully we can score a few goals and celebrate."

Despite being an ardent Manchester United fan, Littler said that while he hadn't gone to watch England before, he would be going to the World Cup and would be watching it with a vested interest.

He was seen in the stands last night on pictures on his dad's Instagram with his mum and also girlfriend Faith in tandem.

“Hopefully it does come home," he said previously. "Me and my friend have been talking about it. We will have some late nights at whoever’s house.

“I will be catching the last group game against Panama. I am going to watch that. I can’t say I have been to any England game before but when I went to St George’s Park they sorted us some tickets.

But that wasn't all. He was also set to attend the boxing at the Barclays Center in New York which was headlined by Jaron 'Boots' Ennis and also Brit Ben Whittaker who did photo ops earlier in the week with Luke Littler and both spoke in glowing terms about each other.

“It’s a very big week ahead and everyone knows I love my Boxing, so it was great to catch up with Eddie and Ben Whittaker," said Littler as per DAZN. "Ben is a great showman and one of the most exciting fighters to watch. I hope we can both do the business in New York.”

While Whittaker also spoke glowingly about 'The Nuke'. “Luke Littler has achieved so much at such a young age. It was great to meet him and I’m sure he will light up MSG like I’m about to bring it to Brooklyn this Saturday.”

So he very much used his time in New York to it's full, of course not winning the title he craved but he spent the early part of the week on ITV with Duncan Ferguson playing darts alongside Laura Woods against Luke Humphries. As well as various other media commitments including Ariel Helwani.

He then played at Madison Square Garden and ended his trip at least seemingly with a night full of sport. It shows though wherever you look that the darts and football crossover and even boxing took over New York in some way or another this week. All led by the World No.1 who was there at every turn quite literally.