"He’s not 32 like us with kids to look after when he gets home" - Nathan Aspinall dismisses concerns on Luke Littler's busy darts schedule
PDCThursday, 25 January 2024 at 13:30
Nathan Aspinall is in the same management as Luke Littler. 'The Asp' is therefore well placed to judge the performance of his 17-year-old compatriot.
"I’ve known Luke many years, I’ve practised with Luke, he is absolutely a phenomenal talent," Aspinall explains in conversation with Planet Sport. “I practised with him before the World Championship, so I knew he was playing well. But the way he handled himself, he exceeded my expectations. He’s a fantastic player, a lovely kid.”
After his performance at the World Darts Championship, Littler has become a household name in the UK. “I think he can handle the darts,” Aspinall says of the added pressure that brings. “I think it’s the other stuff that may affect him. At the end of the day, he’s just a kid playing darts, he doesn’t care about the money, he just loves playing darts."
Littler was also invited to the Premier League Darts, giving him a particularly busy schedule for the next few months. “I think playing darts every single day won’t affect him. I think the travelling and the media could have a bit of an impact on him," 'The Asp' continues. “But I’m confident. He’s got the same manager as me. We’ve got a fantastic management team around us. As long as he doesn’t get ahead of himself and think he’s the ‘big man’ which I don’t think he will because he’s not that type of guy. I think he’ll be fine."
Burnout
Aspinall is therefore not concerned about Littler's spark fizzling out. “Will he get burned out? Yes. But every single player that plays in the Premier League and World Series gets burned out. Because it’s so demanding."
"Unfortunately for Luke, because he’s just started on the Tour, he has to play in everything to get his ranking up. But he’s got a great team, he shouldn’t really get tired. He’s not 32 like us with kids to look after when he gets home. He’s a credit to the game. It’s a massive bonus for the game of darts. Not just for himself but for all of the other players on the Tour. What Luke brings to the Tour is massive for us all.”
claps 4visitors 3
Just in
Popular news
Latest comments
- Honestly,who cares? This league should be scrapped. It's just a money spinner for PDC and sky. How on earth can 8 players do this every week,and leave the rest behind? It's a bit shameful really. Anyone can win against anyone,but not every week. Scrap itrick6712-03-2026
- depends on the tournament, easier to tune out at minehead where the acoustics aren't very good and half the crowd are pensioners. "keir starmer's a w*****" is their only good chant though, they should censor the rest and keep that one.colt09-03-2026
- I watched all of the UK open and didn't hear it. Does anyone actually listen to, or hear the crowd noise? I just tune it out as it gets quite annoying. If I have to hear "if you love the darts stand up" one more flippin' time.... Clearly everyone there loves the darts, they paid for tickets. Why they should stand up is beyond me (half of them are so bladdered they'd fall straight back down anyway) hahaha
DartsEnvy09-03-2026 - I can't answer why, only the PDC can. I do watch most of them on PDC TV - I have it on in the background when working from home haha. There can be some great moments in them like Beau's recent 9 darter etc. As for their significance, they all contribute to the players rankings with the winners of each day getting 15K, so they are important to their rankings as well as their overall earnings. Win 4 in a year and there's a nice 60K (runner up also gets 10K per day). Also I've seen so many interviews where players say they really enjoy it, because its "pure darts" without the spectacle and they can just get on with it. As per the original reply above, with the stage format playing in front of a bunch of booing drunkards, it's a nice change of pace and can aid concentration. So I can perfectly understand why the players like it so much - it's a good earner, not quite as late nights and very quiet / pure.DartsEnvy09-03-2026
- Would love if podcast was available on youtube. Dont have spotify.kangacheckoutz03-03-2026
- ah ok, that helps put it in context, cheersMrMarkWatsonnonotthatone28-02-2026
- Any IDeaS.....richieburnettrocks28-02-2026
- I deserve it I am the greatest I am the people's champion I believe I will win the Premier League because I believe I am the best because honestly I am the people's champion and I honestly made the fans come tonight because I am honestly the greatest and I, I, I, I, I, I, I, Oh shut up you pathetic pandering hideously ugly fat waste of space! Fatty Bunting should be more sincere and humbly accept he needed that instead of I this and I that.richieburnettrocks28-02-2026
- Wright's wife DEMANDS he continues so IT can rook every last penny from him. Commentary beckons.richieburnettrocks28-02-2026
- i can't answer this definitively, but i can make some suggestions. firstly, these are essentially just glorified qualifiers for TV events which double as helping the lesser players on tour make a living, but they aren't really considered that significant. they weren't even streamed until the past decade or so. most casual fans don't even know they exist and getting an audience in might be difficult. i'm assuming they're currently quite cheap to run and they would need to sell a lot of tickets to justify opening them up into more of a spectacle. they're held on weekdays when most people are at work anyway and there's no room on the calendar to put most of them on weekends. the logistics of presenting it to an audience would also be tricky given that they have to get through 7 rounds containing 128 players in a single day, using loads of stages simultaneously. maybe the uk open could be used as a template but it'd need to be even more condensed into a short time period, and even with the uk open it's hard to follow most of the games. the venues they're currently held at wouldn't cater for turning this into a public event as they're pretty small, so they'd need to hire much bigger venues 30 times in places around the country. it just probably isn't feasible. i also suspect the players don't really want to play in front of drunk audiences in every single domestic tournament, they already have the euro tour, world series and majors for that. the players championship is basically a way for players to demonstrate they're ready to make the step up to those levels of competition.colt26-02-2026
Loading
