As part of a column on Sporting Life, Paul Nicholson discussed darts players' superstitions and one of them included Simon Whitlock.

Nicholson discussed that Whitlock would only wear certain trainers made by Nike and had a few pairs before Nike had stopped making them. As well as that he found a way to bend the rules to wear them on stage.

"At the start of Simon Whitlock’s PDC career he always used to wear these chunky Nike trainers because he wanted to be comfortable and didn’t like shiny, smart shoes," said Nicholson on Sporting Life.

"Simon had two pairs and they were within the rules because they were all black. One of them, however, started to tear not long after he won the European Championship in 2012 which forced him to wear the spare pair and at that point he went searching the shops for another as a back-up.

At this point he discovered Nike had stopped making them and this was like crisis for Simon! His superstition was broken by forces out of his control and it subsequently took him over a year for him to find a different pair that were equally as comfortable in his own mind."