ON THIS DAY IN 2017: Taylor announces retirement plans

In 'On This Day In...', DartsNews looks back on a tournament, a player's display or another notable moment on a certain date. This time, we return to January 27, 2017.

Today marks four years since Phil Taylor announced his retirement plans to stop after the 2018 PDC World Darts Championship.

Taylor is the most successful darts player of all time with a potentially unbeatable 16 World titles and a huge collection of other televised titles.

During the 2017 Masters, the usual curtain raiser for the season, he spoke to ITV Sport and revealed his farewell year.

"It's the last year for me, this will probably be my last Masters so at the end of the year, that's me done," he told ITV Sport.

"The World Championship will be my last one and I'm looking forward to it now, I'm really looking forward to it. Last one, January, that's it, no more."

In his farewell year, 'The Power' managed to win his beloved World Matchplay for a sixteenth time which has since been renamed in his honour. He also reached the World Championship final but in a match that signified the changing of the guard of sorts, Rob Cross defeated him to quash a fairytale ending.

Since then, Taylor has not returned to the circuit unlike Raymond van Barneveld, his great rival who similarly took a farewell year but has cut his retirement short to head to this year's Q-School.