Two-time world champion fires dig at Luke Littler and Co with damning verdict of darts' ‘boring' new stars
The Flying Scotsman, 54, beat Luke Woodhouse 10-5 in the first round at the World Matchplay on Sunday - but he was far from chipper in his post-match interview.
2
Anderson misses the "good old days" of darts
Credit: Getty
2
Anderson alluded to Littler and the new darts stars not having the same "banter" between them
Fresh off his victory, Anderson was asked by
And the Scotsman took his opportunity to bring up the shift in
darts
in his response, even calling out younger players for "walking round with 'their bloody headphones in'.
He said: 'I was sitting thinking the other day, having a talk with [Ian] White, [Adrian] Lewis, [Phil] Taylor, [Kevin] Painter, we used to sit and have a cracking laugh.
'Nowadays, I'd rather sit like this. Nobody talks to anybody. You don't have a good laugh, you don't have a bit of banter. You need to have a laugh.
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'Doesn't matter what you do in life, on a building site, office, you've always got to have a laugh. Nowadays, there's not much of that going about.'
He continued: 'The youngsters are boring. Absolutely boring.
'You talk to them, they're too busy looking at their phone.
'They're sitting on their phones with their bloody earphones in. Don't talk to you. It's a completely different life.'
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The 2015 and 2016 PDC World Championships winner is competing with
Luke Littler
and the other new wave of darts players at the World Matchplay Darts.
18-year-old Littler - who narrowly missed out on a
Luke Littler reveals gruelling new training regime that saw him almost break darts record
And while Anderson understands the new stars are making sure they reap the rewards of the rise of darts' popularity, he still wants them to let loose now and again.
He said: 'The youngsters, they're here to do their job. They've realised they've got a great chance in life to make a lot of bloody
money
, buy their first house, then their second house.
'But they need to calm down and think: right, this is my job. That's it.'
Anderson's
next
opponent in the Matchplay will be either Ryan Joyce or Stephen Bunting. He faces the winner of their first-round match, which takes place on Tuesday.
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