Why we can never write off MVG
MICHAEL van Gerwen made me feel very silly this week – and now I’m voluntarily making myself look silly by sharing it with you.
First things first, I’m a huge MVG fan. Not quite the replica-shirt wearing kind you see at the walk-ons, jostling to get a high-five off the main man, but a Mighty Mike loyalist of a decade-and-a-half or more nonetheless.
In the group chats, he’s always the best of all-time – the BOAT – for me (with Phil Taylor the undisputed GOAT) and I maintain that peak Van Gerwen would beat peak Taylor in a one-off contest of any format. If you disagree with me, well, a) you’re not the only one, I can assure you, and b) you can’t prove it.
Having watched Van Gerwen be taken to a deciding leg by Luke Humphries in the World Series of Darts quarter-finals at the weekend, after he had led 9-6, I watched with awe as he pulled himself together to break the Humphries throw and win the match 10-9 in front of a joyous home crowd.
What happened next can happen to anyone: he ran into Luke Littler, who produced an average just under 108 en route to winning nine legs on the spin to turn a 4-2 deficit into an 11-4 win. Van Gerwen didn’t do a whole lot wrong. He averaged a shade under 100 himself and hit 80 per cent of his doubles, albeit five attempts at double aren’t much use in a race to 11. When Tuesday and Players Championship 20 came around, again Van Gerwen didn’t do a whole lot wrong. In the first round, he beat John Henderson 6-1 with a mighty 109.48 average, before seeing off compatriot Berry van Peer. When defeat eventually arrived in the last 32, it was against Cameron Menzies, who averaged 108.44.
But a few nagging concerns that had recently crept in began to resurface. Concerns such as whether the Dutchman could ever win tournaments again.
It was, after all, 16 months since he had won a ranking title and 18 months since he had triumphed on the Players Championship. His last televised ranking title came in 2022.
On Tuesday evening, I started sketching out an article about MVG in my head. It wasn’t so much writing him off as writing him down a bit; accepting his place in darts’ new world order.
When discussing Van Gerwen not being as good as he was between 2014 and 2017 (and even 2022), it has at times felt like the author Joseph Heller being confronted by an interviewer with: “Since Catch 22, you haven't written anything nearly as good.” Heller famously replied: “No, but then neither has anyone else.” The issue for Van Gerwen is slightly different, in as much as two players named Luke have upped the ante, winning seven of the last 10 televised tournaments between them.
But I digress. When play got underway in Players Championship 21 on Wednesday, I was considering how to tactfully write about a subject that has been troubling me: MVG losing the killer instinct he once had.
We all know what happened next. He ended his wait for a title, beating Dave Chisnall 8-4 in the final in Wigan with a 106.67 average. Not once during the day was he taken to a deciding leg. Was it vintage MVG? Well, at times. And perhaps that is where we are with him.
Most players in the world would celebrate the last few days as one of the best of their career – a World Series of Darts semi-final and a Players Championship win. But we don’t judge Van Gerwen by the standards of most players because he is anything but. This week was reassuring for MVG enthusiasts – and no doubt for the man himself, who was playing with new darts in Wigan – that he can still go to the levels of old. He did it at times during the World Matchplay final in July and he will no doubt do it again.
One thing this week has shown us is that you can never, ever write him off.