We let Sid Waddell ask some questions to the bad boy of darts and fellow Geordie Paul Nicholson.
Read what happened when we let Sid Waddell ask some questions to Geordie / Aussie star Paul Nicholson
Nobody knows darts better than
Sky Sports commentator Sid Waddell.
After almost 40 years of watching the sport, surely nobody else has seen more arrows flung and nobody else has analysed the players so closely.
So when
skysports.com tracked down the biggest names in the game for a chat ahead of the 2012 World Championship, we decided to get Sid to ask the questions for us!
Here's what happened when Sid posed the questions to the self-styled bad boy of darts Paul Nicholson...
SID WADDELL: You're from the same county as me and we both know that people from Geordieland tend to lead with the lip. Geordies are always taking the Mickey out of their mates. Is that where your fast lip comes from?
PAUL NICHOLSON: I would say that's very accurate. People in Northumberland and Tyneside tend to have a very dry sense of humour and I think that comes across very well with you Sid... and also a little bit with me, although with me it's in a bit more of a serious manner. Generally what we do is take the Mick out of our friends and it's taken in good heart.
SID: What was the banter like when you were living in Australia? Were you too fast for them? How did they deal with it?
PAUL: To be honest with you, the Australians took a very long time to get used to my wit. At certain points they thought I was taking the Mick out of them seriously, but the thing that went in my favour when I was over there was that there's a lot of ex-pats over there to back me up. But essentially it did take a little bit of time for them to get used to me.
SID: What was their lip like? Were they worse?
PAUL: When they did give something back they would generally use cricket or rugby union or something like that. They'd use their superior sporting talents as a comeback - and they'd use it in a very serious manner, not in a fun way. The sense of humour down there is completely and utterly different and it took me a while to get used to that. When I came back to England about three years ago I was actually glad to be back in that sense because I felt more at home from a sense of humour point of view.
SID: I personally think you need to go back on your heels a bit with the words when you're playing darts.
PAUL: No, not at all. If anything it's going to get worse. During the Grand Slam I found a little bit more aggression than I have during the rest of the season. I enjoyed having that little bit of aggression back. What I'm doing leading up to the World Championship is to get down and dirty, especially in my first game. I'm going to be aggressive to the end.
SID: So you're not going to take a leaf out of Mr Taylor's book and start coming over as Mr Nice?
PAUL: No. I really don't see myself going up there and being a nice guy. At the end of the day when I go down that walk and get on that oche I'm really not in a nice frame of mind. I'm in an aggressive frame of mind and I don't want to give people an impression of something that I'm not. I'm a very honest dart player and you either love me or you hate me. That's the way it is.
SID: I prefer it when you come over as Mr Charm and call your fans the best fans in the world...
PAUL: What's happened is I've got this cult following. I don't have a following like Phil Taylor or Terry Jenkins, who have the majority of the audience basically eating out of their hands. With me, I've got this very small and select cult group called the A-List, that's what I've started to call them on Twitter anyway, and I like that the way it is. I don't really want to appeal to everybody, I want some people to hate me, but at the same time I like the people who get what I do in a 100 per cent way and they will follow me properly. It's nice to have a little bit of hate and a little bit of love there because you've got some honest following in that crowd. It's nice to feed off both sides of it because I can smile, I can grimace and I can enjoy it while I do both.
SID: I think you're really quite a softie at heart?
PAUL: I think I am, but you know me a bit better than some of the other commentators. You've done more research on me and we've had more chats away from the oche. People do know that when I'm playing darts and doing what I'm doing for a living I'm very aggressive and very focused. What I've done is to find a way of separating what I do for a living and what I do in my personal life. When I'm away from darts I'm quite placid, quite shy and I like having some privacy. I'm not really a very outspoken fellow. My girlfriend has the best way of putting this. She says when I'm on the oche I'm Mr Nicholson, but when I'm away from darts I'm Paul. I think that's exactly what it is. It's like a split personality, you could say Jekyll and Hyde but that's not quite accurate. I'm The Asset at darts, but Paul away from it.
SID: Who do you think will be in the frame at the World Championship?
PAUL: I'd like to think myself, but aside from that you can't discount Phil Taylor because he's in sensational form. He's been absolutely brilliant the last three or four months. Also Mark Webster, who always peaks at the right time for this event and it seems to me like Gary Anderson wants to win this tournament more than anything else. I looked at the way he prepared last year and he looked phenomenal. I think there will be a lot of shocks actually. There's a lot of people who are quite comfortable where they are, but I don't think they're going to be ready for some of the games they have. There could be a lot of really tricky games. I think the first round will show us who the big hitters are going to be.
SID: Who are your most feared opponents?
PAUL: Who do I fear? Nobody. There are certain players I have bad records against and maybe I think about playing them too much. Recently, I beat Steve Baeaton at the Grand Slam in a cracking game, but I had a rubbish record against him in the previous 18 months. I don't fear players, but sometimes you think too much about the record I've got against them. That works both ways because there are certain players who've played against me and never won. But I don't fear anybody.
SID: Have you got any new shades or plastic ties for Alexandra Palace?
PAUL: I have a new pair of shades. I wasn't planning on it, but I had to go and buy some because I left the ones I'd been wearing this season up in the North East when I was up there last week. I couldn't get them sent down, so it was an excuse to go and buy a new pair I guess! I'm also working on some new shirts for next season because I want to have a personalised range. Hopefully by the Worlds or shortly after the Worlds I'll have my own range of shirts, something a bit more selective.
SID: Do you focus on image too much, rather than practice?
PAUL: I don't think so. The image thing just comes naturally. Maybe in certain periods of my career over the last three years I've maybe focused on the image a bit too much to my detriment and it manifested itself in results. So what I've done is got advice from commentators and what I've seen on TV and I've gone back to my natural game. I've not focused on the image as much, it's been all about the preparation, the fitness and being up there and being a good dart player. That's exactly what put me where I am.
SID: My advice is to put the image out of the window and spend more time down Practice Street than Bond Street.
PAUL: Ha ha ha. I think that's pretty correct!
Tune in for the World Darts Championship live on Sky Sports from Thursday December 15 until Monday January 2.
