From qualifier to winning darts championship
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In 1983, Keith Deller was an unknown in the darts world; he was a 23-year-old unseeded qualifier, one of the youngest players in the 1983 Embassy World Darts Championship. He would beat the world's #3 and #2 players to go up against the top player, Eric Bristow, in the finals. Bristow had already won five major champions at that point and was a heavy favorite. Instead, Keith would upset Bristow and become the first qualifier to win the World Darts championship.
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Quotes
He's not just an underdog, he's the underpuppy.
Sid Waddell
I wasn’t afraid of the big guns. Seeing all the huge television trucks outside the building made me even more eager to get up and compete on that stage.
Keith Deller
References
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Keith Deller: A Legacy in 138
The final against the late, great Eric Bristow was billed as a David meets Goliath parable. Yet, it was Deller who prevailed and in doing so, produced another defining moment of tungsten history – the famed 138 checkout which now bears his name.
Darts World
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'As you get older, you get more happy, more placid. The killer instinct just goes'
The winner of that championship was a young unknown named Keith Deller. He was a qualifier who, on the way to the final, beat Jocky Wilson and John Lowe, the second and third ranked players in the world. In the final he met the number one player, Eric Bristow, the 'Crafty Cockney' himself.
The Guardian
