Phil Taylor and James Wade

Ranking the greatest darts players for longevity: Was James Wade right to rank himself second only to Phil Taylor?

Darts

Mon October 12, 2026 · 4h ago

Paul Nicholson reveals his top five darts players for longevity in his latest column - but who does he rank behind Phil Taylor?

James Wade recently claimed that he was the second-best player longevity-wise in the history of PDC darts by a 'country mile'.

Obviously he ranked Phil Taylor ahead of him as number one, but because he wasn’t pressed by the media to complete a top five, I thought I’d compile my own list and see if you all agree.

5. RAYMOND VAN BARNEVELD

This fifth spot was a toss-up between Raymond van Barneveld and Peter Wright, who has actually won more major titles with eight and that tally also includes two world titles.

I would always rank Snakebite above Barney when ranking the greatest players ever, but when it comes to longevity, the factors are different.

Although Wright began his PDC career around 2008, it wasn’t until 2013 when he started qualifying for the big tournaments regularly and at the 2014 World Championship he reached his first of 21 major finals.

Raymond van Barneveld's longevity puts him at number five

Remarkably, he only won one of his first 13 – which came at the 2017 UK Open – but then won seven of his last eight from 2020 to 2023.

Longevity-wise, Snakebite’s career is still highly impressive, especially because he reached the top of the sport quite late in life compared to others.

However, we can’t ignore Barney was such a big player in the BDO long before he finally made the switch to the PDC in 2006. And the BDO back then was obviously packed with star talent.

Barney’s first World Championship appearance at the Lakeside was way back in 1991 and he’s hoping to qualify for his 34th overall (20th in the PDC) this December. Therefore, if we opened this list to BDO legends such as John Lowe and Martin Adams, Barney would still have the edge on them as well.

Looking solely at Barney’s PDC career – which started with victory at the 2006 UK Open – he consistently reaching the latter stages of tournaments until 2018 and even managed a run to the Grand Slam semi-finals the year after he came out of retirement in 2022.

A haul of six major titles may not be as much as others but don’t forget he was one of the main influencers in pushing Phil Taylor to his peak performances, and then inspired Michael van Gerwen to surpass him as another superpower.

He may even be feeling a bit aggrieved to be as low as fifth in this list but he did ‘retire’ at one point – albeit for only one full season. The others in this list haven’t, and we had to bear that in mind.

4. MICHAEL VAN GERWEN

Michael van Gerwen first appeared in the PDC ranks way back in 2007 but as we all know, it took him five years before he became a major champion.

The rest, of course, is history as he became a relentless winning machine for around a decade and set astonishing record-breaking levels of performance that will stand the test of time for generations.

Of course, he’s had difficult times in recent seasons but that’s not stopped him retaining an extremely high position in the rankings, reaching plenty more major finals and also winning the World Series in 2025.

That said, I’m not sure how many more years we’re going to see Michael playing before he retires.

Hopefully he can recapture the form and breathtaking standards of old but if he continues to slide down the rankings and struggles to win titles, I doubt he’d find enough motivation in battling it out with the masses.

While there’s no doubting he’s second only to Phil Taylor in the GOAT rankings, this list is not just about quality or number of titles. It’s about being a force at the top of the game for the longest possible time and as things stand, he just falls short to the three ahead of him.

3. GARY ANDERSON

James Wade may have said he’s second in this list ‘by a country mile’ but it’s certainly a lot closer than that when you look at the career of Gary Anderson.

Indeed, some fans may have Anderson slightly higher than Wade on this metric. But either way, it’s extremely close.

But before we get into longevity, here’s a mind-blowing fact for you. They’ve never met in a final on a stage! Between them they’ve reached 50 PDC major finals as well as an additional 11 on the World Series and 12 on the European Tour – but never have they battled it out against each other for those titles.

They’ve met 68 times in their careers and the last time they met in a final of any kind was a UK Open qualifier back in 2016!

Gary Anderson's longevity puts him at number three

Anderson is 12 years older but their careers at the top level both started towards the start of the 21st century, initially in the BDO of course.

Gary transitioned to the PDC a few years later than Wade in 2009 although we already knew what he was made of having already made back-to-back Grand Slam semi-finals and also beating Phil Taylor in the co-sanctioned World Darts Trophy final in 2007.

We don’t know how much longer Gary is going to stick around but just when we first thought he was about to retire, he came back and started winning titles on the Players Championship and European Tours and has posted seasonal averages to rival the likes of Luke Littler and Luke Humphries.

The only thing that’s been missing over the past few seasons is a run to a major final, which hasn’t happened since the 2021 World Championship.

Sure, he’s won two world titles compared to Wade's none, but three fewer majors overall and his haul came in a shorter window of time. So that’s why I’m giving the slight edge to James.

JAMES WADE

This column was inspired by James Wade and I do think he’s right in saying he’s the second best player of all time when it comes to longevity.

He made this statement at the recent World Grand Prix where he again kept proving he can reach the latter stages of major tournaments, and if his form continues then he’ll no doubt head to the World Championship as one of the fancied names.

James hasn’t won a major title since 2021 but he’s reached three finals in the last two years – losing them all to Luke Littler – and reaching a further five quarter-finals and one semi.

James Wade's longevity puts him at number two

On top of that he’s won on the European Tour this season and picked up another Players Championship title, so it’s no surprise to see him well inside the world’s top 10 once again for the first time since 2022.

That’s even more incredible when you consider he hasn’t had a good run at the World Championship in this time, thus missing out on the huge sums of ranking money available at the Ally Pally.

He is ‘only’ 43 yet it feels like he’s been around forever having first burst onto the PDC scene back at the 2006 World Matchplay when he reached the final on debut, and since then he’s gone on to win 11 majors across three different decades – the fourth best tally of all time.

His 18 major final defeats have pretty much all come across the greats of the game; seven times to Taylor, four to Michael van Gerwen, three times to Littler and twice to Peter Wright.

Paul Nicholson's top five players for longevity and their span of reaching finals

The two finals he lost at the hands of Scott Waits and Jose de Sousa at the 2010 and 2020 Grand Slams respectively will probably sting but overall he’s never stopped testing himself against legendary talents.

So what is his secret to such incredible longevity?

Some sportspeople are motivated by money, some by fame, some by competitive instinct and others by the desire to provide for their families. But I think for James, it’s periodic.

In the past we used to joke about how much he wanted a new car, and when he did want a new car, he would succeed. He had this thirst for BMWs and Bentleys and things like that.

And maybe he wasn’t particularly smart with his money at the start of his career. He’d never be seen wearing darts shoes that cost less than £200!

But I think his mentality’s changed since he had kids. And I believe that's his biggest motivation at the minute. He wants to provide for his boys.

He wants to provide for his family unit to make sure that they don't have to worry about money for the rest of their life, and he's doing a really good job of that. And it's probably the biggest motivation he's ever had.

Playing for himself may have become a bit soulless especially with all the travelling and there have been some lean periods in his career when he dropped to 19 in the world.

But nowadays, every time he goes home and sees his lovely house, and his wife and his kids there, he thinks, that’s all the motivation I need.

If he didn't have that, he wouldn't have responded the way he has and got back into the top five, which has been one of the most impressive things I've seen in years.

He’s spoken in the past about ADHD and being bipolar but sometimes I feel neurodiversity can be quite a superpower in a sport like darts which requires a degree of hyperfixation when it comes to practice and constructive obsession.

This is James’s routine. If he didn't have darts, he probably would feel a bit strange and maybe that’s another motivating factor.

Throw in the fact he’s desperate to reach a World Championship final, it’s a potent mix that will ensure he’s going to stick around at the top for many years to come.

And that’s what we must remember. His story is far from finished. I've said on record that I don't think he's going to win a world title.

But now I’m starting to eat my words because he's going to go into the tournament this year as one of the favourites.

When you think how much younger he is than the age Peter Wright was when he finally won a world title, it’s certainly a distinct possibility.

PHIL TAYLOR

There’s not much more to say about Phil Taylor’s greatness that hasn’t already been said and the mind-boggling statistics speak for themselves.

This longevity will probably never be matched and it seems highly unlikely that Luke Littler will be winning majors for longer than 24 years, when you consider how much money he can make away from the game.

The thought of Littler still competing at the top of the game in his mid 40s seems ridiculous – but that’s exactly the same kind of time span that Taylor stayed at the pinnacle.

When we put it like that, Taylor’s longevity is almost unfathomable.

One of the biggest reasons for this was his schedule management and how he didn’t play in absolutely everything.

He didn’t tire himself out by going from place to place, year in, year out, decade in, decade out. So he measured his career really well. He was able to spend a bit more time closer to home and while he did obviously do a fair amount of travelling, compared to modern-day players, it was a lot less.

Taylor wasn't going to New Zealand, to Australia, to Hungary, to Prague, to Antwerp, to Amsterdam.

Phil Taylor's longevity puts him at number two

If the calendar had been as busy and global as it was back then, I get the feeling that Taylor's career would have been shorter. But that’s taking absolutely nothing away from him.

We all know about his record in the majors but what about his success away from the TV cameras?

Even though the European Tour started in 2012 and he retired in January 2018, Taylor played in nine of those events, winning four of them.

Taylor ‘only’ played in 94 Players Championship events which isn’t that many considering there’s over 30 of those every year these days.

Of those 94, he managed to win a whopping 45 while he also picked up a further 21 UK Open qualifying events. So in total he won 66 floor titles across a 13-year spell between 2003 and 2016.

So not only does he have longevity but he also has efficiency, due to his titles-to-events-played ratio.

It’s crazy.