Wade admits he has got “fire in belly” to win again
By Phil Lanning
EXCLUSIVE
The 10-times TV major winner takes on Joe Cullen in Liverpool tomorrow night (Thursday) as he bids to regain the crown he won in 2009.
Bi-Polar sufferer Wade, 38, has battled with mental health since then but now he believes he has the right frame of mind to win it.
He revealed: “I think I will win it again, I am pretty sure I will. I had six or seven years where I just wasn’t in the mix, I was still there or thereabouts.
“But I just fell completely out of love with it and I wasn’t right as a person and the last three years I have just got back to being happy where I am as a person and what I’m doing.
“I have got fire in my belly, it is just not always lit. I have been doing it for a long time, so questions like that are not best put to me because I have been here for so long.
“If I am in the mood for it it will work, if I’m not it doesn’t matter what I do, it isn’t happening. There is nothing worse than trying to force something because it just gets worse.
“What is the difference between having fire lit or not? Mental health. And you can’t do anything to control that unfortunately.”
Wade is a hugely underrated talent on the circuit as the third most decorated player in PDC history after Phil Taylor and Michael van Gerwen.
He was on the receiving end of Phil Taylor’s historic two nine-darters in the Premier League final of 2010, the defeat that ended his reign as champ.
He admits that it still hurts, adding: “That night Phil did that to me, I would have won one of those legs, Phil had to do something like that to beat me on that night.
“It was frustrating. I wasn’t really depressed with the game but it was a bitter pill to swallow. It was not the best way to lose a game of darts.”
Wade impressively beat Gerwyn Price in their quarter-final in Cardiff last week before losing out to Jonny Clayton. But he likes the new-look Premier League.
He added: “In theory it is a great format. It is something new and in theory it should work better than it has done, but until it starts and we see how it comes across and see how people take to it, time will tell. I think it is a positive thing, it needed something.”
Images by Taylor Lanning.