(THE POWER: My Autobiography) [By: Taylor] [Jan, 2004]

by Phil Taylor

The ten-times world darts champion, the king of the oche, and a legend in the game. Largely responsible for taking darts into the 21st century, eschewing drink and advocating fitness to improve performance, Taylor covers around 500,000 miles a year competing across Britain, and in countries as far apart as the USA and China.

Genres: Biography

Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Sophie Crane · Rating 5 out of 5]

An enjoyable read full of interesting facts about Phil "The Power" Taylor who made history in the World of Darts. I found it thoroughly easy to read and was quite surprised with the background in which he grew up which explains why Phil Taylor is a hard worker. The book captures the high's and the low's of his career. From starting off when Eric Bristow sponsoring him, winning his first World Championship, to his darkest hour when he was charged with assault and to present day. It is also interesting to learn about the dispute between the British Darts Organisation and the Professional Darts Corporation (what was formerly the WDC) and how it affected the lives of darts players on all sides. Phil covers events from some legendary matches and there are some nice stories about some of the players also. We get the run up to his televised nine dart finish and also read about Team Taylor. Overall you'll find yourself turning over the pages of this book with ease.

[Tom Cöle · Rating 3 out of 5]

As you might expect, this is - in the main - an easy-to-read account of Tayor's life and times, on and off the oche. But there's one crucial fly in the ointment preventing this from being a truly enjoyable book...

The book was ghosted by Sid Waddell, and Mr. Waddell opted to crowbar references to himself into the text at every available opportunity. On practically every page it's 'Sid said this', 'Sid said that'. And - even more unforgivably - the text breaks off at times to recount anecdotes from Sid's life that Taylor wasn't even present for!

I've heard it said before that Waddell had a gigantic ego but I never knew it was this bad. It's almost nobbled the book for me, in fact. I'm about 2/3s through it at the moment and want to hurl it aside every time I see the name 'Sid' crop up (which, alas, happens rather frequently). I can only assume Taylor didn't bother to proof-read 'his' autobiography before publication, otherwise he'd surely have objected to Sid's ceaseless self-promotion.

If you love Sid Waddell's dart commentary, by all means buy this, as Waddell spends more time recounting his own contributions to the sport than he does presenting Taylor's life story. If, however, you're not much of a fan of 'The Geordie Lip', you might want to think twice...

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read. Mr Taylor (assisted by the late and great Sid Waddell) provides a good detailing of his life. The highlights for darts fans are probably the detailed recaps of his many tournament wins.

[Grant S · Rating 2 out of 5]

Darting autobiography that fails to hit the bullseye.
I was quite disappointed with Phil's book.
It does a good job of chronicling his success on the oche, it runs through his world championship wins almost match by match, but this soon becomes fairly one dimensional.
Aided by his co author Sid Waddell Phil tries to enliven the book with stories and quips that aren't that funny and seemed quite dated and cliched to me. Okay part of the problem is this book is twenty years old and the world has moved on. Also his career had a few more years to run at the time of publication, 2003, so he was never going to be too controversial whilst still playing an active part in the sport. I'm sure a better book has or will be written now he's retired.

[Ian Fiddes · Rating 4 out of 5]

7/10. Easy read autobiography from the Darts champ.