WORLD CHAMPION Gary Anderson has given his backing to the potential stars of the future by opening a Darts Academy at Bannerman School in Glasgow.
The Scottish ace, who defeated Phil Taylor earlier this month to take the sport's biggest title, has become the latest top player to give his support to a scheme encouraging youth darts.
Bristol's Steve Brown has launched a series of Academies throughout the UK in recent years, while Jamie Caven has opened an Academy in Derby and Colin Osborne has recently joined Central College Nottingham to support their fledgling Academy.
Anderson is now supporting an Academy at Bannermann High School in Baillieston, Glasgow, which opened on Monday and also saw the students donated equipment from his sponsors, and PDC partners, Unicorn.
"It's great to see these kids having a go," Anderson told the Daily Record. "Darts is a great sport - sport is a great grounding for any kid and darts has so many qualities.
"There's the psychological aspect of competing and calculations. There are many thousands of outshots and that means a dartboard is essentially one giant calculator.
"If I'd had a dartboard at school I might have learnt maths so that subtraction was second nature - I was always very good with my hands at school but not much else.
"Technical drawing was my favourite but I couldn't do the maths side of that subject either. That's the difference nowadays in darts – from a very young age they are lightning quick at counting and that's so important."
The launch also included Anderson taking on four Bannermann High pupils, with 17-year-old Mohammed Jalil defeating the World Champion, albeit starting on 101 to the world number three's 301!
"I really would love to leave a legacy in Scotland," added Anderson. "I hope that me winning the World Championship inspires more Scottish champs in years to come – maybe a couple from this school."
The PDC support Stockport College's Darts Academy, while Unicorn's support of Gary Anderson's Bannermann Academy follows their link-up with the Andover Darts Academy.
The PDC have also introduced the PDC Unicorn World Youth Championship and Youth Tour, which will become the Development Tour in 2015 and allows players from 16-23 to compete in a series of 16 tournaments, each worth £10,000 in prize money, across four double-header weekends this year.
Picture courtesy Phil Lanning, Daily Record