Multiple major PDC winner, James Wade continues to find himself on the outside looking in when it comes to darts’ biggest shop windows. Once again, when the Premier League Darts line-up was announced, and subsequently invitations for the opening two World Series Events in the Middle East, The Machine’s name was missing. Again.
It is a pattern that has begun to grate. Strong results, two major ranking finals last season, proven pedigree, longevity at the top level – none of it, it seems, enough to guarantee a seat at the table when the PDC select their headline acts.
After seeing off Madars Razma in his opening Masters match in Milton Keynes, Wade chose not to dodge the subject. Instead, he confronted it.
There is no bitterness in his words, but there is weariness. A sense of repeatedly being measured by criteria that are never fully explained. The decorated 42-year old does not dispute the results. He leans into them. His argument is rooted in numbers, not noise.
“There’s only three players that did better than me, the statistics and facts don’t lie. I said to my wife: Is it my weight, no. Is it that I’m old, no. Is it that I’m not so good looking, no. So it’s the way I am as a character.”
It is a brutally honest assessment, and one that cuts closer to home when viewed through the lens of Wade’s openness about living with bipolar disorder. The unpredictability that perhaps makes him less convenient for glossy promotional packages is the same unpredictability he manages daily. That reality, he suggests, makes omissions sting harder.
“It’s hard to chew when you have the condition that I have as it’s a complete kick in the privates and really knocks your confidence as there’s no apparent reason why I wasn’t in.”
This is not a player pleading for sympathy. It is a competitor questioning the framework. Wade has long accepted that darts is no longer just about winning matches; it is about marketability, narrative, and the version of the sport that looks best under studio lights. Where that leaves someone like him remains unclear.
What is clear is that the Aldershot man is still winning, still competing, still relevant – even if the invitations do not always reflect it. He keeps turning up, keeps grinding, keeps doing the hardest thing in elite sport: letting the darts speak when the decision-makers do not.
And perhaps that, more than anything, is why his voice carries weight when he finally decides to use it.
——ENDS—–
Images: PDC / T Lanning
