Netflix has named the 24 players who will try to take a leg of 501 off Luke Littlerat Manchester Central on Friday night, with £501,000 waiting for anyone who manages it. The oldest is 57 and the youngest two are 14 — and the pitch Netflix built the show on, ordinary players against the world No.1, did not survive contact with the list.
Twenty-four names, four more than the 20 finalists trailed when the show was announced in the summer. Fifteen are English, three Welsh, two Irish and one Scottish, with the remaining three travelling in from Germany, France and Australia. The hometowns published by SportBible and dartsnews.com disagree on three entrants, so the table below gives nationality rather than town.
| Contestant | Age | Nationality |
|---|---|---|
| Makinley Cooper-Johnson | 14 | Wales |
| Jayden Walker | 14 | England |
| Mitchell Lawrie | 15 | Scotland |
| Kasey Smith | 16 | England |
| Taylon Forrester | 18 | England |
| Pearse Mackle | 21 | Ireland |
| Katie Sheldon | 22 | Ireland |
| Jarod Becker | 23 | Germany |
| Théodore Wallich | 23 | France |
| Zac Griffiths | 25 | England |
| Brett Todd | 25 | England |
| Jacob Gwynne | 27 | England |
| Ashley Coleman | 29 | England |
| Sonny Johal | 29 | England |
| Lauren Bloomfield | 30 | England |
| Zac Spain | 30 | Australia |
| Will Kemp | 30 | England |
| Fallon Sherrock | 32 | England |
| Pwyll ap Llŷr Edwards | 34 | Wales |
| Bhav Patel | 36 | England |
| Tony Cole | 39 | Wales |
| David Wawrzewski | 50 | England |
| Jasper Scarrott | 54 | England |
| Mark Pooke | 57 | England |
The entry rule is narrow and it is the only one that matters: no contestant has held a PDC Tour Card. That is a test of professional status inside one organisation, and it says nothing at all about how well somebody throws. Three of the 24 arrive with senior titles to their name.
Mitchell Lawrie is the clearest case. He is 15, he is the world No.1 on the WDF rankings, and on 3 October he won the WDF Europe Cup singles title in Tórshavn on a 101.26 average, the youngest player ever to do it. ESPN also lists him as the reigning JDC junior world champion. He has never been eligible for a Tour Card, which is precisely why he clears the entry rule.
He has met Littler once before, too. dartsnews.com reports that their only match ended 3-2 to Littler, with Lawrie missing darts to win it — a rather different starting point from the pub-player framing.
Jayden Walker is younger still. The 14-year-old from Dorset won the England International Open on 11 October to become the youngest winner of a senior WDF ranking title, taking a record that Littler himself once held. And Fallon Sherrock, 32, was the first woman to win a match at the PDC World Championship. She has never held a Tour Card either, which is the whole of her case for being there.
| Contestant | Age | Credential |
|---|---|---|
| Mitchell Lawrie | 15 | WDF world No.1; youngest WDF Europe Cup singles champion |
| Jayden Walker | 14 | Youngest winner of a senior WDF ranking title |
| Fallon Sherrock | 32 | First woman to win a match at the PDC World Championship |
Not everyone is pleased about it. An amateur from South Africa who auditioned and missed the cut told Sporting Life he felt Netflix had taken him for a ride, and Paul Nicholson, speaking to the same outlet, admitted the field was not what he had pictured: “I thought they’d keep it to a local hero level, but maybe having some names in it provides drama and more stories, which each and every show needs.” On whether Lawrie and Sherrock deserve their places, his answer was shorter — “They fulfilled the criteria so why not!” Of the 24, his verdict was that “Mitchell Lawrie is the standout name”.
The rest of the field is closer to the original idea. Netflix describes schoolchildren from Wales and Scotland, a bin worker from Bedford, a Nando’s restaurant manager, a former British Army captain and an Australian jockey who has ridden in more than 7,500 races. dartsnews.com adds electrical engineers, university students and a bank business adviser. Zac Griffiths, a 25-year-old electrical engineer from Hereford with a 20-month-old daughter, told the site that “to set a life up for my daughter is the main goal and to be able to do that after Friday would be a massive achievement”.
The age spread is the oddest thing about the list. Five contestants are 18 or younger, nine are in their twenties, seven in their thirties and three are over 50 — and not one of the 24 is in their forties.
Counted from the published 24-player line-up. Source: SportBible and dartsnews.com.
Here is the detail that makes the row about his place slightly absurd. Lawrie was born on 4 November 2010. The Netflix special is on Friday 30 October. He will be throwing at the world No.1 for £501,000 five days before his 16th birthday — which is the exact day the PDC’s age door opens for him. The Development Tour admits players from their 16th birthday, and Qualifying School requires a player to be 16 on its opening day, so the Q-School staged in January 2027 is the first one he can enter. He has said publicly that he intends to be there.
Walker is on the other side of that door and will be for a long time. He turned 14 in August, which puts his 16th birthday in August 2028 and his first available Q-School in January 2029. He gets a crack at the best player in the world on Friday, more than two years before the PDC will let him enter its entry-level tour.
The 24 named contestants are not all guaranteed a throw. Netflix says they first compete for 20 places, after which those who come through are split into groups and drawn to face Littler. Each of the 20 then gets one leg of 501, straight start, double to finish. There is no rematch and no second visit.
Littler has to win all 20. The show ends the instant he loses one, and whoever beats him takes the whole £501,000 — which means the later draws are only worth anything if he has already seen off everyone ahead of them. Gary Lineker hosts, with Richard Osman as expert analyst, and it goes out live worldwide at 7pm GMT on Friday 30 October.
For Littler it is a strange week to be doing this. He is not in Den Bosch for the Players Championship double-header on Wednesday and Thursday, and the Grand Slam of Darts in Wolverhampton does not start until 14 November. Nicholson framed what is actually at stake for him plainly enough: “Make no mistake, his reputation will be bolstered if he denies everyone that money.”