Phil Taylor salutes the crowd on his way to beating Michael van Gerwen (background) in the 2013 World Championship final. Source: AFP

If you’ve yet to be exposed to the wondrousness that takes place within Alexandra Palace in London but once a year, allow us to enlighten you.

In the UK, darts has essentially colonised Christmas, after TV network Sky Sports made the inspired decision to run its world championship throughout the yuletide period as a nation of reluctantly gathered and often snowbound families yearned for something to fill awkward silences and tide them over between EPL matches.

The snowball effect has seen an explosion of interest in the game, especially on TV. An oft-repeated statistic is that darts is now second only to football in terms of viewing figures in UK sport. The world championship will not be broadcast on Sky Sports 1, 2, 3 or 4 this year, it will be shown on Sky Sports Darts. Seriously.

It’s not doing too badly in terms of attendance either. There are no tickets hotter than the ones permitting entry to the “Ally Pally” to get pissed, chant terrace songs and dance on tables during ad breaks. It is now the most oversubscribed annual sporting event in Britain.

If you’ve never seen the attraction of titanic tungsten battles, this may all seem a touch bizarre, if not demented, so here’s our attempt to explain the charms of the little pub sport that became a TV juggernaut.

Phil Taylor, the greatest darts player of all time. Source: AFP

THE GAME

You might assume that there’s little sporting pleasure to be taken from watching people throwing bits of metal at a board, but then if we’re going to break every sport down to its innate pointlessness, we may as well all go home.

Yes, darts is a simple game, but it’s arguably unrivalled in its distillation of pure nerve. If you enjoy the whites-of-the-eyes, who’ll-blink-first element of individual sport, this is your game. Tennis can take hours to reach these payoff moments, golf days. Darts, thanks to its legs-and-sets scoring system, has them every few minutes, and often several at a time as doubles are missed and stakes are raised.

To put it another way, and without wishing to get too gynaecological, why settle for rare climaxes when you can have several multiple ones guaranteed?

(L-R) Wes Newton (England), Simon Whitlock (Aus), Andy Hamilton (England), Paul Nicholson (Aus), Adrian Lewis (England), Kyle Anderson (Aust), Raymond van Barneveld (Netherlands), Phil Taylor (England) and Michael van Gerwen (Netherlands) pictured ahead of the Sydney Masters. Source: News Limited

THE PLAYERS

Darts has been a TV staple in the UK for years, its world championships cosily and complacently becoming a boozy fixture on the BBC schedule every January during the 1980s, inspiring this famous sketch on ground-breaking comedy show Not the Nine O’Clock News.

After a bitter player-led breakaway to pay-TV in the 1990s, the new version of the tournament became flashier and more personality-focused, with stars encouraged to develop their own larger-than-life personas.

These days every player enters the arena to their own theme tune, a la boxing, sporting a flammable looking top with their nickname gaudily emblazoned across the back.

Hence we have the likes of The Power, The Wizard, The Iceman, The Hammer and The Pie Man playing alongside some less-inspired choices such as Bernie, Spud and Dukey of the Duke (actually maybe that last one is inspired).

For our money, no-one’s likely to beat Mark Frost’s chice - Frosty the Throw Man - anytime soon.

Some players make more effort than others to stand out from the crowd, not least last year’s finalist Peter Wright, whose hair/head stylings are now an eye-catching fixture in top tournaments.

The colourful Peter Wright in action. Source: News Corp Australia

THE KING AND THE PRINCE

Darts’ GOAT is inarguably Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor, a 54-year-old still going (relatively) strong after winning 16 (yes, sixteen) world titles and more than $5m in career earnings (the winner of this year’s world title pockets the equivalent of almost half a million dollars, more than Nick Kyrgios made for reaching the Wimbledon quarters).

It might not surprise you to learn that such dominance comes courtesy of a win-at-all-costs mentality and less-than-winning personality that hasn’t exactly endeared him to fellow players or indeed many fans.

However, even his most grudging admirers can empathise with Taylor’s difficult 2014, during which he’s gone through a divorce, admitted his stricken mother to hospital, endured a sustained legal battle with an erstwhile sponsor and experienced his most sustained form slump while trying to get used to new arrows.

But while the aura has diminished somewhat, he remains the prize scalp as he aims to regain the title he surrendered to Michael Van Gerwen last year and despite all of his his travails will start the tournament as favourite.

Can Michael Van Gerwen dethrone Phil Taylor as the dominant player of the era? Source: Supplied

Van Gerwen, a spectacularly talented 25-year-old dome-headed Dutchman, has won 10 titles this year and is the obvious pretender to Taylor’s throne of dominance. He’s next in the line of betting, with daylight between these two and the rest.

If Van Gerwen wins again this year, many will see it as the official passing of the torch, not that Taylor will admit anything of the sort.

THE AUSSIES

Simon ‘The Wizard’ Whitlock is, yet again, Australia’s best hope in the tournament having made a surprise run to the final (which he lost to Taylor) in 2010.

Simon Whitlock will again be Australia’s best hope of glory. Source: Supplied

He’s backed that up by remaining in the game’s elite and regularly challenging at major tournaments, but he’s never come as close to winning the big one and recent form has been decidedly mixed. If you fancy a patriotic punt, The Wizard is available at $67.

Other Aussies in action include adopted Geordie and shades-wearing ladies man Paul Nicolson (who for reasons known only to himself calls himself ‘The Asset’), and Kyle ‘The Original’ Anderson, who had a superb run in the Sydney Masters in August, beating Raymond van Barneveld and Simon Whitlock en route to a semi-final which he lost to, you’ve guessed it, Phil Taylor.

THE CROWD

When club or event administrators insist their arena has an atmosphere “like no other”, it can usually be dismissed as fan-servicing flim-flam, but there really is no other sport that does orgiastic revelling quite like the darts.

Copious amounts of booze and sold-out crowds cultivate the sort of vivid ambience that will make you think you can smell the stale beer and Lynx deodorant through the TV.

Incessant chanting and the mocking of those unfortunates who have spilt some of the 12 pints they were trying to transport back to their table is interrupted only by the dancing and bellowing to regular clips of euro-house classic ‘Chase the Sun’. Please to enjoy…

PDC World Darts Championship

Live on Fox Sports 2 (not Darts … yet)

Friday 6am and every day until Jan 5 (except Dec 25/26)