Phill Nixon

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Phill Nixon
Personal information
Full name	Phillip Nixon
Nickname	Nixy
Date of birth	March 13, 1956 (age 51)
Place of birth	County Durham,
Home town	Ferryhill, County Durham,
BDO	since 2007
BDO Grand Slam Events - Best Performances
World Ch'ship	Finalist 2007
Infobox last updated on: January 19, 2007.

Phill Nixon (born March 13, 1956) is an English darts player from Ferryhill, County Durham.

Nixon reached the final of the 2007 Lakeside World Darts Championship at the age of 50^[1]. After years of attempting, it was the first time he had managed to qualify for the event. Bookmakers had him as a 150-1 shot to win the title, before the event had started.

Nixon came through three separate qualifying competitions at county, national and international level to secure his Lakeside debut. He beat number 7 seed Darryl Fitton, number 10 seed Martin Atkins and number 15 seed Paul Hanvidge to the reach the semi-finals and beat Dutchman Niels de Ruiter the number 11 seed for a place in the final against top seed Martin Adams.

He eventually lost 7-6 to Adams in the final, after at one stage being 6-0 down one leg from defeat, taking home a cheque for £30,000. He almost completed an all-time great sporting comeback. After looking down and out at 6-0 down at the interval all seemed lost. While practising in the players lounge with a cigarette in one hand, Nixon was said to have stabbed himself deliberately in his legs to try and motivate himself. After the interval he found form and the Lakeside Crowd really got behind him. Gradually he clawed the gap back and sensed Adams vulnerability, which resulted in Adams missing four doubles to win the championship. Nixon played inspiring darts through the second half of the match and played at a high standard. He eventually lost the match 7-6 with Adams winning the final set 3-0. He was simply outplayed in that set, and Adams really upped his game. But Nixon did have his chances; he had a double 8 to win the first leg and a double 18 to save the match in the final leg. Unfortunely for Nixon, he just missed these chances, which proved critical. Although Nixon didn’t win the tournament he became a cult hero after his heroics.

[edit] Outside darts

Phill is married to Suzanne (b 1969), they had been married for three years (together for eleven) at the time of his world final appearance in 2007. They have two children, although Phill has eight in total.^[2]

At the start of the tournament, Nixon's prime occupation was as a house husband. Nixon began to concentrate on his darts to a greater degree when he was made redundant.