Beat Luke Littler: Fallon Sherrock beats Littler and wins £501,000 on Netflix

Fallon Sherrock beats Luke Littler in the 15th leg of the Netflix show in Manchester and pockets £501,000. All the details on the night and on the finish on Tops.

Fallon Sherrock hit the jackpot in Manchester on Friday evening: she beat Luke Littler in the Netflix live show “Beat Luke Littler” in the 15th leg of the night and pocketed £501,000 for it. Sherrock was the only challenger to take a leg off the world number one – the show was over immediately afterwards.

The finish: 180, 43 left – and Tops

Sherrock won the bull-off and with it the throw. She followed up with a 180, left herself on 43 and then checked out the leg on double 20. In the decisive leg, Littler never got to his double.

For Sherrock it is probably the most lucrative throw of her career – and a special moment: her son saw her play live for the first time in Manchester.

Sherrock had secured her place on stage through a fan vote. There she saw off Jarod Becker with 75 per cent of the votes; he had travelled to Manchester especially.

14 legs without defeat – then came the 15th challenger

Up to Sherrock's appearance, Littler had won all 14 previous legs. It started with 16-year-old Kasey Smith, whom Littler dispatched in style via treble 10 and double 20.

The other beaten challengers included Tony Cole, Zac Spain, 14-year-old Jayden Walker, Katie Sheldon, Taylon Forrester, Mark Pooke, Zac Griffiths, Makinley Cooper-Johnson, also 14, Lauren Bloomfield and David Wawrzewski.

In the leg against Jayden Walker, Littler produced his strongest sequence of visits of the night: a 180 and a 158 finish. Lauren Bloomfield and Katie Sheldon never got within finishing range of the world number one. At 14, Makinley Cooper-Johnson was the youngest player on stage.

The closest moments of the night

However clear the final record looks – Littler wobbled badly several times:

Pearse Mackle missed a match dart at the Bull and with it the big chance at the prize money.
Mark Pooke won the Bull as challenger, but then missed 138 and never got a match dart. Littler hit double 10 and moved to 9 of 20.
Taylon Forrester, known as “The Trash Man”, was the first challenger within finishing range. Littler missed his trebles for three visits before winning the leg after all.
Tony Cole forced Littler into a second attempt: after a 140, the world number one was left on 67 and missed double 20, before checking out on the next visit.
Zac Griffiths, “Boy in the Corner”, came close to taking the Bull off Littler.

Littler's average dropped over the course of the night from around 100 to about 80 points – an indication of how draining the format of 20 single legs under constant pressure was.

The format of the Netflix premiere

20 challengers took on Luke Littler one after another in a single leg of 501 each.
Anyone who won a leg collected £501,000.
The show ended immediately with Littler's first defeat.
The field consisted of 16 seeded starters plus eight wildcards, drawn from four pots.
Around 25,000 applications came in, followed by a casting process.
The venue was the Manchester Central Complex, starting at 20:00 German time (19:00 UK time), live on Netflix.

Stage, presenters and criticism

Gary Lineker fronted the night, supported by Richard Osman, Josh Denzel and Angry Ginge. Laura Turner was on duty as pundit, John McDonald handled the walk-ons and Huw Ware was the caller.

Osman had worked out beforehand that Littler wins a single leg with a probability of around 85 per cent – giving him only about a 15 per cent chance of surviving all 20 legs. That is exactly how it played out: at the 15th attempt it was over.

There was criticism around the show about the player selection and the public vote. The fact that it was Sherrock, one of the best-known darts players in the world rather than a classic amateur, who took the top prize is unlikely to end that debate.