Rob Cross doesn\u2019t want to say what he saw at the children\u2019s hospital in Cologne a couple of weeks ago. Some of the stories were \u201chorrific\u201d, he confides, but in any case they\u2019re not his stories to tell. All he knows is that he went along with a few other players, after appearing in an exhibition the previous night, and it changed him.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou see what people are going through,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd it puts life in perspective for people whose lives are sort of OK. Whose kids are OK. Sometimes we have to find a bit of good. It made me realise how lucky I am in life. There\u2019s always someone out there going through something worse than what you\u2019re going through. That\u2019s why you need to talk.\u201d<\/p>\n
And Cross wants to talk now, about what he\u2019s been going through. Maybe the aftermath of a routine 3-1 second-round win against Ian White at the world championship is the right time to do it, and maybe it isn\u2019t. He doesn\u2019t want to get into the weeds of it, and he certainly doesn\u2019t claim to have all the answers. But talking helped him, and so he reasons it might help someone else too.<\/p>\n
For the 2018 world champion, 2025 has been a year of nightmares. He had a bad Premier League. He\u2019s dropped from No 4 in the world to No 20. He hasn\u2019t made the quarter-finals at any major. In the summer he entered into an Individual Voluntary Arrangement over unpaid taxes of more than \u00a3450,000. Last week his long-time manager Rob Bain, a man Cross describes as \u201clike a father\u201d, was taken to hospital.<\/p>\n
But of course with mental health struggles, there is rarely a \u00adstraightforward cause and effect. \u201cI would have had these problems even if it weren\u2019t darts,\u201d he says. \u201cDoesn\u2019t \u00admatter where you\u2019ve come from, what you\u2019ve got. If you\u2019re not happy, you\u2019re not happy. I can play the Billy Big \u00adBollocks, but it isn\u2019t the case. We can only wear so much as human beings.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve suffered with it a long time before darts. We all get low, and we grow up thinking to ourselves that we should be stronger. That you can\u2019t show that side. And that\u2019s where I\u2019m at. I\u2019m guilty of not expressing myself to the people that I trust with my life. Anyone who wants to help, you need to speak up. It\u2019s going to eat you away eventually.\u201d<\/p>\n
And so for all his struggles on the oche, for most of this year Cross has been trying to search for himself. He drifted in and out of tournaments, found practice a chore. He went on medication for his ADHD, which \u2013 and he makes clear this was a personal choice \u2013 he stopped taking just before the start of this tournament.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is the way to go, but it just cuts a few things out when you want to be clear,\u201d he says. \u201cI think if I\u2019d stayed on it, I\u2019d have been out first round.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just thought I\u2019m better off being mates with the person inside rather than trying to shut him off, no emotions. I feel OK. It brings the hyperness out instead of trying to lock it away. I think I\u2019m fixed. I just can\u2019t switch off, so we need to sort that out.\u201d<\/p>\n
In which context perhaps it seems of only the slightest relevance that Cross has been in very decent form here, as good as he has looked all year.<\/p>\n
Rob Cross at the oche during his victory over Ian White. Photograph: Wayne Tuckwell\/ProSports\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n
Now he can enjoy the festive season with his four children and look forward to a last-32 game against Damon Heta. \u201cIf I\u2019d have lost today, it would have been a miserable Christmas,\u201d he admits. \u201cWould have gone home and sulked like a big baby. Now I get to enjoy Christmas with my babies. It\u2019ll mean the world to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Longer term, the jigsaw remains incomplete. Unless he reaches the semi-finals at least he will start 2026 outside the top 16, and thus face a scramble to qualify for the big tournaments. He can probably forget about the Premier League for the time being. And the taxman still needs to be repaid. But if darts has given him a certain grief, darts still offers the surest way out of it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe biggest thing for me,\u201d he says, \u201cis when I enjoy it. When I light that buzz. Hit that shot, under scrutiny. Feel the adrenaline. The money won\u2019t change my life. Nothing could change my life. But winning this is the pinnacle of the game. And that\u2019s the most important bit.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org<\/a>. You can contact the mental health charity Mind by calling 0300 123 3393 or visiting mind.org.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rob Cross doesn\u2019t want to say what he saw at the children\u2019s hospital in Cologne a couple of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197907,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-197906","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}