Rob Cross opens up on struggles after second-round win against Ian White
Rob Cross doesn’t want to say what he saw at the children’s hospital in Cologne a couple of weeks ago.Some of the stories were “horrific”, he confides, but in any case they’re 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.“You see what people are going through,” he says.“And 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’s always someone out there going through something worse than what you’re going through.That’s why you need to talk.
”And Cross wants to talk now, about what he’s 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’t.He doesn’t want to get into the weeds of it, and he certainly doesn’t claim to have all the answers.But talking helped him, and so he reasons it might help someone else too.For the 2018 world champion, 2025 has been a year of nightmares.
He had a bad Premier League.He’s dropped from No 4 in the world to No 20.He hasn’t made the quarter-finals at any major.In the summer he entered into an Individual Voluntary Arrangement over unpaid taxes of more than £450,000.Last week his long-time manager Rob Bain, a man Cross describes as “like a father”, was taken to hospital.
But of course with mental health struggles, there is rarely a straightforward cause and effect.“I would have had these problems even if it weren’t darts,” he says.“Doesn’t matter where you’ve come from, what you’ve got.If you’re not happy, you’re not happy.I can play the Billy Big Bollocks, but it isn’t the case.
We can only wear so much as human beings.“I’ve 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’t show that side.And that’s where I’m at.
I’m 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’s going to eat you away eventually,”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 – and he makes clear this was a personal choice – he stopped taking just before the start of this tournament,“It is the way to go, but it just cuts a few things out when you want to be clear,” he says,“I think if I’d stayed on it, I’d have been out first round,“I just thought I’m 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’m fixed.I just can’t switch off, so we need to sort that out.”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.Now he can enjoy the festive season with his four children and look forward to a last-32 game against Damon Heta.
“If I’d have lost today, it would have been a miserable Christmas,” he admits.“Would have gone home and sulked like a big baby.Now I get to enjoy Christmas with my babies.It’ll mean the world to me.”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.“The biggest thing for me,” he says, “is when I enjoy it.
When I light that buzz.Hit that shot, under scrutiny.Feel the adrenaline.The money won’t change my life.Nothing could change my life.
But winning this is the pinnacle of the game.And that’s the most important bit.”In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org.You can contact the mental health charity Mind by calling 0300 123 3393 or visiting mind.
org.uk
‘It can be quite a thankless job’: why driving examiners are quitting
It has long been a stressful rite of passage for many young people but, in recent years, passing the actual driving test is the easy part. Now, many people seeking a test need to wake up early to snag a date before the bots do and, even then, they are looking at a long and arduous wait.Despite moves from the government to address the issue, an audit report released this week found plans to cut the wait for a driving test to seven weeks by the end of the year would not be achieved until November 2027.One of the main barriers is an exodus of driving examiners. Only a net 83 more driving test examiners have been hired despite 19 recruitment campaigns since 2021, with the average wait for a practical test now at 22 weeks across Great Britain, according to the National Audit Office
Tinsel and Home Alone back in style as TikTok seeks comfort in #90sChristmas
Tinsel, DIY tree decorations, deep burgundy drapes – and Home Alone on VHS. Christmas has gone retro on TikTok, and in people’s living rooms.The app has reported a surge in Christmas decor videos, with an emphasis on nostalgia as users embrace festive looks from bygone eras. For younger TikTokers, that means the 90s.More than 8,000 videos have been posted under the hashtag #90sChristmas, celebrating a look that includes multicoloured tree lights, homemade felt ornaments and – in a post with nearly 4m views – VHS tapes of Christmas classics such as the Macaulay Culkin caper
Elon Musk’s massive 2018 Tesla pay package restored by Delaware court
Elon Musk’s controversial $56bn pay package from Tesla was reinstated by the Delaware supreme court on Friday, two years after a lower court struck down the vast compensation deal as “unfathomable”.The reinstated pay package could be worth as much as $139bn today, according to the New York Times. The decision comes less than two months after Tesla shareholders approved a new plan that could be worth $1tn to Musk, already the world’s richest person, in a decade’s time. Musk’s fortune currently stands at an estimated $600bn.Rescinding the pay deal would be “inequitable”, and would leave Musk “uncompensated for his time and efforts over a period of six years”, the Delaware supreme court justices wrote, echoing arguments from Tesla board members earlier this year
‘A black hole’: families and police say tech giants delay investigations in child abuse and drug cases
Max Osterman was 18 when he connected with a drug dealer on Snapchat who used the handle skyhigh.303. Max would message him whenever he wanted to buy Percocet, and they would meet. After about a year, and just days after their last exchange, Max collapsed. The pills he ordered had been laced with fentanyl
The Com: the growing cybercrime network behind recent Pornhub hack
Ransomware hacks, data theft, crypto scams and sextortion cover a broad range of cybercrimes carried out by an equally varied list of assailants.But there is also an English-speaking criminal ecosystem carrying out these activities that defies conventional categorisation. Nonetheless, it does have a name: the Com.Short for community, the Com is a loose affiliation of cybercriminals, largely native English language speakers typically aged from 16 to 25. Its activities run from crippling the IT systems of British retailers to phoning in bomb threats to schools and encouraging teenage girls to harm themselves
Sony collars Snoopy in £340m deal to take control of Peanuts franchise
Sony has taken control of Charles Schulz’s Peanuts franchise including Snoopy and Charlie Brown in a deal worth C$630m (£340m).The Japanese conglomerate has bought 41% of Peanuts Holdings, which owns the intellectual property Schulz created, from the Canadian children’s entertainment company WildBrain.The deal raises Sony’s total stake, which it began building in 2018, to 80%. The Schulz family owns the remaining 20%.Peanuts, which first appeared as a comic strip in seven newspapers in 1950 and ran daily until the cartoonist’s death in 2000, has gone on to become a global franchise spanning TV, toys, films and theme park attractions
Rowing’s answer to snowcross, BMX and beach volleyball is coming to LA
Joshua and Paul provide pitiful spectacle and the worst is there’s more to come | Donald McRae
Mitchell Starc urges ICC to take action on Snicko as confidence in system dwindles
NFL week 16: Steelers edge Lions in thriller, Jaguars stun Broncos, Panthers beat Bucs – as it happened
‘RIP’: Australian media revels in ‘deeply lamented’ death of Bazball after Ashes woe
Wesley Plaisier claims ‘biggest victory’ in stunning upset of Gerwyn Price