There are certain things Sweden has given the world that we should all be eternally grateful for.
ABBA. IKEA. Volvo. Meatballs. Flat-pack furniture arguments that have ended otherwise perfectly healthy marriages. And the frankly extraordinary ability to take four normal letters, add seventeen dots and circles above them, and then insist the resulting word is pronounced nothing like it looks.
And then there’s Andreas Harrysson.
One of those darts players who regularly pops up on a stream, starts throwing absolute filth at a dartboard, gives somebody with a considerably bigger reputation the fright of their life and leaves everyone asking the same question:
How the bloody hell has this bloke never had a PDC Tour Card?
So Bang On Target thought we’d find out a bit more about the man behind the darts.
Andreas very kindly sent his answers over in Swedish before putting them through Google Translate. Which means there is at least a small possibility that somewhere below he actually said he breeds elk and is the Crown Prince of Gothenburg.
We’ll take our chances.
31 YEARS TOGETHER — NO NEED TO RUSH THESE THINGS
First things first. Forget darts for a minute. Who actually is Andreas Harrysson?
Where does he live? Family? Married? Kids? Does he spend his evenings sitting in an IKEA POÄNG chair listening to ABBA while assembling a bookcase?
Apparently not.
“I live in Sweden, in a small community called Målilla, which has about 1,500 inhabitants. I live with my partner, Petra. We aren’t married — we’ve only been together for 31 years! We have two sons, Linus, 26, and Albin, 22.”
ONLY 31 YEARS. Steady on, Andreas. No point rushing into anything.
Give it another decade, see how things develop, maybe meet the parents and then — if everything still looks promising — consider sharing a Spotify account.
Thirty-one years together without getting married is possibly the most Scandinavian relationship imaginable. Efficient. Sensible. No unnecessary paperwork.
So what does a Swedish darts assassin do when he isn’t chucking tungsten?
“My interests include fishing, watching speedway, and listening to music.”
And suddenly Målilla makes perfect sense. For anyone unfamiliar with the place, it’s strongly associated with speedway, so Andreas isn’t exactly fighting the local culture here.
Fishing. Speedway. Music. Darts. That is a magnificently uncomplicated existence.
No yoga retreats. No artisanal sourdough. No podcast about personal growth.
Just catch a fish, watch some blokes ride motorcycles sideways at terrifying speeds, put some music on and then go and throw a 100 average. Splendid.
We desperately wanted the music answer to be ABBA, obviously.
If Andreas walks on at Q-School to The Winner Takes It All, however, we’re immediately remortgaging Bang On Target Towers and backing him for a card.
DARTS ISN’T JUST FOR THE BIG STAGE
Harrysson is familiar to plenty of darts fans through the Nordic & Baltic circuit and his appearances on bigger stages, but he certainly isn’t sitting at home waiting for the glamorous stuff.
“I try to play as much as I can for my club team, Målilla, in the Swedish Elitserien and the local league, as well as competing in various individual tournaments across Sweden.”
In other words: if there is a dartboard somewhere within reasonable travelling distance, Andreas will probably find it.
Club darts. League darts. Individual tournaments. Nordic & Baltic events.
Presumably if two pensioners start playing 501 in the back room of a Swedish furniture shop, Harrysson will appear ten minutes later carrying his darts and asking who’s marking.
And we love that. Because underneath all the World Championships, television stages and ranking systems, that’s where darts still lives.
THE BEST PLAYER NEVER TO WIN A TOUR CARD?
Now we get to the elephant in the room. Or, given we’re in Sweden, possibly the moose in the room.
Andreas Harrysson is regularly mentioned whenever the conversation turns to the best players never to win a PDC Tour Card.
And it’s not difficult to understand why. We’ve seen enough of him over the years to know that, when Harrysson gets going, reputation means precisely bugger all.
So why does Andreas think people rate him so highly?
“It is a great honour to be considered that way. It’s probably because I’ve shown several times that I can give anyone a real challenge, both on and off the stage.”
Correct. And slightly irritating if you’re the bloke standing opposite him.
There are players you draw and think, lovely, I’ll fancy this. Then there are players you draw and immediately wonder whether changing your name and moving to Bolivia might be easier.
Harrysson belongs considerably closer to category two. The frustrating part is that darts can be brutally binary.
You can be very, very good. You can beat excellent players. You can produce excellent numbers. You can look entirely comfortable on major stages.
But until you’ve got that little rectangular golden ticket called a Tour Card, you’re still standing outside the PDC nightclub while somebody considerably less frightening has somehow got past the bouncer.
SO… WILL HE KEEP TRYING?
Perhaps, after all those attempts, you’d forgive Andreas for deciding he’d had enough.
Go fishing. Watch speedway. Enjoy Sweden. Never see another Q-School floor again. Not happening.
“I will definitely try again. I’m going to get that card someday.”
Now THAT is an answer. Not hopefully. Not we’ll see. Not I’ll give it another go and see what happens.
Q-School has therefore been formally warned. Somewhere in Europe, a laminated piece of plastic has just started sweating.
SHOULD THE NORDIC & BALTIC CHAMPION GET A TOUR CARD?
This is an interesting one. The Nordic & Baltic Tour has grown enormously in stature and continues to produce players capable of mixing it with established professionals.
Should winning the whole thing therefore come with the biggest possible prize — a Tour Card? Andreas isn’t demanding one be delivered to Stockholm immediately.
“That could certainly be a good thing – though Q-School is already tough enough as it is.”
That’s almost annoyingly reasonable.
We were hoping for: YES. GIVE ME ONE IMMEDIATELY. I’VE SUFFERED ENOUGH.
Instead Andreas has gone all sensible Scandinavian on us. No overturned tables. No diplomatic incident. No strongly worded letter to the PDC written on the back of an IKEA receipt. Disappointing, really.
THE BIG ONE — ALLY PALLY
There are tournaments. There are BIG tournaments. And then there’s walking onto the stage at Alexandra Palace for the World Championship. For Harrysson, nothing else quite tops it.
“It would definitely be stepping onto the stage at Ally Pally.”
Hard to argue. All those years playing darts, all those miles travelled, all those tournaments and practice sessions — and suddenly you’re walking onto arguably the most famous stage in the sport.
Ally Pally. Thousands inside. Millions potentially watching around the world. Somebody dressed as a traffic cone screaming at you from row 14. You’ve made it.
THE SCANDINAVIANS ARE COMING
The standard across Scandinavia and the wider Nordic & Baltic region seems to keep moving in one direction. Up.
Andreas agrees that the tour itself deserves some credit.
“You could say that. The standard improves every year.”
And that’s the important bit – “every year.” The Nordic & Baltic scene is no longer somewhere the wider darts world can casually glance at occasionally.
There is depth developing. There are dangerous players developing. There are established names. And there are increasingly fewer comfortable draws.
Basically, Europe spent years looking north and thinking:
Lovely scenery. Excellent social systems. Bit cold.
Now darts players look north and think:
Oh Christ, not Harrysson.
Progress.
WHO SHOULD ACTUALLY REPRESENT SWEDEN?
Now for something considerably meatier than Swedish meatballs.
Nationality in sport. Specifically, players who weren’t born in Sweden subsequently representing Sweden.
It’s an awkward subject, particularly when selection places are limited, so we asked Andreas where he stands. And he gave us a properly considered answer.
“That’s a tough question. My opinion is that if you move to a country, become a citizen and feel like you’re part of it, then representing that country is the natural thing to do.
“However, if you become a citizen solely to compete in the Olympics, the World Championship or something similar, I think that’s wrong.
“In those cases, I believe the people who are genuinely playing for their country should get the spot, even if they aren’t quite as skilled.”
Fair play. That’s about as clear as you can make it.
For Harrysson, it’s not simply about the words written on a passport. It’s about genuinely making somewhere your home and identifying with the country you’re representing.
Move there. Become part of the place. Build your life there. Fine.
Discover there happens to be a convenient sporting opportunity, buy a Swedish phrasebook on Tuesday and suddenly start belting out the national anthem by Friday? Andreas isn’t buying it.
And, given he’s a large Swedish man who throws darts frighteningly well, we’re not volunteering to argue.
WILL WE SEE MORE SCANDINAVIANS ON THE PDC TOUR?
Distance matters. Money matters. Opportunity matters. For players in Britain, travelling to many major darts events can involve getting in a car.
For Scandinavians, the logistics can look rather more like the itinerary from Around the World in 80 Days.
Flights. Hotels. Entry fees. More flights. More hotels. And after all that, some lunatic averages 103 against you in your opening match.
So will we nevertheless see more Nordic players breaking through? Andreas keeps it beautifully simple.
“I believe so, and I hope so.”
So do we. Because the wider the geographical reach of professional darts becomes, the healthier the sport becomes.
And if the standard keeps improving at its current rate, it won’t really be a question of whether more Scandinavian players arrive. It’ll be a case of how many. And perhaps more importantly – how many were actually born in that neck of the world!
THE BANG ON TARGET VERDICT
There is something extremely likeable about Andreas Harrysson. No grand speeches. No nonsense. No manufactured swagger.
He lives in a Swedish community of around 1,500 people, has been with Petra for a mere 31-year trial period, enjoys fishing, speedway and music, plays as much darts as he can and has already fulfilled the dream of walking onto the Alexandra Palace stage.
Yet there’s still one glaring piece of unfinished business. That bloody Tour Card.
Harrysson has demonstrated often enough that he can trouble players at a very serious level.
And despite all the frustration that comes with trying to break through one of the most unforgiving qualification systems in darts, he’s still coming back.
The most telling sentence in this entire interview might therefore be the shortest.
“I’m going to get that card someday.”
You know what? We wouldn’t bet against him. Until then, Andreas will presumably return to Målilla, catch a few fish, watch some speedway, throw ridiculous darts and continue his 31-year assessment of whether Petra might be suitable marriage material.
No rush, mate. After all, if waiting for a Tour Card has taught Andreas Harrysson anything, it’s patience.
Huge thanks to Andreas Harrysson for taking the time to speak to Bang On Target —-and for trusting Google Translate sufficiently to allow us anywhere near his answers.
And not one mention of that crazy Swedish Chef from The Muppet Show – well…until now
