Luke Littler nails a 180 at the first attempt to beat Harry Maguire’s NINE-dart score of 171… as the teenage darts sensation meets his Man United heroes

Luke Littler threw a 180 to fend off competition from Harry Maguire and Christian Eriksen and send his Manchester United heroes into a frenzy after a darts showdown at their training ground. 

Darts sensation Littler, 17, made light work of the football stars, who threw 171 and 136 over nine darts, respectively, in a light-hearted battle at Carrington. 

The boyhood United fan burst onto the scene by reaching the World Darts Championship final earlier this month, pocketing £200,000 in the process.

‘The Nuke’ was a guest of honour at Old Trafford for United’s match against Tottenham on January 14 and even met Sir Alex Ferguson. 

And this week he has been at Carrington, where he took on United stars in a darts competition and sent his heroes into raptures with a superb 180.

He also had the chance to meet Marcus Rashford, Erik ten Hag, and club captain Bruno Fernandes.

‘How lucky is Bruno for meeting Luke Littler,’ quipped one fan in the comments section of Manchester United’s Instagram post. 

Maguire went first in the darts contest, and even managed a treble-20 in an early show of potential. 

However, he was undone by a couple of 1s and meandered his way to a respectable 171 via a succession of 20s. 

Eriksen was up next, but he lagged behind pacesetter Maguire and could only manage 136 across nine darts.

Finally, up stepped Littler, a beacon of composure under the gaze of stars such as Rasmus Hojlund. 

It turns out that if you can do it on a night at Ally Pally, it’s not so difficult on an overcast Thursday afternoon in Manchester, as Littler swaggered his way to a 180. 

Cue the frenzied dancing and chanting from an assembly of United players and staff and fits pumps from Littler, who had shown his heroes how it was done. 

Littler won £200,000 for reaching the Darts World Championship final, where he lost to Luke Humphries 7-4. 

After his epic journey to the final, he was included in the eight-man line-up for the Premier League Darts tournament alongside some of the biggest names in the sport. 

He made history on January 19 when he won the Bahrain Masters by defeating three-time world champion Michael van Gerwen to claim his first PDC title on his first effort. 

On the road to that triumph, he hit a superb nine-darter in just his second match back after the World Championship, stunning opponent Nathan Aspinall.