Fallon Sherrock defeated Luke Littler in a one-leg contest in Manchester to win £501,000 in a Netflix stunt show that fell flat on Friday night, although that was not the fault of the two darts players.

Beat Luke Littler had been billed as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for an amateur to fulfil a sporting dream of taking their shot at a world champion. Hosted by Gary Lineker, the innovative live format saw a lengthy queue of mostly unknown randoms each try their luck, one leg at a time, against the pre-eminent player of the era.

This one-after-another format was usually found in old-timey carnivals against a journeyman prizefighter, but fans will feel that the streaming programme was about as fair dinkum as a fairground coconut shy.

Netflix stated that no contender holds or has ever held a Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) tour card and that is correct, but it represents a definition of amateur in letter if not in spirit. The very recognisable Sherrock, who was the 15th opponent for Littler on the evening, has played in the men’s World Championships, where she beat 11th seed Mensur Suljovi&cacute in the second round of the 2020 edition.

Yet here she was taking her shot alongside an assistant manager of a Nando’s and a bin man. Where to fit this into the women’s sport #inspirational #narrative landscape? Perhaps that is a question for another day and certainly one does not begrudge the likeable and talented Sherrock her payout, but producers must surely have been hoping that a plucky nobody got to live their dream rather than someone who has fairly recently competed credibly at the sport’s highest level.

Alongside Sherrock, other contestants included Ashley Coleman (ranked 34th on the PDC Challenge Tour) and Mitchell Lawrie, the world youth champion, who did not have the chance to throw because Sherrock had already beaten Littler. Barry Hearn almost never gets it wrong, but this surely was not what people wanted to see?

The true amateurs were lambs to the slaughter. First up was Kasey Smith, a 16-year-old Mancunian who works in a pub and plays at county youth level. Lineker gave her the inauspicious intro of “let’s find out more about Katie”. Her first name, perhaps? Kasey hit a treble 20 with her opening dart and maybe, just maybe, Littler might have been briefly thinking “hmm” but he had soon wrapped that leg up, nailing double ten with his opponent still requiring 261.

Contenders came and went like Christians dragged into the Colosseum. There were some early hopes for Zac Spain, a professional jockey who has ridden a Group 1 Winner in his native Australia and so must be able to keep calm under pressure. Alas, he too fell at the first hurdle. And thus it went on until Sherrock stepped up and immediately looked a different class to the others. Which, of course, she is.

The semi-semi-pros, would-be wonderkids and pub players alike all received the same treatment from Littler, which is to say nasty, brutish and short. An Irish lad called Pearse Mackle came the closest: he had one dart at a bull for the win as Littler hit a flat spot just before the halfway point. He missed it by four or five inches.

You would not say that the hopefuls were overwhelmed by the occasion as such. Nobody had a wobbler on the oche, failed to hit the board, put a dart through one of Lineker’s ears or whatnot. All of them will have come away with a great story about the time they played against one of the greatest.

Lineker had fun, chatty company in a pundit panel of Richard Osman, Lee Mack and Laura Turner and this was a well done, unusual live production but let down by the fact that it promised rags-to-riches but we ultimately got someone who is already a well-known face popping up for a tap-in.

Other than Mackle’s one shot at double, it looked like Littler could have played 200 of the recreational darters and come through unscathed. After two-and-a-half hours, he was flagging slightly and this viewer was feeling it as well. Maybe if it had gone on long enough, Littler would have lost concentration at the same time one of the amateurs was touched by divine inspiration but the stars did not align.

And so up stepped Sherrock. But surely the point of bringing in a ringer is to help your own cause, not devalue it? No disrespect to her, but this missed the bullseye by a mile.