A round-up of the eye-related hot topics that have been trending on social media over the last few weeks.
#Darts #AlyPaly
It always looks like an electric atmosphere at Alexandra Palace for the World Darts Championship, and the 2025/2026 competition has been a blast. A semi-final between the Englishmen Luke Littler and Ryan Searle not only saw two darting geniuses pitted against each other but also showcased two players who are at the top of their game with notable ophthalmic histories. Littler, who became the youngest world champion last year, has spoken about having had surgery to correct his strabismus when he was a child [1]. Searle, enjoying his best ever run in this tournament, has autosomal dominant optic atrophy [2]. He only got his diagnosis in the last couple of years, though he talks about his vision being poor for a long time. Searle even finds himself not knowing where his own dart has landed, needing to ask the caller what he scored. This makes his professional career in darts even more impressive. He has also talked about his daughter being visually impaired, and wanting to be a role-model for people with visual disabilities.
#Football #Cricket
Alongside the darts, there are a number of other sporting stories that have been hitting the headlines. Darren Harris is England’s most-capped blind footballer and is being inducted into the National Football Museum’s Hall of Fame [3]. Having grown up in Wolverhampton, he lost his sight at 15 months of age following a diagnosis of bilateral retinoblastoma. But this never stopped him from fostering his athleticism and he achieved his first England cap in 1996, became captain in 2002 and played in the Athens Paralympic Games 2004. Incredibly, he then shifted his training to judo, competing in the Beijing Paralympic Games 2008 before returning to football to play in the London Paralympic Games 2012. He totalled 157 appearances for England, scoring 34 goals and winning 10 world and European medals. What a career – though he hasn’t been the only visually impaired champion in the news recently, as India’s women cricketers won the inaugural T20 World Cup for the blind [4]. The team have individually overcome huge challenges in their journeys to this moment, many of them from small villages and farming communities in rural India. They hope to inspire others across the country and show what is possible.
#UFC #Golf #Update
Ok, last bit about sports – I could not resist giving an update on some previously reported stories. As discussed in What’s Trending Dec/Jan 2026, Tom Aspinall maintained his heavyweight title against Ciryl Gane with a no contest after an accidental eye poke. I have continually seen updates on this since the injury, with Aspinall recently confirming that he is going to go through multiple surgeries involving both eyes, though he has not specified exactly what, or when he will be returning to the octagon [5]. He has spoken about the ongoing effect from the injury, namely double vision and impaired ocular motility, as well as his belief that Gane committed the foul on purpose. We will see what developments lie ahead but hope for his speedy recovery. Back in What’s Trending Dec/Jan 2025, I wrote about Jeffrey Guan, who was blinded in his left eye by a stray ball at a professional-amateur golfing event one week after his PGA Tour debut in the US. It’s wonderful to hear that he is back on the green at a professional level and has played in a couple of tournaments in his home country of Australia, even finishing in a share of 10th place at the Western Australia PGA Championship [6]. His journey back to the game has been understandably challenging. Guan has had to develop a new set of techniques to try and judge depths and contours to effectively read the greens. He reports receiving helpful tips from visually-impaired golfers around the world, as well as an outpouring of support from the wider golfing community.
#Robbie #Elton
I promised to switch from sports, so let’s talk about singers. Robbie Williams has been in the headlines and this time it’s about his struggles with vision loss – a side-effect of the weight-loss jabs he’s using [7]. He says that the blur is progressively worsening and he now struggles to see the faces of individual fans when he is performing. Despite this effect, he vows to continue taking the medications and will do so until he has lost his sight completely in one eye. I have written about Elton John previously – in fact it was the same article where I first discussed Jeffrey Guan – as he has suffered from vision loss following an eye infection. That was over a year ago and he has recently been talking further about how this has continued to impact his life [8]. He has had to simplify his signature for signings and has not been able to watch his new musical version of The Devil Wears Prada, where he has had to make his judgements by listening to the soundtrack. While the emotional toll is palpable, not watching his boys play sports for example, he remains stoically hopeful that this will improve in the future.
#Actors
If I’ve talked about singers, I have to talk about actors. Former Casualty star Amanda Mealing posted about her experience going through a retinal detachment repair on her social media [9]. She explained to her followers that she lost vision in one eye, but was operated on that same day. Though it has been reported before, Judy Dench has been back in the news talking more about the impact age-related macular degeneration has had on her, with an inability to watch theatre shows and now needing a companion anytime she leaves the house [10]. Despite this, she still tries to “get on with it.”
References
1. www.bbc.co.uk/sport/darts/
articles/c04vwp1eyrwo
2. www.skysports.com/darts/news/12040/13489334/
ryan-searle-heavy-metal-opens-up-on-rare
-eye-condition-ahead-of-world-darts-championship
-semi-final-against-luke-littler
3. www.bbc.co.uk/news/
articles/c0je1npwdedo
4. www.bbc.co.uk/news/
articles/cn81jqydn58o
5. www.espn.com/mma/story/_/id/47445179/ufc-champ
-tom-aspinall-undergo-multiple-eye-surgeries
6. www.bbc.co.uk/sport/golf/
articles/c9q12yey55vo
7. www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/37326382/
robbie-williams-fat-jabs-making-me-blind/
8. www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/37445547/
elton-john-shares-health-update-blindness-eye-infection
9. https://metro.co.uk/2025/12/03/tv-icon-rushed
-hospital-eye-retina-re-attached-25107912/
10. www.mirror.co.uk/news/health/judi-denchs
-eye-condition-explained-36310062
[All links last accessed January 2026]
