When Richie Burnett agreed to sit down with Darts World columnist and PDC referee Huw Ware’s Tops & Tales podcast, the Prince of Wales made one thing clear before the red light ever flickered into life. This would not be a curated conversation, nor a safety-netted exchange trimmed for comfort. It had to happen live.
“If everything’s recorded, you don’t always see the real person,” Burnett explained. “Honesty is the way it should be, and you only get that when it’s live.” And if the road veered off course? “At least you can decide what you want to do with it.” It was vintage Richie – resistant to polish, indifferent to comfort, allergic to control.
Their connection stretches back decades, to a time when Ware was still a teenager playing exhibitions and darts existed far from its modern glare. Burnett remembers it clearly. “They were public exhibitions, that’s all it was back then. No big venues, nothing,” he recalled. “Darts wasn’t as big as it is now… a bit too late for me, typical.”
When the conversation drifted toward his youth, the 58-year old legend offered no revisionism. “I was a rascal, to be honest. I hated school, hated teachers, hated authority,” he said. He does not deny the chaos. “I had a good head on me. I learned from experiences. I’ve done some stupid things, but I’ve got very few regrets — because I never made the same mistake twice.”
Those mistakes still find him. “People come up to me and say, ‘Do you remember when you did this?’ and I can’t remember it — but it sounds like me.” It explains his refusal to document his life. “I can’t write a book. I’ve forgotten too much. I just move on.”
Darts arrived organically, not architected. “Watching it on TV — Jocky Wilson, Eric Bristow, Alan Evans — that’s what got me into it.” Pub darts followed, then improvement, but never illusion. “I worked hard. I wasn’t a natural.”
Early experimentation was constant. “When you start, you keep changing your throw. You think: this is the way — no, that’s the way. That can take years.” The breakthrough was acceptance. “Wherever you picked that dart up first, that’s your throw. It’s a simple game. I kept it simple — and that’s why I had longevity.”
Ware called his technique iconic. Burnett waved it away. “Most players change darts all the time,” he said. “For me, the grip’s in my hand, not the dart.”
One loss still cuts. Not a match – the darts themselves. “It’s the only set of darts I’ve ever lost,” he said. “And I didn’t lose them — they were stolen.” Taken after an exhibition in Wales, near the Rhondda. “I left that night and they were gone.”
On the politics of the 1990s, there is no softening. “I thought the BDO were bullies,” he said. “There was too much conflict of interest.” His verdict is absolute. “You can’t run a professional sport with amateurs in charge. If you run an amateur sport, you get amateur results.”
The contrast with the PDC was stark. “When I moved over, nothing was given to me — I had to earn everything,” he said. “But they listened. And that’s how it should be.”
On Olly Croft, the honesty sharpens. “I could never get on with Olly,” the former BDO World Champion admitted. “He didn’t like me because I was too honest.” Yet pride remains for those who broke away. “Those fourteen players — I take my hat off to them. They put everything on the line.” Recognition, he feels, never followed. “I moved, left a void behind… three finals in four years, then gone, and no recognition.” What mattered more was something else entirely. “That means everything to me. The rest doesn’t matter.”
Mention Lakeside and the memory turns visceral. “When you’re there — in the hotel, walking to the hall — it’s something you can’t describe,” he said. “It’s the scent, the atmosphere.” Ahead of 1995, belief was total. “I said to myself, if I don’t win this, I’m jumping in the lake.” He wasn’t bluffing. “I honestly hadn’t lost a game of darts for months.”
But pain lingers. The 1998 final loss to Raymond van Barneveld remains unresolved. “That broke my heart,” he said. “I averaged 98, couldn’t hit a double, and still won more legs than him. He just kept hitting that last dart.”
The decline followed. “It started to get to me,” he admitted. “Politics, life problems — it all piled up.” His response was extreme. “I locked myself in a room for two weeks and just threw darts.” The cost was physical. “I was black and blue.” On stage, aggression became fuel. “You have to be aggressive. I told myself: you are going.”
The leg kicks? Pure release. “I nearly fell over,” he laughed. “I almost kicked myself in the back of the head.” But the core never changed. “I love the game. I love competing.”
The hardest chapter came with suspension. He corrects it immediately. “It was two years — but really it was 28 months,” he said. “My suspension ended in March, but I had to wait until January to play again.” He owns the moment. “It was a stupid mistake and a low point.” Yet the game never loosened its grip. “I still practised every day. I couldn’t stop playing. I wish it never happened — but I moved on.”
Unfiltered. Unedited. Unmistakably Richie Burnett.
——ENDS——
Images: PDC
