"I thought they were bullies" - Richie Burnett has few positive words for the 'amateur mentality' at the BDO in earlier years, opens up on doping ban

Richie Burnett isn’t the kind of guy you squeeze into a neat, safe podcast format. On the Tops & Tales podcast, the Welshman — 1994 World Masters winner and 1995 Lakeside world champion — joins PDC referee Huw Ware. Burnett sets one condition right away: the conversation has to be live.

“If everything’s recorded, you don’t always see the real person,” Burnett explains. “Honesty is the way it should be, and you only get that when it’s live.” He adds that if things go wrong, or get controversial, “at least you can decide what you want to do with it.” It’s typical Burnett — unfiltered, straight, and unconcerned by where the conversation might go.

Ware and Burnett have known each other for years, dating back to Ware’s teenage years playing exhibitions. Burnett remembers that era clearly. “They were public exhibitions, that’s all it was back then. No big venues, nothing,” he says. “Darts wasn’t as big as it is now… a bit too late for me, typical.”

When Ware takes the conversation back to Burnett’s youth, the honesty doesn’t waver. “I was a rascal, to be honest. I hated school, hated teachers, hated authority,” Burnett says. While he admits he was “off the rails,” he’s quick to add context. “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 “stupid things” are a recurring theme. Burnett says people regularly remind him of incidents he barely remembers. “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’s one of the reasons he has no interest in writing a book. “I can’t write a book. I’ve forgotten too much. I just move on.”

Darts entered his life not through structure or planning, but through television and the pub. “Watching it on TV — Jocky Wilson, Eric Bristow, Alan Evans — that’s what got me into it,” he says. He was soon playing in pubs as a teenager, and improvement followed naturally. But Burnett is keen to dispel the myth of instant talent. “I worked hard. I wasn’t a natural.”

Early on, he says, he constantly experimented. “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 came when he stopped overthinking it. “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 calls Burnett’s darts “iconic,” but Burnett shrugs off the idea. “Most players change darts all the time,” he says. “For me, the grip’s in my hand, not the dart.”

One story still stings. The darts Burnett used to win the world championship were stolen. “It’s the only set of darts I’ve ever lost,” he says. “And I didn’t lose them — they were stolen.” The theft happened after an exhibition in Wales, around the Rhondda, where he also played alongside Phil Taylor. “I left that night and they were gone.”

When the conversation turns to the political upheaval of the 1990s, Burnett is uncompromising. “I thought the BDO were bullies,” he says. “There was too much conflict of interest.” His view is blunt: “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 immediate. “When I moved over, nothing was given to me — I had to earn everything,” he says. “But they listened. And that’s how it should be.”

Burnett is equally frank about Olly Croft. “I could never get on with Olly,” he says. “He didn’t like me because I was too honest.” Still, he speaks with pride about the original group of players who made the jump. “Those fourteen players — I take my hat off to them. They put everything on the line.”

Recognition, he feels, was lacking at the time. “I moved, left a void behind… three finals in four years, then gone, and no recognition.” But what mattered more was respect. “That means everything to me. The rest doesn’t matter.”

Mention Lakeside and Burnett’s memories become sensory. “When you’re there — in the hotel, walking to the hall — it’s something you can’t describe,” he says. “It’s the scent, the atmosphere.”

Ahead of his 1995 title win, confidence wasn’t in short supply. “I said to myself, if I don’t win this, I’m jumping in the lake,” he recalls. “I honestly hadn’t lost a game of darts for months.”

The pain, though, lingers more sharply. The 1998 final loss to Raymond van Barneveld still hurts. “That broke my heart,” Burnett admits. “I averaged 98, couldn’t hit a double, and still won more legs than him. He just kept hitting that last dart.”

Ware later touches on Burnett’s darkest period, which Burnett traces back to the late 1990s. “It started to get to me,” he says. “Politics, life problems — it all piled up.”

His response was extreme but effective. “I locked myself in a room for two weeks and just threw darts,” he says. “I was black and blue.” On the oche, he forced himself through it with aggression. “You have to be aggressive. I told myself: you are going.”

The physical release became part of his game — including his trademark leg kicks. “I nearly fell over,” he laughs. “I almost kicked myself in the back of the head.” But it worked. “I love the game. I love competing.”

The most difficult chapter comes with the doping ban following a positive test for cocaine. Burnett corrects one detail immediately. “It was two years — but really it was 28 months,” he says. “My suspension ended in March, but I had to wait until January to play again.”

He doesn’t dodge responsibility. “It was a stupid mistake and a low point,” he admits. But darts never left him. “I still practised every day. I couldn’t stop playing. I wish it never happened — but I moved on.”