Raymond van Barneveld meets childhood hero Aad van Toor

There was a special meeting for Raymond van Barneveld last Tuesday. He met Aad van Toor, better known as the acrobat of the popular Dutch children's series Bassie & Adriaan.

''Today I met one of my childhood heroes,'' Van Barneveld wrote on his socials. ''We had a nice conversation and took a picture. We will continue working together on a new series Barney and Adriaan'', the Dutchman joked in conclusion. Van Barneveld was born in 1967, so he experienced some of the series of Bassie & Adriaan in his teenage years. For example, "The Tease" was taped in 1978, and "The Secret of the Key" aired that same year.

As a world-famous dart player, Van Barneveld often encounters famous people. For example, at the last World Darts Championship, the five-time world champion met Tottenham Hotspur defender Micky van der Ven.

When Van Barneveld initially retired from darts in 2020 (he eventually returned in 2021), a number of celebrities also descended on his farewell evening. Among others, Robin van Perise, Rafael van der Vaart, Bobbi Eden and Rico Verhoeven stopped by to join 'Barney' at the AFAS Live.

Van Barneveld is also good friends with rapper Maradonnie. The pair decided to join forces in 2017 and create a darts song together. That led to the release of the song "180 Left Lane".

In September 2009, Van Barneveld met another hero. He went to a meet & greet of Sylvester Stallone. This world-famous actor played the lead role in the Rocky series.

The song "Eye of the Tiger," used by Van Barneveld as his walk on song, was written as a song for the movie Rocky III.

We previously saw a photo of an encounter between Van Barneveld and Dutch kickboxer Rico Verhoeven. In 2018, he also met English boxer Anthony Joshua. The world-famous boxer had traveled all the way to Rotterdam to watch a round of Premier League Darts play.