Former darts world champion forced to use water from the radiator for pot noodle after losing fortune

A darts player who won the 1995 BDO World Championship found himself in a sad situation just years later.

These days, darts is one of the fastest growing sports in Northern Europe with stars such as Luke Littler pocketing huge purses for their efforts.

Littler, 18, and current world No. 1 Luke Humphries are reportedly the sport’s current highest earners.

‘Cool Hand’ has reportedly pocketed £1,905,750 in prize money over the last two years, while Littler earned £1,292,000 in the same period.

However, darts stars were not always paid so handsomely, and former BDO world champion and PDC World Championship quarter-finalist Richie Burnett found this out when he ran into difficult times.

Burnett, 58, won the BDO World Championship in 1995, but by the 2000s he was struggling financially and had little to show for his success in the sport.

So much so, that he told the Mirror he once had "no money" to buy a kettle so had to drain hot water from his radiator to make a Pot Noodle for his tea.

"When times were hard and I had no money, I was in Wigan for a tournament and bought myself a Pot Noodle for my tea,” Burnett said.

"But I didn't have a kettle to boil water for it," he added. "The only thing I could do was drain the radiator from my room and use the hot water from that. It was all soily and brown but it worked and the Pot Noodle went down OK.

"But I'd used a pair of nail scissors to open up the valve and it wouldn't shut again, so hot, brown water was leaking out.

Richie Burnett in 2022 (Credit:Getty)

"All I could do was put a tray underneath it to catch it all. I didn't get much sleep because I had to get up every hour to tip the water down the sink."

But despite the challenges he faced, the Welsh darts player bounced back and reached the final eight of the Grand Prix in 2014.

"I've been an idiot over the years, I've really underachieved, I've been an absolute maniac but I've never harmed anybody, only been a fool to myself," Burnett explained.

"I'm just making up for lost time."