Raymond
Van Barneveld
“Barney”
as he is affectionately known, first came to the attention of the British public
at the Lakeside in 1991 in the World Championship, but it was not until 1998
that he really started to make his mark in Britain by winning the title. Since
then he has not looked back on a career that has been phenomenal in its success.
Barney has won many major titles and in
2006 after winning his fourth B.D.O. World Title the year before he hoped
to equal Bristow’s early feat of winning a world championship title five
times, but he did not make it until 2007, as he lost to fellow Dutchman Jelle
Klaassen.
He
has had many major wins since the 1990’s throughout Europe in Belgium, Sweden,
Finland, Norway, Denmark and of course his home country of Holland. In 2003
during the Swiss Open Barney hit the ultimate 9 dart game and he did it again on
television in March 2006.
Barneveld
was born on April 20th 1967 in The Hague in the Netherlands and has
been playing darts since 1984.
For
15 years he competed in the B.D.O. and then joined the P.D.C. in February 2006
because he
wanted “a greater challenge” and he “wanted to play the likes of Phil
Taylor.” He has had his wish granted several times now and in the UK open last
year (2006) he beat Phil Taylor in the quarter finals. Then a few weeks later he
beat him again in the semi finals of the Las Vegas Desert Classic. Incredibly he
also beat Taylor again in 2007 in the P.D.C. World Championship after a grueling
final. Barneveld has also lost several games though to Taylor, but the fact
remains that Barney is one of the few players to beat the legendary Phil Taylor
and he is sure to go down in the history books as the greatest Dutch player ever
and the greatest Non British player in the history of the game.
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