After four decades as an iconic ref, ‘Voice of Darts’ Russ Bray has moved away from the stage. Now, he’s helping take darts to the world.
If the name Russ Bray doesn’t ring a bell, his voice will. Those rasping, roaring ‘ONNNNNE HUUUUUUUNDRED AND EEEEIIIIIGHHTYYYYYY!’ calls are as much a feature of the darts as a pint or the board itself.
The distinctive voice is not a stage trick. Even if the video link hadn’t been working when we chatted to him just after his return from the Asian Tour in Malaysia, audio alone would have been enough to know we had the right person.
For those not familiar, he introduces himself: “I’m a professional darts referee, which basically is the guy that stands on the side of the stage, and calls the numbers out for what the dart players score.”
Quite a simplistic way to summarise a career that’s spanned more than 40 years, venues around the world, and some of the sport’s most memorable moments. However, Bray fell into the whole thing “purely by accident”. He describes his first ever darts experience, where he was drafted in to make up numbers as a player: “We won – not by any great shakes from me! – but we won the actual match, and I won a little medal.
“Darts is one of these games where you can get really hooked, and I was hooked, hook, line, and sinker.”
His refereeing debut was also a stroke of luck – when the caller didn’t show up for a county match, he was drafted in last minute. It happened again; he stepped in again. When what is now the Professional Darts Corporation split away from the British Darts Organisation in the 1990s, Bray joined them as a reserve referee and quickly became full-time. Since then, he has called iconic moments like 17 televised nine-darters and one of the greatest World Championship finals ever, between Phil Taylor and Raymond van Barneveld in 2007.
Finally, in 2024, Bray ended his full-time refereeing career – but he’s far from leaving the sport. As well as the odd bit of refereeing, he’s now a PDC ambassador – a role created specifically for him – and is pushing darts forward from behind the scenes rather than on the stage.
“I’m very lucky that within the game, most people, everybody knows who I am,” Bray explains. “If you take something like the Asian Tour, which I’ve been doing since 2018 anyway, and things like the World Series – because I know these different people in the different countries anyway, I’ve got an affinity with them. I can discuss things, I can sort things out, because I know who to go to, I know who the people are.”
When asked what exactly he’s been sorting out, he smiles. “A real simple thing – the Asian players that are qualified for the World Cup, which is in June – shirt sizes.
“It sounds really stupid, but I’ve got every shirt size here that’s possible for the manufacturers that make the World Cup shirts. So I took them out with me to Malaysia last weekend. All the guys that have qualified, what I’ve got to do is make sure all their shirt sizes are the correct sizes for them and things like that.
“It’s a real silly, simple thing, but it’s something that needs to be done.”
Bray’s role is no longer constrained to a match at a time. He’s taken on responsibility in the sport as a whole – far outside the UK. With his vast darts connections, he helps oversee events across the globe like the Asian Tour and Australian Premier League. It means that stepping back from refereeing hasn’t exactly been a slippers-on, pipe-out retirement. He tells Sidelines that in 2019, his busiest ever year, he was home for 61 days. Last year, after stepping home, he was still only home for 82.
It speaks to his passion: growing darts across the world. As Bray tells Sidelines about the trajectory of the sport, his enthusiasm is infectious.
“The way darts has come along since, certainly since the PDC was formed, and since I joined just 18 months afterwards, it’s gone from zero to off the scale.”
“And it’s still riding the crest of a wave, and it’s still hurtling along at 100 miles an hour, and it’s still getting bigger and bigger. There’s places we haven’t even really touched yet.” He speaks with characteristic eagerness about being invited out to Chile, the increase in teams participating in this year’s World Cup, the opportunity to grow darts in places like West Africa.
Bray emphasises the importance of putting in place the right infrastructure and organisers. He gives the example of India, which he says has recently gone from having 35 to 135 players in their World Cup qualifying. “It’s having the proper infrastructure in place within these countries, and so then they can develop it bigger. You know, I can go out and push, I can put them in the right places, I can put them to the right people, and that’s the other part and parcel of what I’ve been doing.” Does that mean fans will start to see more world champions from different parts of the world? “Definitely.”
He raves about the “fantastic” increase in youth academies in the UK, adding: “The whole infrastructure in darts itself is getting bigger and bigger and bigger, and we can put that in any country in the world, and that’s what we’re aiming to do.”
Speaking to Bray, his love and energy for the game radiates through the screen. He grins as he mimics the building rumble of a crowd when they see a player hit two treble 20s: “It’s as exciting as they come.”
“If you’re up on that stage and it all goes wrong – you are on your own.
“Four, five, six, seven thousand people behind you screaming and it’s all going wrong for you – it’s the loneliest place in the world. If you can battle that out and people see that, that’s exciting. That’s what the buzz is all about. That’s what’s kept me in the game.
In his distinctive Cockney twang, he sums up the growth of the game that’s taken him from a stand-in ref to one of sport’s most famous voices: “It’s a pub game? No pub game no more.”
