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'Raymond van Barneveld' (born April 20 1967 in The Hague, Netherlands), nickname 'Barney' and 'The Man', is a professional darts player. He is the current PDC World Darts Champion, UK Open Champion & the Las Vegas Desert Classic Champion.
His victory in the 2007 final, added to his four previous BDO Championships brought him level with Eric Bristow as a five-time world champion. He is the most successful Dutch darts player ever, and has a significant effect in putting the game of darts on the map in The Netherlands.

Contents

BDO career

PDC career

Barney Army

References

External links

BDO career

Barneveld's first World Championship appearance came in 1991 playing in the Embassy World Championship at the Lakeside Country Club, but his first round match ended in a 0-3 defeat to Australian Keith Sullivan.
He started to make some progress on the British Darts Organisation circuit, reaching the quarter-finals of the Belgian Open in September 1990 and the German Open in March 1991. His first semi-final came at the Swiss Open in June 1991.
He failed to qualify for the World Championship in 1992, but made it back to Lakeside in 1993, which would be the last time that a unified World Championship would be staged. Barneveld lost in a close match 2-3 to John Lowe, who would go on to win the championship. Shortly after the 1993 World Final, the top players in the game at the time formed the World Darts Council (WDC, now the PDC) and left the BDO.
Barneveld continued to make progress in the BDO Open events in 1994 after the split, reaching the quarter-finals at the Dutch Open and Berlin Open, the semi-final at the Belgium Open and his first final, at the Finnish Open where he lost to Andy Fordham.
He continued his good run of form into the 1995 World Championship by putting out Les Wallace, Dave Askew, Colin Monk and Martin Adams to reach his first World Final. But it ended in defeat 3-6 to Welshman Richie Burnett.
After second round defeats in 1996 and 1997, the former postman took his first world title in 1998 by beating Richie Burnett in a repeat of the 1995 final. This match however is often listed amongst the greatest of all-time having gone to a sudden death leg when the match score reached 5-5 in sets and 5-5 in legs.
He successfully defended the trophy one year later by the same winning margin, this time against Ronnie Baxter of England. He is only the second player in the tournament's history to have launched a successful defence of his title; the other being Eric Bristow.
His run of success ended in the first round in 2000, crashing out to Chris Mason, who averaged 100 and ended Barneveld's hopes of a hat-trick of titles.
Barneveld lost in the quarter-finals in 2001 (4-5 to Ted Hankey) and 2002 (3-5 to Mervyn King) before returning to the final in 2003. He clinched his third world title by beating Richie Davies of Wales 6-3.
His 2004 campaign ended in the semi-finals, when Andy Fordham beat him 5-4 in another memorable match.
A fourth title followed in 2005. He never dropped a set in the first three rounds as he beat Gary Anderson, Mike Veitch and Vincent van der Voort. A 5-3 semi-final win over Darryl Fitton and 6-2 triumph over Martin Adams of England) in the final brought him that fourth title.
Barneveld reached his sixth final in 2006, and was aiming to equal Eric Bristow's record of five BDO world titles. On this occasion however, his hopes were ended by 21 year-old fellow countryman Jelle Klaasen who prevailed 7-5.
He has also won the prestigious Winmau World Masters title twice: once in 2001 when he recorded a win in the final over Jarkko Komula of Finland and again in 2005 when he beat Goran Klemme in the final. Other major darts tournaments that he has won at least twice include The World Darts Trophy and The International Darts League.

PDC career

''See article:'' Taylor-Barneveld rivalry
After playing in the BDO for fifteen years, winning four World Championships, van Barneveld announced his move from the BDO to the PDC on 15 February, 2006. He cited his reasons as wanting a greater challenge, and regularly playing against players like Phil Taylor^[1]. He had an incredible first year in the PDC, having started from scratch in the rankings. Within twelve months he had reached World number two and became World Champion.
His PDC debut came in the 2006 Premier League competition. He won his first match convincingly 8-1 against Ronnie Baxter. On March 23 he hit his first televised nine dart finish and faced Phil Taylor later in the same night, fighting back for a 7-7 draw. The re-match came on Barneveld's 39th birthday, but this time Taylor won the deciding leg for an 8-6 victory. Van Barneveld suffered a surprise 11-3 semi-final defeat in the Premier League to fellow Dutchman Roland Scholten.
Van Barneveld then started a very successful run with a 13-5 final victory over Colin Lloyd in the final of the International Darts League for his 11th BDO Grand Slam tournament. He won his first major PDC title in June by beating Barrie Bates in the final of the UK Open at the Reebok Stadium, Bolton. Earlier in the day, he beat Phil Taylor in the quarter-finals, accomplishing one of his dreams which he announced after switching to the PDC. Van Barneveld beat Taylor again just weeks later in the semi-finals of the 2006 Las Vegas Desert Classic. He lost 6-3 to Canadian John Part in the final the following day.
Soon after this Barneveld made alterations to his game, he changed darts and began using the "stacking" technique used by Phil Taylor. The darts used were a gram lighter than his old ones and cost the equivalent of £1 from a local store in Holland.
After losing in the first round of the 2006 Bavaria World Trophy to rising talent Michael van Gerwen, van Barneveld acknowledged that he needed to work on his finishing throws. Although he played well in the Sky Bet World Grand Prix, he lost to Phil Taylor in the second round.
Van Barneveld and Taylor met again in the 2007 PDC World Championship final, in a match which Taylor later described as the best final he had been involved in. Van Barneveld came back from 3 sets down to beat Taylor 7-6 in the sudden death leg in one of the greatest darts matches of all time to match Eric Bristow's record of five world titles. In February 2007 Raymond won the 2007 Masters of Darts tournament by beating Peter Manley 7-0 in sets in the final. His success has also continued away from the cameras.
In the 2007 Premier League Darts, he never fared as well as he did in 2006, losing to Phil Taylor twice, Dennis Priestley and Colin Lloyd in the group section. He did however manage to finish second but lost an exciting but error filled encounter 10-11 to Terry Jenkins in the semi-final.
Barneveld made amends for his disappointing Premier League campaign however by inflicting one of Taylor's heaviest defeats (11-4) in the quarter-final of the 2007 UK Open and went on to successfully defend his title beating Colin Lloyd 11-4 in the semi-final and Vincent van der Voort in the final 16-8. In doing this, Barneveld became the first person to successfully defend the UK Open crown. A month later, he continued his surge of major titles by beating Terry Jenkins 13 legs to 6 in the final of the 2007 Las Vegas Desert Classic. Barneveld's dream of winning the five major PDC tournament titles in 2007- the World Championship, UK Open, Las Vegas Desert Classic, World Matchplay and the World Grand Prix- ended on Thursday 26th July, when he was defeated by Adrian Lewis 16 legs to 14 in the quarter finals of the World Matchplay in Blackpool.
His haul of titles in the PDC has continued to grow since his switch. In addition to his four major titles (the World Championship, two UK Open Championships and the Vegas Desert Classic) - he has added eight non-televised PDC Pro Tour titles (four UK Open Regionals and four Players Championships).

Barney Army

Barneveld now gets chants of 'Barney Army', which is a play on the England cricket team's nickname 'Barmy Army' as a result of the Dutchman's popularity since he joined the PDC in early 2006 and England's disappointing performances in the 2006 Ashes.

References

1. Barneveld's reasons for switching to PDC

External links

★ Raymond van Barneveld web site