The voice of the World Cup darts, which literally everyone recognizes: “You would almost buy a ticket to hear him scream 180”

A referee doesn’t really exist in darts. Among other things, the caller calls out the scores and who can start a leg first. But someone like Russ Bray doesn’t immediately have much more responsibility.

“If someone does something in football that is not allowed, they will receive a yellow card,” said darts icon Raymond van Barneveld at Viaplay. “And if that happens twice, you can leave the field. Everything is allowed here. We sometimes call the caller an umpire, but he is far from that. That’s just an announcer, nothing more. If there is a disturbance during a match, that person does not intervene. It just doesn’t do anything.”

However, Van Barneveld forgot that Bray intervened in May of this year during an argument between Gerwyn Price and Adrian Lewis. And that he tried to keep the crowd in check in a Premier League final in Aberdeen, much to the frustration of Michael van Gerwen.

180

But the caller mainly takes care of the entertainment that is darts, especially someone like Bray. He has now been in the business for 26 years, having once acted as a substitute for a caller who failed to show up for a local game and did so well that the PDC (Professional Darts Corporation) promptly offered him a contract. Since then, the 180s he called have been typical.

“You have to have a certain charisma and charisma,” says Dutch caller Marco Meijer at VICE. “I do think I have a strong voice. Everyone also has their own identity when broadcasting the 180. Among all those Brits, I am the only one with a Dutch accent. Darts fans blindly recognize all the callers’ voices, including mine. Furthermore, Russ Bray’s in particular is of course iconic. You’d almost buy a ticket to hear him scream 180. He just gets ten thousand people crazy by default.”

Bray still plays darts himself. Before moving into the caller role, he was with a team from Hertfordshire. “I’m not as good as I was then,” the Englishman told Sky Sports. “The level at the time was quite good, but I never actually won competitions. I threw a 180 once, but that was it. And today most darts fans would beat me.”

Where his fantastic darts voice comes from, that is also a mystery to Bray. It doesn’t require much maintenance. He has long stopped smoking and also drinks only sporadically. “I like my whiskey every now and then. I’ve never had a sore throat either.”

Bray also uses his voice for other things. He dreams of a job in Hollywood, but has already appeared in – for example – a children’s series. “I even had to sing there,” he laughs. “But I would love to be able to use my voice in movies. I now have a good resume.”

Russ Bray has also been around for years. He has seen darts change over the years.

“The level and the talent, that has risen enormously. When I started, there was Phil Taylor who was head and shoulders above the rest. Then there were five good darts players. Now everyone can win a top tournament. Taylor and Michael van Gerwen set the benchmark, but today all top 32 players can average 100. That was not always the case. You also have more figures these days and some fantastic darts players.”