Darren Burnett has achieved more in lawn bowling than he could have ever dreamt of when he first set out as a child.
The Arbroath man, 46, is a two-time Commonwealth Games gold medallist, has won a total of five outdoor and indoor world titles and is the only Scot to have the full set of Scottish and British titles in juniors, singles, pairs, triples and fours.
Four of his titles have particular sentimental value, having been won alongside his brother Ryan, 29, and his late father Willie.
Reflecting on the expectations of the Muirfield Primary School pupil who first competed as an eight year old at the Perth Open, he asks: “Did I think I could go as far as I have?”
The answer is a simple “no way”.
Darren’s success on the rink has come alongside a 28-year career as a frontline police officer in Dundee and Arbroath.
In that time he has witnessed many horrors and suffered a broken metatarsal (caused by a stiletto) while attending a Dundee pub disturbance. More recently he fractured his arm in five places while in pursuit of a suspect in Arbroath.
Darren’s fascinating story – including his preparations for his seventh Commonwealth Games, being held in Birmingham this summer – is laid out in the following sections:
- Promising swimmer
- Family titles
- Commonwealth successes
- Police trauma and breaking bones on duty
- Preparing for Birmingham
- Pride of Arbroath
Promising swimmer
While bowling is woven into the Burnett DNA, there was at least one other sport that Darren could have focused on instead.
His father Willie bowled for Scotland in the early 1980s and his mother Margaret, now 66, was also a keen exponent of the sport. Brother Ryan currently bowls professionally in Australia.
As a youngster, Darren enjoyed football and golf but it was swimming that was the biggest threat to a life dedicated to bowling.
“I did it every morning before school with Arbroath St Thomas swimming club,” he says. “I swam two or three evenings. The club coaches were excellent.
“It was a big thing for me growing up. I reached Scotland B Level and swam reasonably competitively for the club.”
‘It was just a dream’
If one was to rate sports out of 10 by niche, swimming might be a solid five or six. But bowls would be much higher, which is why Darren ultimately chose the latter.
“Bowls was where I had the most potential,” he says.
At the age of eight his father took him to the Perth Open, one of many former tournaments in local towns popular with holidaymakers.
“I played a guy from England but lost,” Darren says. “But a couple of years later I managed to win it.
“It was my first reasonably big trophy and I will never forget that.”
As he developed, so did his aspirations.
“You’re young you just want to be the best you can but when you start winning things you start to put more pressure on yourself because you begin to think that you could achieve something.
“Back when I was 10 and 11 I dreamed of winning the Scottish title but it was only a dream.
“When you start getting in the national final you start thinking that you can do this. Then you target British events, then world events, then the Commonwealth Games, which is the pinnacle of our sport.
“It was just a dream. I knew I could go close to a national title but did I think I could go as far as I have? No way.”
Family titles
Darren says one of his biggest achievements has been winning all 10 national events in Scottish and British bowls.
His breakthrough came in 1998 when he won the first of four consecutive Scottish juniors (under 25s) titles.
It was also the year that he won the British triples title in Swansea, alongside his father Willie and Arbroath club-mate Doug Farquharson.
“In the semi-final we played Tony Allcock, who was, and is, a legend in the sport and then we played John Price and Stephen Rees from Wales – two other legends – in the final.
“It wasn’t just the winning of that British triples it was who we beat in the semis and final. In those days I looked up to people like that. It was quite surreal to be, one, competing with them and, two, beating them.
“I was young at that time. I was 22 and playing against these legends of our sport. When you win with other people from your club, especially with your dad, it is special.”
More than a decade and a half later, in 2016, Darren needed just the British pairs to become the first Scot to complete the set of 10 titles.
Ryan flew in from Australia to Llanelli, south Wales, and the brothers duly claimed the crown. The title was their third as a pair, having previously won the Scottish pairs together in 2010 and 2015.
“That remains quite special,” says Darren. “To have achieved the full set of titles, when you think of all the talent Scotland has in bowls, and helped by two family members is a massive achievement.”
Ryan has also won golds in the world juniors singles in 2015 and the Australian Open fours in 2017 and 2018.
Commonwealth successes
If domestic success has brought Darren the most satisfaction, his victory at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow provoked the strongest emotions.
“The Commonwealth Games is the biggest prize in bowling because it is a multi sport competition,” he says. “It is our Olympics.”
Darren had experienced disappointments in previous Games and he was not even guaranteed to have a place in the singles.
In 2002 he lost at the quarter-final stage in Manchester and finished ninth four years later in Melbourne. In 2010 he was in a pair who lost the semi-final to South Africa and then the bronze medal playoff to Malaysia in a tiebreak.
“For Glasgow there were quite a few choices for singles,” Darren says. “I was singles in the early days but Paul Foster was in the singles in Delhi but he didn’t make it so the selection panel decided to give me a go again.”
‘That will forever live with me’
The year 2014 got off to the best possible start as Darren claimed his first world indoor singles title in January with a tiebreak win over 2006 champion Mervyn King.
This competition takes place every year at Potters Resorts in Hopton-on-Sea, Norfolk, which again played host 10 years later when Darren added pairs and mixed pairs titles with Stewart Anderson and Katherine Rednall, respectively. In January 2022 Darren won another pairs title with Stewart, an Ayrshire warehouse operative.
“The win in January 2014 gave me confidence going into the Commonwealth Games,” Darren recalls. “I just felt I was in a good place.”
His biggest test at Kelvingrove was against Northern Ireland’s Martin McHugh in the quarter-finals.
“I was never in the game,” says Darren. “I was 6-1 down, then 13-6 down and 20-13 down.
“I had no right to win the game but I just managed to keep winning ones and twos and in the end I came back and beat him 21-20.
“The amount of people driving me on in that match got me over the line. That was the match I could easily have been taken out and it would have been another quarter-final exit and I could almost have been described as a failure – but that’s the sport.”
In the semi-finals Darren comfortably disposed of Australia’s Aron Sherriff 21-15 and he easily toppled Canada’s Ryan Bester 21-9 to claim the gold medal.
“That feeling of winning the gold medal will live with me forever,” Darren says. “That will be my single biggest achievement in the sport. It is hard to eclipse that.”
‘I almost walked away’
Indeed, in the aftermath Darren almost considered quitting the sport – only for him to realise that a new challenge awaited at the 2018 Commonwealth Games.
“I almost walked away after Glasgow because I just didn’t think that could be beaten,” he says. “If the next one hadn’t have been at the Gold Coast in Australia I don’t know if I would have continued beyond the 2014 Commonwealths.
“But there was something that wanted me to keep going because Australia runs bowls so professionally.
“They have the weather as well – that we don’t here – so they can almost play outdoor bowls 12 months of the year.
“Our UK greens are totally different to the greens in the southern hemisphere – Australia and New Zealand.
“It’s almost like a different sport. It’s almost like playing indoor bowls because indoor surfaces are faster.
“Yes we have indoors but with that you don’t have the wind or the elements so you can’t replicate to what you will get out there.
“If you go to Australia and win a medal on surfaces very different to ours then it is a great achievement.”
And so it was that Darren went to the Gold Coast in spring 2018 and duly collected his second Commonwealth gold, defeating hosts Australia 19-14 in the triples final alongside Ronnie Duncan and Derek Oliver.
“Glasgow was amazing and hard to ever beat, but to go and do that was a different type of challenge,” Darren says.
“The atmosphere was phenomenal. That was the drive needed to keep me going. It was the fact that to do it in Australia was a tough ask. It ended well.”
Police trauma and breaking bones on duty
Financially it is not feasible to be a professional bowler in the UK but there are opportunities in Australia and, increasingly, in Malaysia.
However, Darren wanted to stay local so took on a full-time job as a policeman at the age of 17, soon after graduating from Arbroath High School.
For the first 18 years he was a community officer in Dundee, before taking on a similar post in Arbroath where he still works.
“The priority was to get a secure job because without that, would my head be into playing bowls at a level when I am concentrating on other things?” Darren says.
“It both came together back then and it wasn’t an option to play full-time in the UK – it would have probably been to go to Australia.
“I wanted a job where there wouldn’t be the same day twice and the police gave me that option. I felt it was good for communication skills.
“If I could go in front of a camera and speak to the TV cameras about bowls then surely I could have a conversation one on one on the street or at a police station.
“I have had the best of both. I have been able to compete around the world but also hold down a career that will hopefully set me up in my later years.
“My brother has done it the other way. He went out to Australia to play bowls from a young age.”
‘We deal with death’
Being a community cop also brings the father-of-two into some grim situations.
“We deal with death, unfortunately, quite regularly,” says Darren, who has been married to Linsey, 41, for 15 years. Their two daughters are Isla, 13, and Evie, 11.
“That could be from the scene of a road traffic accident, to drugs. It could be people just dying.
“Some things, when you have your own kids, are tough to deal with. You see some stuff at work and you start to think about things.
“There is a lot of trauma in the job but you are trained to try to deal with that the best you can. And the police, like most places now, have a lot of support services in place because we are asked to deal with a lot.”
‘She stood on my toe with her stiletto’
Despite the training, receiving freak injuries on the job has been hard for Darren to accept.
One such incident took place ahead of the world championships a decade ago.
Darren was called to a disturbance at the former Lloyds bar (now Market Dundee) in Seagate.
“There was a melee happening in the pub and we were trying to get in there as quick as we could to split it up,” he says.
“As I went in the door there was a girl with the biggest pair of stilettos you could find going out.
“She stood on my toe with her stiletto heal and it broke the metatarsal bone in the big toe on my right foot. It was a total freak.”
He was still able to compete in the tournament but it was a struggle.
“I still played but was hobbling up and down the green, Darren recalls. “I won my first game and then lost my second game in singles.”
‘It wasn’t funny fracturing the humerus’
An even worse injury occurred at the beginning of 2021 when Darren fell while pursuing a suspect in Arbroath, leaving the humerus part of his left arm fractured in five places.
He could at least console himself with the fact that the break was not on the right arm that he bowls with.
“It wasn’t funny fracturing the humerus!” Darren says. “I am still recovering and still getting physio and at the gym.
“Breaking my right arm would have been really problematic but it was my left.
“But still, of all the things I have dealt with in the police, I wouldn’t have thought I would have sustained such a serious injury just through chasing after somebody.
“That is one I will never forget in service – the day I went chasing after somebody and did in my left arm.”
Preparing for Birmingham
As well as the Commonwealth golds, the national titles and the world indoors titles, Darren won the world outdoors title in Adelaide in 2012.
Alongside Graeme Archer and David Peacock, he was in Scotland’s triples side that defeated hosts Australia 13-12 in the gold medal match.
Darren is now preparing to add to his tally in this year’s Birmingham Commonwealth Games, which will be held between July 28 and August 8.
He will skip the triples team with Lanarkshire’s Iain McLean in the middle and Stewart Anderson leading. Darren will also play in the fours alongside Alex Marshall, Paul Foster and Stewart.
Preparations have been good. Darren and Stewart won the world indoors pairs together in January and the Scottish team have been busy spending time acclimatising to the conditions at Victoria Park in Royal Leamington Spa, where the bowls competition will be held.
Darren is also training four to five days a week, often at his local team Arbroath Bowling Club, to further hone his skills.
“The five males and five females picked for the Commonwealth Games are talented,” Darren says. “We have gold medal potential.
“I am looking forward to being in two team events. With the singles the crowd makes the atmosphere but when you are in a team you can make it yourself and you can have some banter on the rink.
“I have achieved everything – and more – that I could honestly have hoped for and I still hope I can add to the tally. I wouldn’t be going to this year’s Commonwealth Games if I didn’t think I could.”
‘A holiday home with Airbnb’
Given Darren considered quitting lawn bowl as long as eight years ago, might Birmingham be his swansong?
“I very much take it tournament to tournament because it is a big two-year cycle,” says Darren, who is currently ranked 15 in the indoor world rankings.
“If I stay in the top 16 I will probably keep going to the indoor world championships but you are dedicating two years of your life to the Commonwealth Games and you have to be in the right place to do that.
“It has been a phenomenal career. I have had great support from the wife and kids. They get behind me 100% and come with me to the events.
“They will come to Leamington Spa and have booked a holiday home with Airbnb. The support of family, friends and colleagues makes you more successful.”
Pride of Arbroath
He is also grateful for the support of Arbroath, which was underlined in January 2022 when he became an ambassador of the town’s football club alongside darts star Alan Soutar, tennis ace Jonny O’Mara and golf commentator Ewen Murray.
The Angus town is additionally the home of Commonwealth Games boxing medallist George Ferrie and champion bodybuilder Sam Evans.
“I am quite a homely person, which is probably a strange thing to say for someone who has toured the world playing bowls,” says Darren.
“This year in particular has been an amazing year for Arbroath, from my success in bowling, Alan Soutar in darts, Arbroath Football Club…
“It’s just been a phenomenal year for the town. Towns like Arbroath have always got potential to have success but to have everything in the same year is probably quite unusual.
“I have always liked Arbroath as a town and never felt the need to leave it, both from a personal point of view and in terms of its sporting facilities. It has all I want.
“There is a great community spirit and there is this massive drive with the football club helping me when I am competing and I will try to help them when I am back there.
“I am fairly hopeful that most of the town will want me to do well anyway but having that feel-good factor going to an event makes it that bit more special.”
Conversation