Shayne ‘Bulldog’ Burgess is one of darts’s most colourful characters, and he’s a man with a story to tell.
To mark the publication of his autobiography, ‘Everybody Gets Fifteen Quid’, Shayne, from Hastings in Sussex, gave an in-depth interview to Marcus Stead where he discussed his life on and away from the oche.
Shayne, 55, was at his peak in the 1990s and early 2000s. Darts was in a very different place back then.
The early-mid 1990s were tumultuous years for darts. TV broadcasters had scaled back their coverage, and players found it impossible to make a living from the game. Something had to be done.
Most of the world’s best players broke away from the sport’s governing body to form the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC), and the foundations were laid for the multi-million pound sport darts is today. Shayne made the switch to the PDC not long after it was formed.
Shayne’s story is full of ups and downs. He reached three major PDC finals, but in each of them he came up against Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor, the greatest player of all time. By the time big money arrived in the mid-2000s, Shayne’s game was in decline.
But Shayne’s book is no sob story. It’s packed with hilarious anecdotes from the local darts scene in Sussex and Kent, and the professional darts tour of the 1990s and early 2000s.
There are also laugh out loud tales of adventures in his campervan and brushes with the law.
‘Everybody Gets Fifteen Quid’, ghost written by Tony Horne, is available on Amazon, and is published by Wild Wolf Publishing.
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