DARREN BEVERIDGE hid his darts in the GLOVEBOX of his car after giving up the sport for a year.
But ‘Ice Cold’ decided to get the arrows out for another throw and now finds himself in the last 64 of the World Championship.
Musselburgh-based Beveridge, 33, faces Madars Razma on Monday as he aims to emulate idol Gary Anderson, who hails from the same place in East Lothian.
He revealed: “I hid my darts in my glovebox for a year and randomly picked them back up in 2023.
“I went back to Q School and got my tour card after years of trying.
“I had packed it in in 2022. I stopped playing darts for a year. I took my dartboard down. I packed in. You can ask my partner. I just felt like I’d tried that hard for so long to get nothing back. It was just mentally exhausting.
“I thought, I can’t take this anymore, so I put my darts away for a while. I said I’m never going to pick them up until I feel like I want to play again.
“I was just sitting in my living room watching the Worlds and watching some of them play, going: ‘I used to be able to do that’.
“Then I put my old board up and had a throw and went: ‘I’m still quite good at this’. Went and won a competition and asked [my management] Dunvegan if they would sponsor me back for Q School.
“I went back and managed to get my Tour card. I think it was on Twitter. It was early December or late November.
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“I put out a Tweet saying ‘to Q School or not to Q School’. So many people said, you need to go, you need to go.
“Ideally, I only went just to see where my game was. It just so happened that I went through.”
Beveridge, an aeroplane parts quality inspector, thought his darting dreams were over after quitting work only to miss out on making the PDC tour.
He added: “It was back when I was on the Challenge Tour. I was playing really well at the time. I was dedicating probably 90 per cent of my life to playing darts.
“I said, I’m playing really well. Maybe it was the wrong decision.
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“I expected myself to get a Tour card, so I gave my job up, went to Q School, didn’t get a tour card. Kept trying and sort of hung in, just mentally drained myself out, to be honest.
“So I had to go back to work, sort of re-evaluate things and came back.”
Beveridge now hopes to continue that great Scottish run of success after Anderson and Peter Wright.
He added: “I don’t want Scottish darts to just disappear and everybody remembers when Gary and Peter used to play a lot.
“I want there to be future players like myself and Cammy and Greg Ritchie who’s coming through. I want there to be other people following in his footsteps, so Scottish darts isn’t forgotten.”
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