Ex-darts world champ was left penniless and drained radiator water to cook Pot Noodle

Darts has certainly benefited from a financial boom in recent years, with big-money prizes on offer for the stars of the sport. At the World Championship later this year, Luke Littler and co. will be competing for an eye-watering prize of £1million - the biggest in the tournament's history.

Back in the day though, things were much different, with some of the world's best struggling to earn what a relatively average arrowsmith pockets in the modern day. Richie Burnett was certainly considered one of the best during his heyday, with the Welshman having won the BDO World Darts Championship in 1995, before rising to the No.1 spot in the tour's ranking.

However, unbeknownst to Burnett at the time, the darts ace would soon run into financial difficulties, leaving him no choice but to go to extreme lengths just to feed himself. Speaking to The Mirror, Burnett opened up about the time he was living on benefits and couldn't even afford a kettle to boil water for a Pot Noodle.

He said: "When times were hard and I had no money, I was in Wigan for a tournament and bought myself a Pot Noodle for my tea. But I didn't have a kettle to boil water for it. The only thing I could do was drain the radiator from my room and use the hot water from that. It was all soily and brown but it worked and the Pot Noodle went down okay."

On the ordeal, Burnett continued: "But I'd used a pair of nail scissors to open up the valve and it wouldn't shut again, so hot, brown water was leaking out. All I could do was put a tray underneath it to catch it all. I didn't get much sleep because I had to get up every hour to tip the water down the sink."

Financial hardship continued into the 2000s, with Burnett's form also dropping off a cliff. There was a turnaround in the early 2010s, but more misfortune struck in 2015 when he was banned from darts for 18 months after testing positive for cocaine.

Burnett's rollercoaster career has since led him to competing in the Modus Super Series, with the darts ace claiming his motivation to continue is because he is "skint". In a more recent interview with The Mirror, he explained: "Yeah, I mean look, it's hard. You're going to have good legs and bad legs, but I'm digging in there and I want to win because I'm skint, you know. I need to win."