Kirk Bevins says being a series champion of gameshow Countdown helped him take aim at his career as a TV darts referee.
He added being on telly on the Ch4 programme meant he was immediately relaxed on stage in big tournaments.
Nicknamed the Kirkulator, he was 2009 champ of the words and numbers show. He then quit as a maths teacher and began officiating at darts events that aren’t on TV.
Kirk, 35, said: “The word got around that I had won Countdown, and several players went to the tournament director to say ‘Kirk is very good’.
“Phil Taylor – one of the greatest ever players – said, ‘you need to be on TV’. I said, ‘you’re the man to get me there’.
“He spoke to the tournament director, and they asked me if I wanted to do it on telly. It was really cool.” Kirk made his debut at the World Matchplay in 2012, and is one of only four official match referees on the PDC circuit.
He said his major issue was learning how to project his voice when calling out the numbers, adding: “After the first time, I was an octave too high.
“I practised in the shower, out in the field... I’d change to see what it sounded like and then over the years it gets better. Even things like slowing my speech to build tension – as a darts fan I knew that would be a good thing to do.”
He is spearheading a PDC campaign – Bullseye Maths – to get primary school children interested in mathematics.
Kirk said: “I tell the kids, ‘arithmetic is the basis of everything’.
"Ideally you want to know all your times tables up to 12x12. Once you’ve got those sorted, remember that 7x8 is the same as 8x7 - If you know what 3x8s are, you can do algebra. And once you have that arithmetic sorted, life becomes easier.”
- Visit www.pdc.tv/maths for more information on the PDC’s new Bullseye Maths initiative.
