LAY-OFF TIMING SO SORE
West Lothian darts ace William had just won his big break on pro tour
A professional darts player from West Lothian is keen to be back playing again after earning his big break on the PDC Tour.
William Borland from East Calder had only been on the tour for a few weeks, competing against the likes of Michael Van Gerwen, when the virus lockdown brought the season to a halt
The 23-year-old said: “It is gutting to be honest, because I went for four weeks and then we got stopped with the lockdown.
“Obviously I have been working on this for years and it just came crashing down so quickly, so it is pretty gutting .
“But I have been keeping myself occupied playing in online competitions in the house. I have been playing in a lot of competitions.
“My friends are running them. I have played in one today (Monday) and I am playing in a tournament tonight as well.
“The PDC are doing a home tour at the minute that is streamed on their website and I am playing in that on Thursday through Facetime.”
William’s meteoric rise began in West Lothian in the local district leagues. He won the Scottish Masters Singles championship aged just 20, adding his name to a winners’ list that includes the likes of Gary Anderson and Jocky Wilson.
At aged 21, he made his television debut playing in the BDO World Trophy where he reached the last 16 and won himself a threeyear sponsorship deal with Winmau.
The PDC came calling and William is delighted to be there – and now just wants to get back playing to consolidate his place at the pinnacle of darts.
He said: “The first year you just have to find your feet to see exactly where you are. You don’t want to be expecting big things right at the start. So I am just using this year for the experience and taking things in. I have taken a couple of big scalps already against Darren Webster, and had close encounters with Michael Van Gerwen and Ian White who both beat me 6-4.
“Of course it is a step up because you are going from playing people with low 90 averages to players with high 90s or 100s averages.
“Sometimes you can even lose with 100 averages so it is a massive step up, but I have been learning a lot and hopefully next year will be when I really start moving up.”
Like almost every other walk of life, darts is in limbo until the lockdown can be lifted, so William doesn’t know when he will be back playing. He says that whilst he thrives off of playing in front of big audiences, dar ts behind closed doors might just be feasible because it has been
trialled before because of bad weather, and the floor tournaments are already played without fans in attendance.
He continued: “I got an email last week from the PDC to say that’s the June calendar month cancelled. Hopefully it doesn’t go on much longer than that.
“Closed doors darts would be different. We had it last year or the year before when we had the bad snow and the UK Open was played behind closed doors, so they have done it before and it was still on the TV.”
In the meantime, William is back home and putting in as much practice as he can.
His passion for darts is something of a family affair and he developed his game alongside his brother, cousins and uncles, playing in West Lothian.
He added: “Everybody in my family played darts, it was basically a big familyorientated thing.
“When I was younger and growing up I would be going away with my brother to play local county games and that is kind of what got me into it.
“Then as I was finding out that I was not bad at the game and practising all the time, I just kept at it and here I am today.
“Now, I just really want to get back to playing.”