Rtn. Darren Herbert - 2012 London Olympics

Games Maker Darren Herbert told the club that all the volunteers got was a uniform and an Oyster card for free travel but he looked on it as a fantastic experience and the slick presentation made him feel very proud.

He said his trail to the Olympics started at a 9am meeting in Gateshead in May 2011 and it was in the September that he learned he was one of the 70,000 selected from the 250,000 who applied to be volunteers.

In February 2012 he attended Wembley Arena for a safety awareness briefing when they were told it was important that they enjoyed themselves.

He was allocated to the ExCel centre which was divided into five sports halls with capacities ranging from 6,000 to 10,000, staging boxing, fencing, judo, taekwondo, table tennis, weightlifting and wrestling.

As the announcer at Barrow AFC's games, Darren said he was particularly pleased to meet Peter Dickson, one of the most prominent TV voice artists in the world today doing the voice-overs for The X Factor, Britain's Got Talent, Live at the Apollo and a host of other TV shows.

He said the Army were fantastic in the way they stepped in to help with the stewarding and security when the company originally given the job could not meet the demands.
He said the atmosphere in the ExCel for the weightlifting was quite remarkable but it wasn't all plain sailing.

Some of the event went on to very late in the night, even to the early morning. When an Irish boxer won a gold medal around midnight his followers turned to Darren to get the bar re-opened.

"There was nothing I could do." said Darren, "even when they produced a man and said 'His lad has just won gold - open the bar and let us celebrate'."

Darren is pictured with President Alf.