View from the Boundary - Colson Smith

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You're listening to the TMS Podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live.

Our view from the boundary for this Test match is an award-winning actor and presenter who was part of the iconic soap opera Coronation Street for almost 15 years, playing the part of Weatherfield Police Constable Craig Tinker before his dramatic demise last year. He's also appeared on reality shows like The Games, Celebrity Big Brother, And has become a popular radio presenter in Yorkshire. He's a self-confessed cricket badger, director of cricket at Castleford CC, and involved in a documentary about starting a women's and girls' section called Coulson's Cricket Club. So therefore, a very warm welcome to Coulson Smith.

Good afternoon.

It's lovely to see you here.

Thank you for having me. Very excited to be here.

Well, you can— I mean, you might see an England win here today.

I'm hoping so. I'm definitely hoping so. I think we're in the driving seat, aren't we?

Yes, yes. Have you been following all the, all the shenanigans with English cricket over the last few weeks and months?

I mean, you can't not be following it, can you? It's, um, it's a soap opera in itself really, isn't it? It's been, it's been quite entertaining, but not necessarily for the right reasons. But, um, hopefully we can end on a good final series here in the English Test summer and, you know, look forward to the future. Because I think, you know, what we've seen in like the, the Bazball era as such is the talent that we've got in this side is electric. Like, Harry Brook is— yeah, he's the greatest player in the world. And you, you look at Joe Root and his record, and Brook is the only person who looks like he's got a chance of trying to break it. Yeah, you know, it's exceptional. So no, it's, it's hard not to follow. But let's hope that, um, let's hope that life in the England camp is a little bit calmer for the next year.

That's the word, is it? I mean, were you a bit frustrated by, by the way it all ended?

Yeah, by, by the end, because I mean That's the thing about cricket in any form. You find yourself so invested. And when we're not the people out there in the middle, we can't do it. But it's so easy to sit here and watch and go, well, it's just so simple to knock it about and chase 200 with the talent that we've got. But the way we would obviously go about things. So yeah, frustrating is the word, but also so entertaining. And as someone—

It was certainly that.

Yeah. As someone who kind of in the grassroots game is trying to attract more people to play cricket, and obviously I want more kids playing cricket. This Bazball era has massively helped. Like, it, it's made the game showbiz. Like, we've been on the front page of the paper rather than the back page of the paper. Yeah, which hasn't happened in cricket since probably 2005.

Yeah, true, true, true. Tell me about what this— what you are doing then, um, at Castleford. I've seen videos of you standing outside As if it was a supermarket or where it was quite, uh, handing out leaflets trying to persuade people to come along. So how did, how did this whole thing start?

Yeah, so I, I played cricket as a kid, like before being an actor. I think I wanted to be a cricketer, and I, I went down to my local cricket team and I asked if I could trial Castleford Cricket Club, and the coach Mick turned around to me and he said, no, they can't trial, but you can join. And I was like, all right, I'm in, here we go. I remember playing my first game in the under-11s and kind of going through the age groups there.

What were you doing?

Batter. I could bowl a little bit of offspin, but I'd bowl off the wrong foot, I guess, and I've never been able to fix it.

Spin off the ball, actually. Well, Dan Lawrence is a bit—

Very similar, I would say. Dan's slightly better.

He might have copied you. He might have copied you.

Yeah, maybe.

Maybe. Maybe you sparked him off.

Maybe it's caught on.

It's quite unusual to bowl spin off the wrong foot.

Oh, and I had like some of the very best coaches in Yorkshire, people like John Pearson, try and coach me out of it and just give up. They would just give up and go, no, there's no coaching this lad. He's uncoachable.

I wonder why you did it.

I don't know. But copying somebody still now, if like if I bowl in the nets, I'm off the wrong foot. But I get it. Get it nice. Get some turns. I do.

Yeah. There's another actor who bowls. Well, he claimed to bowl faster off the wrong foot. Stephen Fry. Really? Yeah. He was a kind of a poor man's Mike Proctor. You probably don't remember Mike Proctor. Maybe it's a run in very fast. Bowled off the wrong foot. Stephen Fry, which would be quite a terrifying sight, I think. Uh, also did the same thing. But it's an odd thing, isn't it, to actually let go of it?

Yeah, no, it is an odd thing, but you know, it worked for me. But what happened was I got to that kind of age of 15, and obviously I was on Corrie at this point, and I realized that I wasn't going to be a cricketer. I, I wasn't the best cricketer at my club, and I kind of got more involved with the behind-the-scenes stuff of club cricket. And it started literally with us trying to start an under-15 side for the first time So I would get my mates to start playing cricket and speaking to lads at other clubs saying, why don't you come down and play at Cass? And then 1, 2, skip a few, I was at a committee meeting for my club back in 2016, and the board that were running the club at the time, the committee, they had all kind of reached this age, and they turned around and said, well, we're done, and if no one steps forward, right, like, the club's done.

Yeah.

And Cass Cricket Club, it had been in the Yorkshire League. Um, Tim Bresnan came through Cass, Chris Silverwood did.

Okay.

Kettleborough, like it had such a rich history in it. Well, this club can't be done. Like, that's not how it, it works. But there was just no one around. And obviously I'm 15 years old, so me kind of being like, I, I want to help, was an unheard of thing. But I got involved and I started running the club. And, you know, it, it just kind of—

The whole club?

Like, well, no, it didn't. I, I started— I— my first role was to kind of try and bring some funds in. So I was like a head of partnerships and I was using my showbiz phone book to kind of, of course, try and get a bit of sponsorship, a bit of cash in. Then we realized that the first team didn't have any players, so I kind of went into this director of cricket role where I was in charge of recruitment alongside David Wainwright, who was our captain at the time. And, you know, we're now 10 years in, and I now, I now run the club amongst a committee of, you know, what— when I took on, you know, we were 3 people. We've now got 30 people, and You know, I'm the person who has to sit there once a month and lead this meeting and chat to them all and make sure that we're all getting what we want to kind of give the best. But it's been a really good 10 years. The first year, Agus, I guided us to a relegation.

Well done. Okay, that's fantastic.

Which was the first time in our history. And David Wainwright, who was our captain, he'd just been released from Derbyshire. He grew up at Cass, but he was playing for us out of loyalty. He won the batting average, Ijes, and won the bowling averages, and we still somehow got relegated, which is quite the achievement. Um, but, you know, skip now 10 years and we've won the league 3 times. I think we've won 8 trophies in the past 5 years, so we've really turned a leaf.

But it's extraordinary, a 15-year-old lad, yeah, who's actually working very hard on the other side of the pen, I'll just face it, Coronation Street, and you're being educated, I guess, but on, on stage.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, in a little classroom on, on side of set.

Yeah, and, and then you come over here and you're actually running a cricket club.

Yeah, and it was quite like that, and You know, what you find is the bigger the cricket club gets, the more time it takes off.

Of course.

The beauty of being an actor or, you know, a self-employed broadcaster, presenter, whatever I am now, you do get a little bit of free time. So I kind of do get the time to concentrate. But as a child, literally, I, you know, I was, I was acting on Corrie and I was coming back to watch cricket on a weekend and it's, it's never changed. Like, I had a thing in my head that I would never say yes to a job on Saturdays. like I never did it because I want to be at Cass watching cricket.

Yeah. How are you persuading your 15-year-old-ish mates to come and play cricket then if they hadn't played much before? What, what were you selling them? What about the game? What's, you know, what is it about cricket that, that you really love?

Selling the game, you know, what I've always said, and I still say it now when I, you know, speak to the 9-year-olds that come into a club the first time, is like, I fell in love with this place as child, and all I want to do is see the next Colson fall in love with it. That, that's what I want. And how I fell in love with it by not being the best player means there's something more to the sport than just—

Right.

You know, than being good at it. And, you know, that, that's, that's what we're seeing now. So it's about creating that environment that people can succeed. And I genuinely believe that if I didn't go to a cricket club at the age of 10 years old, I would not have had the career or gone on to do what I've done.

Why is that?

Confidence, a place to call home, um, friends, social, something to be passionate about, something to care about. You know, I, I genuinely think for, for cricket, it, it's been a massive part of my life and it always will be.

Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah, but what's, what's the ground? Is it a proper like a Yorkshire League little, little— I'm trying to picture it.

I'll give you a stat, shall I, then? So Savile Park, um, it's very much a historic ground. It is the largest widthwise non-test playing surface. It is huge. So it's bigger than Headingley widthwise. Um, actually, Rich Robbo, who's the groundsman here, who we can see now in front of us, he was at Cass last Friday, um, with me and my dad, who— my dad I've somehow turned into a groundsman over the past 12 months.

Okay.

Because I was, I was having trouble with my decks, so I got on the phone to the GMC.

You're groundsman as well?

Well, Everything falls at your door and you've got to delegate. And you know, when stuff's struggling, yeah. So I rang the GMCA and I was like, will you give my dad a groundsman's course? Because then at least he will listen to me, whereas other people don't. But yeah, we had Robbo out last week and he was like, I remember playing here as a kid and it, it was flat as anything. And I was like, well, I can tell you now, it's not flat now, Robbo. It's got holes in it. It's turning, everything's— I was like, help me. But yeah, it's genuinely huge. We've got an old brick pavilion. It used to have a balcony back in the 1960s before it had a fire through vandalism in like the early 2000s. So it's kind of a mixture of a beautiful building and then the great work that our local council have done to rectify the fire. So we kind of, we've, you know, got a mixture of personalities in there. And in my time, I've built like a viewing terrace on the— On the balcony. So it's a very rare thing that you can go to a club ground and a bit like ourselves now, you can watch cricket from behind the bowler's arm, above the arm. Oh right, yeah, it's a really great view. Yeah, that's excellent.

Yeah, yeah.

How many come? How many do you get people coming on the weekend? Well, which division, which league are you in?

Yorkshire Premier League North.

Right.

Um, so we're, we're 3rd this year, sitting there. Um, and that's a deep—

that's a decent standard though.

It's a very good standard. Yes, it's a very good standard. We won it last year, so we were defending champions going into it. So we're playing sides like, um, York, Harrogate, you know, old Yorkshire League sides. Really good cricket. Um, lots of players kind of go through their craft and play. We've got so much great Premiership cricket in Yorkshire, we're really spoiled. Um, but yeah, like when I first started going down and I was this 11, 12-year-old, I'm pretty sure I was probably the only fan as such who would come and watch. Like, it was a little bit like one man and his dog.

Yeah.

The scorer, the umpires. But now what, what I've done and the work that I've been doing with the women and girls cricket especially, I kind of turned Cass into a, like, center point of our community. You know, it, it, it needs something. There's Cass. It's a working-class area that is dominated by rugby league, but cricket is so great for everyone. And I think it's that bit of taking the stigma away from cricket being the posh boy sport, which is kind of the attitude that it has in a working-class town, and making it a real focal point for the community. And that has definitely happened. You know, we, we now have, we now have, um, 2 under-9 sides and under-11 sides. We're gonna have 2 under-13s next year, under-15s, under-18s. We're getting a 3rd team.

But from, from where you started, that, that's incredible.

Yeah, like our membership this this year, you know, we're well into the hundreds. We have hundreds of people watching us every week. Um, it's a real treat. Like, it is, it's, it's, it's, it's by far the proudest thing I have. Yeah.

Brilliant. I mean, but, but kids love cricket.

Yeah, they do.

If you can just get kids introduced to— it's such a simple thing, throw a ball and hit it with a bat. It's so simple, and yet kids really do latch onto it very, very quickly, don't they? They just the thrill of hitting a bat or hitting a ball with a bat?

Yeah, massively. And, you know, obviously we have a problem in the game and the education system that it isn't played enough in schools. Like, we know that in comprehensive schools cricket isn't played, and especially places like Yorkshire, it's football and rugby dominant. You know, there's not enough cricket played. So I've kind of, you know, been passionate in Cass about going into the schools, letting them know that Cass exists, letting them know that cricket exists. And obviously I'm in that position because of what I do for a job, that I have the ability to do this and share the story. So it's been great to kind of get in and let people know that cricket exists, and then seeing people come down after a little brief chat with them, and then 2 years later they're still there and they're into their second year and they've now got all the kit on. And, you know, it just grows like that. And, you know, Cricket clubs are really special, but we need them and every community needs them. And seeing how Castleford has adapted to a cricket club and Castleford Cricket Club is just exceptional. And a club that has 150 years of history, you know, my job as the current custodian is to make sure it has 150 years more. And I'm sat here at the moment working tirelessly to, to make sure it doesn't, that the next Coulson has an easier job and, you know, plenty to play with, I guess.

Yeah, yeah, we had my club in Melton Friday evenings, scores of kids coming down, just playing on the outfield, a bit of coaching going on, little games going on, parents barbecue lit, sit there and watch. It's, it's, it's, it's a wonderful scene and it gives those kids such a chance and it is a focal point.

Stunning. It's, it's stunning. You know, those, those Friday nights are, are so special. People come from all over the area. They walk down, they bike down, their kids play cricket for a 90-minute, like, managed session.

Yeah.

And then they play cricket for another hour after. And all those kids that started off by just trying to feel a ball on a bat are now part of teams and are now playing. And it, it just develops more and more. And yeah, it's got a real sense of something special. And, you know, this year with, with the stuff that I've been doing with women and girls cricket, because Cass never had a women and girls side.

Right, so this is— I was going to move on to that. This is starting this, but what, what was the video I saw you handing out leaflets to try and get people to come along, women and kids and girls to come along?

So what, what's happened, if, if you're not aware of it, ECB Premier League clubs have to have a thing called Clubmark.

Yeah.

And to adhere to Clubmark, you have to have by the end of the next 3 years for Premiership status you have to have both women and girls cricket.

Correct.

So this came in and it was kind of— it was met with a mixed perception by people who were running Premier League clubs. And I was reading all the stuff and I was like, well, you know, me as who's running a club, it all makes sense to me. It's like, yeah, I want to make sure that we could— we can do this at CAS. I want this to happen. So I kind of sat down with our committee in the winter and said, rather than just doing a tick box exercise or cheating the system here so that the ECB sees it's done. I want to do this properly. Like, I want to make sure that we have the same amount of girls playing cricket as we do men's, which means we've got to put a lot of work into it. So I started doing some research, and as I was doing it, I was speaking to more and more people who were reluctant for it. So I spoke to the YCB and Metro Bank and said, look, I want to do this, but I, I want to kind of make a documentary following the journey. Because if we can do it in Castleford, it can be done anywhere.

Yeah, sure.

If I can get women and girls in Castleford to play cricket every— that, that shows that there's a demand for, you know, the girls' game. And Metro Bank supported me on this journey, and we've now kind of gone from our first session, which we ended up having 50 women and girls come in and play, and the video that you're referring to is, is me stood out.

It's very funny.

It's me stood outside the local supermarket and Basically being told to do one and got a few knockbacks. Go back to Coronation Street, this is and cricket. What's cricket?

And it's like you know, and that was it shows the starting point though, doesn't it? It it does.

And you know, in doing this, and that that's that's why I wanted to film it to show other clubs how and what we can do. Because what I went on to learn was right. Well, the ASDA's not the right place, but the schools might be, and the gym might be, and you know. making sure that I get into those right groups of people. And if you build it, they will come. And that's literally, you know, what's happened. We've, we've now got 2 women's sides in our first year, 2 groups of women who are wanting to play every single week. And then we've got a training group who are just training and coming down for the social and coming down for the fun. And we've got a girls festival this weekend, and it's stuff that I never would have imagined happening. And, you know, the The change has— it's changed the club, it's improved the club massively. And the opportunities that it's giving us and the opportunity that there is now for the people of Castleford, it means that whoever wants to play cricket in Cass can. And ultimately, that was my goal when I sat down in the winter and I read it. I thought, well, you know, the next Coulson might be, might be an 8-year-old girl.

Yeah.

So, you know, has she got the same opportunities that I did when I was a kid? And you know that that's what we're working towards, making sure it happens at cast.

And they're starting from scratch, presumably then. I mean, to to have two teams of women girls who've never played before.

Yeah, yeah.

That's that's a challenge in itself. How how do you start sort of so many off from literally the the barest basics?

I'll be honest with you, Agus. When I when I put our first taster session on, I bought everyone an ice cream is what I did. So when I was going around these barest spots. I was like, I have got an ice cream van if, if you're interested. So I kind of knew that people might just come for a free Mr. Whippy.

Yes.

But, you know, there was a lot of personal touch of me saying to people, you know, do you want to give this a go? But the other thing that I found is when you start speaking to people, they do want to play cricket. You know, people know what cricket is. Yeah, people are accepting of it. They just don't think it's for them. And just having that conversation of, no, this is for you, this is for everyone, it's for me, it's for you, it's for the next person. Then they come down to a club, they see a club environment, and they instantly fall in love. Like, everyone feels safe. And I think that's kind of been our sweet spot, is, you know, 50 people came down, and then the week after there was 40, and then that number has just stayed.

Yeah.

You know, it's just stayed and grown and grown and you know, now we've kind of built an infrastructure. I spoke to a lot of people, and Kyle Hogg, who obviously did Field of Dreams with Fred—

Yeah.

I reached out to Kyle and said, can you give me any like tips and tricks? So I, I went to see Kyle at Amplethorpe, and Kyle told me that having a female coach was immensely important for them. Like, the stuff that they got from Kate, him and Fred would never even considered. So I've reached out to Yorkshire and Ellie Nightingale, who is one of the Yorkshire women's players. She's now our girls coach. So I have, you know, 20 girls between the ages of 6 and 13 at Castleford who are being coached by someone who they can aspire to be.

Sure, yes.

And they see Ellie in that Yorkshire tracksuit and think, oh well, you know, this game is for me and that could be me. The TMS Podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live.

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I bet my generation was lucky because it was on the telly. You know, it was so easy to get involved in a sport when you can see it.

Yeah. Every day on there, isn't it? And now you can't. And it is that thing of, you know, Especially in an area like Cass, it is just that thing of proving that cricket is for everyone.

Because people wouldn't be buying cricket subscriptions there, would they?

No, they're not. And it's that bit of— that's why making, making the club environment for everyone, that's why that makes such a difference. Because people might, they might come to the club for a different reason, because their friends are there, because there's something on the telly they want to watch, because we serve their favorite night. When they're there, they see the cricket, and then they realize that, oh, this isn't, this isn't a bar at Savile Park, this is Castleford Cricket Club, and it's about the cricket. And people just fall in love with it.

Yeah.

What about the, um, attracting coaches? Because, you know, there's all the checks you've got to go through now and, and all of that. I mean, it's, it's, it's not a simple process, is it? And you've got to go through the process of actually getting your, you know, you've courses done and all of that. I mean, are you finding interest in that has grown as well?

Yeah, I mean, the bigger your club gets, the more coaches you need, the more volunteers you need. Volunteers are instrumental. Like, Castleford would not survive without our army of volunteers. You know, we genuinely have people who prioritize the work that they do at the cricket club over their full-time jobs, which anyone who's listening to this who's involved in a club will not be surprised to hear that. Um, but the reliance that we found is junior parents who see their kids fall in love with the game, a lot of them will come up and say, you know, can I do a coaching course? And, you know, then there's, there's grants that clubs can get to send parents on coaching courses. And, you know, then they become an age group manager and they kind of step up with them. You know, obviously the more senior players you have, a lot of senior players have their level 2 coaching courses so they can help out. Um, you know, but there's a massive need for more volunteers. There always will be. And where I want to take CAST to, you know, the team of 30 we've got now will need to be a team of 60. And in that team of 60, we probably need to have 20 Level 2 coaches.

Yeah.

Which is, is unheard of. But, you know, that it is a, it is a challenge. And it's a challenge when you've got so many clubs around you. But, you know, it, it's people you know, like me and the other people who are running these clubs that embrace the challenge and, and go for it to make sure that everyone's got the best opportunity.

It's a great story. I mean, it really is. It's fabulous what you're doing. Let's switch to Craig Tinker, shall we? I mean, does your heart sink at that moment? I mean, 10 years on Corrie, and a lot of those as, as a child. Start with that first of all. I mean, how does that How does that work? I mean, auditions. I mean, I wonder what they're looking for from a, from a child to be in a, in a soap opera.

The casting brief for Craig was unique. That was all it said on the brief, was unique. And I remember—

What does that mean?

Who knows, Agus, but it's in front of you apparently. Um, so I remember going to this audition and I remember it being big news. Like, everyone at my drama school, everyone at Cass High was like, Coulson's got a Corrie audition. And I remember ringing my grandma up and being like, I've got an audition for Coronation Street. And it was, it was a big deal. And I realized it was that big a deal when my audition was a, a school day. So I finished school at 12 o'clock and my mum was in the car park to pick me up. And also being signed out of school at the same time was my sister, because if I was going to Coronation Street, she was going to Coronation Street.

Of course.

And there was a car full of us on the way from Castleford all the way over to Granada Studios in Manchester.

It was actually in Corrie, was it?

Yeah, yeah, the audition was at Granada. And, um, what did you have to do? Well, I— this— there's a lot to this story, I guess. I, um, I get into the car at school and my mum goes, what are you doing? What have you done? And I go, what do you mean? And she went, well, look at you. And I'd spilled baked beans down my school shirt on the day of my Corrie audition. And it was like, well, we don't have time. The, the audition's at half past 1. Like, it's, it's 12:30 now. We've, we've got to go. So I walk into this room at Granada, and obviously I'm trying to hide this baked bean stain on, on my shirt. And in this room, there are kids who are having their hair combed by their parents. They're wearing blazers. And I am there. I've taken my clip-on tie off. I have this baked bean stain on my shirt. Oh my God. And part of me goes, oh, you're in the wrong place here, Colson. Like, this isn't for you. And I remember getting in that audition room and, and just doing it as I'd practiced, having a chat, you know, making the director, Graham Harper, making him laugh and kind of just giving it, giving it my all and walking out thinking I'd done a good job. And luckily enough, what happened was I got the phone call to tell me I'd got the job. But the part of Craig Tinker was only for 2 episodes.

Oh.

So that job that I got as 11-year-old was for 2 episodes. And I went and I filmed that and I thought, this is mint, I've got 2 days off school, this is, this is the best thing ever. And then, you know, skip about a year later, I was in talks for another job and my agent at the time emailed Corrie to say thank you because you were the first big job on his CV and he's now off to do this.

So now aged what?

13.

Right.

And then got a phone call saying Please don't sign anything. We're in talks to bring his mum into the show. We want to bring them in as a family. And, you know, I had the decision then as a 13-year-old of what do I want to do? Do I want to sign in? It was a 6-month contract at Coronation Street, and I was like, yes. Like, it was the best job I'd ever done. So I signed up for 6 months. So there's 2 episodes, then it was 6 months, and it ended up being 15 years.

Incredible story. Yeah, sounds like a bit like Just William turning up with your beans. Maybe that was unique. Yeah, that's what—

maybe that's what they were looking for.

But, but yeah, but you've got, yeah, you've got schooling to do.

You've got, like, I mean, an education to get. And obviously, you know, I started in year 7. I went right through my GCSEs whilst being schooled at Cass High. And what would happen is on, on filming days at work, I would be sent to a tutor room off set and had to do 3 hours of education a day with my tutor Kit. And me and Kit would sit sit there and I, I had Kit wrapped around my finger, I guess I did. I tell you now, we used to, used to walk in and I'd tell her that my school was on a school trip or it was non-uniform day and I was missing it because I was at work. And at Old Granada, we used to have this studio called Breeze, and in the garden of Breeze there was a pond. And I always used to tell Kit that on the GCSE syllabus there was pond dipping.

So yeah.

I, I still learn. And, you know, bless Kit, she got me through my GCSEs, and I probably did better than I would have if I'd have— if I'd not been having the tutor.

Yeah, it's an extraordinary lifestyle.

Yeah.

And that was like 52 weeks in the— or did you get breaks and those sort of things?

Um, Corrie shuts down for 2 weeks, so you stop for 2 weeks. Um, but other than that, you, you're non-stop. You work all the way through, and it's kind of—

it's—

I mean, it's a treat. It's a great place to be all the time. And, you know, from the age of 11 right through to the age of 25, however old I was when I got banged around the head. It was, it was, it was the greatest job and the greatest place to work every day with the best people.

Well, I was looking at your character. I mean, he went through a bit— depression, arson, drugs.

He's 13 at this point, I guess.

OCD. And you end up as a police officer. I don't know if that's a sort of typical Yeah, no, yeah, these days.

No, he was like Weatherfield's friendly face. He was, he was the copper that kept everyone safe, kept it all going. And, you know, he, he just met his demise, I think, in May last year.

Was it?

He was, yeah, beat to death. Broke the hearts of the nation.

I did. So how did you get the tap on the shoulder? I mean, how does that work?

You get a phone call. I can tell you this. You get a phone call the night before saying, can you, can you come for a meeting or dinner? And I went, okay, yeah, sound meeting. So then I was driving home from work at this point. I rang my mum, I rang Jack and Ben, my 2 best mates, I rang my agent and said, I'm going and they're telling me tomorrow. Yeah, you know, like I worked there for 15 years, like I've seen it happen to so many people. I was normally a person downstairs going, hey, Bob's going, like they're getting rid of him. But you know, I was the person that got that dreaded phone call and I just knew then that you have to in. It's a conversation you have to have. And I went in and I sat in the room with my boss Kate, and the only thing I wanted to know from Kate was, was I getting killed and when was I going? Because obviously as an actor you're thinking, when is it so I know how, how long am I being paid for, basically.

Yeah.

Um, and Kate looked at me after I said, when am I being killed, and just went silent. And I was like, that's the right answer. Like, I want to be killed. Like, I want to make sure that when I'm done, I'm done. She was like, what do you mean? And I was like, well, it's been perfect. Like, it's been the best thing ever, so let's end it. Like, let's, let's really mark it. And, you know, I was so lucky. I grew up on Coronation Street. I did 15 years on the biggest TV show in the country, and I got to champion that. And, you know, until the day I went, I championed it, and I walked out the door with my head held high, having, you know, done nearly 1,000 episodes and kept the people of the country entertained by playing my little mate.

Yeah, extraordinary. And I mean, I didn't— I, I used to be a real Corrie watcher, I really did. Uh, not, not, not so much recently, but was, was Craig anything like you? Or, I mean, so you say you talk about your mate, I mean, do you have to go into your character to play this?

I mean, I, I wouldn't say I'm Daniel Craig, Agus. Like, I think there was a— there was part of me that would just, you know, read the lines and do it how I would do it. But Craig was a— he was a nice guy, you know. He, he was the helpless copper. You wouldn't— if, if you needed the police and he knocked on your door, you'd be thinking, oh, this isn't ever gonna get sorted. I would hope that Coulson's a little bit more forthcoming and practical. Craig—

There was always comedy in Armchair, wasn't there?

Yeah.

So, so was he a slightly comedic figure then, this policeman?

Yeah, definitely. As comedic as a policeman can be in the, in the GMBN sort of thing. Um, but you know, he, he, he— what I liked about Craig was he was always there for the residents of the street. Like, whenever anyone needed him, he was the person to rely on. And it meant for me as an actor that I got to work with some of the, the best and the oldest actors. You know, I, I got scenes with everyone, which was a real treat because, you know, you're working with anyone from the age of 95 to you know, kids basically. Yeah. So it's a treat.

Bill Roach, I mean, how old's he now, for goodness sake?

I think Bill's 96 now.

Gosh, and he's still—

He'll be listening to this. He will. He'll be sat watching.

He's been on here?

Yeah.

At the other end, Bill. I remember it very well.

I know we've not got long, but me and Bill opened the batting at Shaw Lane once.

Oh.

And we— he had a runner, did Bill, and I ran him out and I got pulled in and I got told that I was out and Ken Barlow kept batting. And I thought, I think, I think that's fair enough. I think Bill can keep batting.

Because there was a Coronation Street Cricket Club. I went to a dinner once. Yeah, there was. And lined up were all these people you see on the telly every night. And I had to stand up and try and speak. Charlie Lawson was a big mate of mine.

Yep.

And just, you know, there's Fred the Butcher and there's Rita Fairclough. Is that still going?

No, we ended up merging with Emmerdale and it kind of has dwindled slowly. They've killed all the cricketers off, you see. With me bowling off the wrong leg, they're not going to take any wickets, are they? But we did play the odd game and, you know, it was always great. And, you know, cricket with your mates is always a right laugh, isn't it?

Yeah. Well, of course, it's been lovely to meet you.

Cheers, Angus.

And, you know, just well done on what you're doing.

Thank you.

That's the thing. That really is. That's outstanding. People who love cricket, I mean, to hear what you're up to there is superb. Thank you.

Thanks for having me. The TMS Podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live.

This goes beyond what the KGB did back in the days.

Conspiracy theories and the Football World Cup. Is there ever one without the other? Well, I've been digging into one of the very best back in 1994. Guy from Iraq gets a red card for a, you know, a dubious tackle. I'm James Montague, and from BBC Five Live, this is Sport's Strangest Crimes presents Shadows on the Pitch. Listen on BBC Sounds. Get more with BBC Podcasts wherever you listen. Be the first to listen to your favourite shows like Evil Genius, Good Bad Billionaire, and You're Dead to Me with a subscription to BBC Podcasts Premium on Apple Podcasts. You can also enjoy a range of our podcasts ad-free with an Amazon Music subscription.