I moved to England from Ireland when I was nine, to Essex, and my father took me to an Arsenal game at Highbury. They were playing Manchester United, who included George Best, and from that moment I was hooked on the game.
I would read Shoot magazine, Charlie Buchan’s Football Monthly, and would pour over the stats and the cardboard cut-out ‘league ladders’. My Subbuteo had the crowd and the dugout and the floodlights too. Football had a wonderful, glamorous appeal, all four divisions. I was obsessed with the game but, like a lot of people, when it all became money-obsessed I started to fall out of love with it. The passion went although I still maintained a passive interest.
I rekindled my love when I moved to Sussex and a friend of mine, an Albion-supporting season-ticket holder, invited me to a game at Withdean. It was Gus Poyet’s first home match [against Wycombe in the FA Cup] and I left not only having witnessed a 2-1 win but also with a Hola Gus T-shirt. I adored the spirit of the club, it reminded me why I loved the game.
For over ten years now, the mood of my weekends has been dictated by how Albion do on a Saturday. As my journey started with the club in the lower reaches of League One, I can’t be accused of being a Johnny Come Lately, only following success, and it’s been a real pleasure, and agony, to witness the development of the club from Withdean to the Amex, from the third tier to the Premier League.
We’ve certainly come a long, long way together in a relatively short space of time but that spirit, a legacy of the whole Goldstone horror-show and the Gillingham and Withdean years, is still very much part of the fabric of the club. For those fans of a certain vintage, the pride they feel when they take their seat in the stadium is, I’m sure, heightened by the terrible times the club went through.
The club are also lucky to have real fans as its custodians. Dick Knight took the baton on in its hour of need and Tony Bloom has run with it. While such people are in charge, who have the Albion dearly at heart, the feeling and sense of belonging that all supporters have for the club will always be there
We’ve all had our favourite players this past decade but for me, the wing wizards Will Buckley and Kazenga LuaLua have been my favourites, likewise Adam El-Abd and Sergeant-Major Dunk. Then, of course, there’s Glenn Murray. When he retires he’s going to be lauded as a huge presence at the club, despite those wasted years spent elsewhere! That was painful to see, but I love the fact he came back and exceeded hope and expectation by being a powerful presence at all levels.
Wherever I’m working I will try and take in a local game and my visit to Anfield, for Albion’s game last November, came while I was filming series nine of Cold Feet in Manchester.
We did five series back in the day, then four series in this latest block. What’s great with the 13-year gap is that you can come back to the characters and see how they’ve evolved and how life has changed them, given they’re much older now. John [Thomson], Jimmy [James Nesbitt] and I were doing a scene, with all three of us walking along the street, and we did say, ‘crikey, we’re turning into Last of the Summer Wine!’ given the longevity we’ve had with it.
We’ve had a great reaction and viewing figures for the latest series, and much of Cold Feet’s success is the fact that it’s a reflection of real life. It allows for failure and the characters’
inability to cope with what happens to them. It can strike a chord with people who aren’t entirely the master of their own destiny, which of course means everybody. I’m often asked when are we doing series ten and, while there’s nothing planned, I hope we revisit it in the future, maybe in seven years’ time or so, to see how the characters are faring as they grow even older but never wiser.
This year I returned to the stage, alongside Rebecca Johnson, for Love, Loss & Chianti at the new Riverside Studios in Hammersmith. We were just three weeks into a 12-week run when lockdown was imposed. The press had been good and it had the makings of a hit, so it was sad to have to suddenly stop. It has been particularly galling as it was something I had been planning for a long time and, while there are no plans for a return, it’s something I’d like to take abroad to festivals at some point in the future, perhaps do it in the West End, maybe make a film of it; maybe when Albion win the Champions League. And why not?
While football has been able to return, albeit behind closed doors, theatres have not been so lucky. Most are indoors while a lot of regional theatres have an older demographic who are less likely to venture out in the shorter term. Word is we’re not going to see a lot happen until spring next year. However, my portrayal of Jeffrey Bernard, in Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell, was staged at the Coach and Horses in Soho, so as soon as social distancing becomes limited to one millimetre, I’m up for a second stint!