Freddie Flintoff Interview

How are you finding being a captain on A League Of Their Own?
I didn’t think I’d be a captain again... But seriously, it’s been great. This is very different for me and I’m working with some very funny people.

Do you find yourself under pressure to be funny when you’re working with comedians?
No, I just let them get on with it. They’re here to do the funnies and I chip in when I need to.

Did you know James Corden previously?
I met him once before. He’s a very funny man and it’s great to be working with him. I’d also met Jamie Redknapp a few times before too and we’re in the same boat as each other with this, having never done anything like it before.

Is there much competitiveness between you and Jamie?
Not really, no. Not yet anyway. Georgie’s competitive though, she loves to win.

Georgie has great sports knowledge. You got a bit of a trump card with her, didn’t you?
I did, and it’s a good job. I’m not too good on sport! She knows everything, especially about football which I hardly know anything about.

Aside from cricket, do you have a favourite sport?
Darts. I love it. I’ve been to the World Match Play a few times and it’s great fun. And I do go and watch football occasionally. I follow Manchester City.

Do you have a favourite darts player?
I’m going back a bit, but it’d be Eric Bristow. He was great. Present day it’d be Wayne Mardle, Hawaii 5-0-1.

If you weren’t a cricketer what career would you liked to have had?
I’d like to have played an instrument or been a singer. A solo singer, a crooner, weaving in and out of tables, wearing a velvet jacket.

How do you psyche yourself up before a cricket match?
I don’t really. Some lads do, they get really wound up. But I just sit in my chair and then go out and do what I have to do when the time comes. I get nervous from time to time, but I probably play at my best when I’m relaxed.

Do you have any superstitions?
I put my kit on the same way every time, but that’s more habit than superstition.

Who’s your sporting hero?
Ian Botham.

What’s the strangest thing that’s ever happened during a cricket match you’ve played in?
In one of my first games for England there was a streaker at Lord’s. And, off the field, at Headingley the Western Terrace is always full of students and they dress up all the time so there’ll be ten Elvises, the entire cast of the WWE, all sorts. That’s quite funny to see.

What’s the funniest thing you’ve had cricket crowds shout at you?
The Yorkshire crowd used to call me the Honey Monster. In Australia someone shouted, “Can I borrow your brain, I’m trying to build an idiot?”. That was very funny, but fortunately it wasn’t directed at me.

What was your first job?
I worked behind the record counter at Woolworths in Preston when I first left school. I was put in charge of the Christmas decorations one year, and they’re supposed to be up by the end of October, but I’d not finished them on Christmas Eve. I used to skive up a ladder all day. And back then they didn’t have any security cameras and if there was a shop lifter there’d be three rings on the tannoy and you’d have to set off chasing them down the high street. I chased after this lad once down Winckley Square and he turned around taunting me, and I remember suddenly thinking, “What I am doing? I’m not having a fight for a six pack of TDK tapes.” I went back to the store and told the manager that I couldn’t catch him.