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MERSEY LIFE TALK TO MIKE TINDALL AHEAD OF HIS NEW TOUR
Mike Tindall is one third of the world ’ s biggest rugby podcast The Good , The Bad & The Rugby – which is set to tour the UK and Ireland in Spring 2022 .
A renowned England Rugby centre back , Mike was part of the 2003 Rugby World Cup winning squad and captained the national side on several occasions while collecting 75 international caps . At club level , he was a longstanding favourite at Bath RFC before moving to West Country rivals Gloucester RFC until his retirement from competitive rugby in 2014 .
Off the pitch , Mike has appeared on reality TV series The Jump and Bear Grylls Mission Survive , and recently joined a special all-male panel on the popular daytime show Loose Women . Mike is also a very active supporter and spokesman for the charity Cure Parkinsons – sharing his experience of the disease through his father ’ s diagnosis . He also works with Matt Hampson Foundation and Rugby for Heroes .
Mike is married to Zara Tindall , granddaughter of Her Majesty The Queen , and they live in the Cotswolds with their three children , Mia , Lena and Lucas .
The Good , The Bad & The Rugby – LIVE will tour the UK and Ireland , bringing the banter and chat the podcast is famous for to the stage , with ‘ The Rugby ’ Mike joined by fellow England hero James Haskell ( The Bad ) and former Sky Sports rugby presenter Alex Payne ( The Good ). The LIVE tour is the first ever outing for the hit podcast which , since launching in summer 2020 , has grown to become the UK ’ s top sporting podcast , with more than 3million listeners and 20million-plus viewers online . Mersey Life caught up with him ahead of his performance in Liverpool .
How did the podcast originally come about - and why you , James and Alex ? We had worked together on a rugby podcast before – JOE Media ’ s phenomenally successful House of Rugby . That came about because
Alex had been asked to pull together two guys for that podcast – and through a few different options , he came up with Hask ’ and myself . He felt we would work best , and thankfully he was right . And that was the formation of the band . We left the House of Rugby podcast in 2020 and started The Good , The Bad & The Rugby podcast . We knew we would work well together – that was a given – and we had lots of ideas we wanted to explore for our own podcast . So , The Good , The Bad & The Rugby was born .
What we never expected was that the three of us would gain the following we have . James and I knew each other from playing for England , we crossed over for four years until 2011 , while he was one of the young guys and I was getting on a bit . Then we played against each other for clubs until I retired in 2014 . So , we had a few ‘ conversations ’ on the field … He may have scored at Gloucester actually , but I gave him a good head start to get there !
The combination of our different backgrounds makes for an interesting mix – even as far back as our schools being very different . We had different roles for England , people have different perceptions of us too . Hask ’ is quite loud , self-promoting and will do literally anything . Alex is a seasoned professional , holding it together , and I sit in the middle somewhere – in terms of career , and life in general , but it has been rugby that brought us together as it ’ s been so significant in all our lives and means we have a great understanding of each other which helps our interaction .
What ' s been your most memorable moment on the podcast ? Without doubt , the Christmas 2020 show stands out … It was ‘ lively ’, shall we say ? We ’ d invited lots of people on , had a huge list of guests and a big multi-screen set up with them all joining in . We had people who have nothing to do with rugby , like the Rev Richard Coles , comedian Russell Kane and golfers Lee Westwood and Wayne Barnes , as well as huge names from rugby like Jack Nowell , Henry Slade , Tadgh Furlong , Nolli Waterman and Jonathan Davies . It was just madness as they just dropped in as we went along – without having a clue what we were up to .
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