A Wimbledon fan for over 40 years celebrated actor/director SAMUEL WEST tells WDSA his story (among a pot-pourri of other things) in this engaging and *exclusive* insight, which we’re very reliably informed is his first football-related print interview.
(i) I understand you began following the Dons when you were 13, how did that come about and what influenced you to become a regular follower [presumably you now have a season ticket at Plough Lane??]?
Samuel: I grew up in Wandsworth. I was a Chelsea fan as a child … nobody’s perfect. Wimbledon got into the League when I was eleven, and my best friend at school Nick Dukes started following them a couple of seasons later. On April 19 1980, I came to Plough Lane with him for the first time. I remember asking what the team’s colours were. I didn’t have anything yellow and blue but my new school sports shirt was supposed to be yellow and black. The trouble was it was so new, the yellow was more like orange. But I thought it was close enough. So I stood in the shadow of the South Stand in my orange and black shirt, surrounded by Dons, to watch Wimbledon play Hull City. Hull City’s nickname is the Tigers. You never forget your first game, particularly if you’re in the middle of the home fans wearing the opposition’s colours! Wimbledon, bottom of the table, won 3-2. Wally Downes scored a twice-taken penalty.
(ii) Who were your favourite Wimbledon players (and why) in those early (and subsequent) years. Any particular matches or highlights stand out for you?
Samuel: That 1980 team was nearly half Steves: Jones, Parsons, Ketteridge, Perkins and, of course, the great Galliers. Like most young boys, I idolised the strikers: Cork, Leslie and later Francis Joseph; I saw him score against Darlington on his debut. There was an ad for a sportswear company, maybe 25 years ago, that said “If football clubs could transfer fans, what would you be worth?” I like this question, and do my best to keep my value up. As a fan in the early years I wasn’t fit to touch the hem of Nick Dukes’ garment – he followed the youth team on their trip to Norway – but we did start watching the reserves together, where Paul Fishenden was our hero, and we met a young Dave Beasant for the first time. When Lurch broke his wrist, Nick and I signed his cast on a rainy November Tuesday at Plough Lane, between games of Galaxian. Wimbledon were relegated that year. At my first game the man in front of me grumbled, “I’ll tell you what’s wrong with this team in two words: not good enough.” But next season they got promoted. Then down, and immediately up again. It was all happening. If there had been five divisions in the early 1980s, Wimbledon would belong firmly in the fourth. Nick encouraged me to try an away game, and I made two trips the next season. First, v Halifax Town on 27 September 1980. A 17-year-old Glyn Hodges made his professional debut, coming on as sub for Dave Hubbick; John Leslie scored the only goal in the 73rd minute and we went home happy. But that’s not what I remember.
Me and Nick had arrived late at Halifax station and a policeman at the end of the platform said “Are you here for the match?” We nodded sheepishly. “Well, you’ll never make kick-off if you walk. Hop in.” We bundled into the back of his police car and sped through the rainy streets. In my memory he put the siren on. We got there at 2:59, saw the kick-off and won 1-0. It was the perfect day. My impression of Halifax has always been coloured by that policeman’s kindness.
Three months later Nick and I got up at 4am to get the supporters’ coach to Torquay for the Boxing Day game against United. We won that one too, by the odd goal in five. This away thing was fun. Writing about it now, it’s odd that so many of the games I remember are against teams no longer in the league. My first away trips to Halifax and Torquay, Darlington that December and, of course, Wimbledon’s local derby against Aldershot. The 4-0 win against the ‘Shots in November 1980 was a Tuesday evening rout, the first truly great Dons performance I’d seen. Glyn Hodges, still only 17, got three assists: one for John Leslie’s opener, and two for both Tommy Cunningham goals. Alan Cork’s penalty was the fourth. Favourite players? Over 44 years, impossible to pick even a few. I have a whole team of names on 1990s shirts: Vinny (signed), Leonhardsen, Cort, Francis, Euell, Fear, Perry, Earle and, of course, Michael Hughes. I was always excited when Hughes got the ball and looked up. You felt something was going to happen.
(iii) Given all that has happened to Wimbledon, what does the AFC Wimbledon club represent to you, what do you feel makes it special?
Samuel: 17th August 2002. On that famous day at Sandhurst Town, where the dream we thought was dead rose triumphantly from the ashes, I stood on the South Stand (a bale of hay), feeling the sunshine, loving the beer and watching AFC Wimbledon‘s winner going in. I don’t think I’d ever enjoyed a football match more. Or since, probably. The despicable decision of the FA to allow relocation knocked us all down. But we got up again; we are the resurrection. I’ll always be grateful for the vision of those who brought us back. Fan-owned is the future. Those familiar with my politics know I’m not big on capitalism. I own only one share, and that’s in the Dons Trust. I’m pleased that season ticket holders are part of that vision now, and that means we have two in our house. We are a small part of the collective. Of course, there’s lots left to do, but looking round at the set-up now – great crowds, the women’s team, the Academy, our own stadium, our governance in our hands – I truly believe the club is in the best shape it’s ever been. I think this way of running a club must succeed, to prove that doing it differently can work. I love that we’re not run by Norwegian fish-canning magnates; I love that we’ve taken a stand over gambling advertising; I love everything Dons Local Action Group do.
I love that in 2002, the ten-month-old Elliot Bolton was mascot for our first home game as a reformed club and in 2021 he ran out as AFC Wimbledon captain in the London Senior Cup. Elliot’s dad Mark was mascot for Wimbledon FC’s last game in the Southern League in 1977, when they were elected to the Football League as champions. Stories like this make Wimbledon one club, with one history, since 1889.
(iv) You were a prominent celebrity supporter of the Plough Lane Bonds at its launch in February 2020. You were there for the photo call and tweeted your support, among one “Be an asset to the collective. The #PloughLaneBond is now live. If you have any interest in football, in community, in a warm fuzzy feeling inside or just a good return on your investment, go here: http://ploughlanebond.com Don’t let oligarchs rule, water the grass roots. Join us” Can you reflect back on that time, what it meant to you as a supporter and how it’s all worked out?
Samuel: Charlie Talbot asked me to the launch, and I was happy to help. We had to raise £13 million, which coincidentally was the amount Jason Euell’s header wiped off the Manchester United share price in February 1997 when we knocked them out of the FA Cup. I wasn’t there that night – I was on stage, playing Prince Hal in Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part 1 in Crewe. But you bet I was in the wings listening to Clubcall (0898 12 11 75, as I’m sure I don’t need to remind you). When Euell scored, I shouted ‘YES!’ so loudly that I was heard on stage and fined my performance fee. It was £9.20; worth every penny. I met some of my Wimbledon heroes the day we launched the bond – Will Nightingale, Dickie Guy, John Scales – and they were all delightful. I think the bond’s been handled well, and the financial situation seems clear and responsible. Plough Lane is such a great ground; a real crucible for atmosphere. When I finally made it to a game there, the pre-season friendly against Scunthorpe, I caught sight of the edge of the pitch on the walk from Haydons Road and started crying. I couldn’t believe we were back.
(v) Looking back I was also taken by this tweet of yours at the time “They say you shouldn’t meet your heroes. They’re wrong. Y’day I met Dickie Guy (“This Man is Not Human!”) and Ian Cooke, ‘keeper and captain of Wimbledon FC’s famous 1975 FA cup run, when Guy saved a Peter Lorimer penalty and non-league WFC drew 0-0 with League Champions Leeds.” Can you talk about your affection for ‘Sir’ Dickie and Cookie?
Samuel: Dickie Guy wasn’t quite ‘my’ Wimbledon keeper – I started with Ray Goddard. But, of course, I remember the 1975 Cup run and Cookie taking Leeds to a replay. At the time in the school playground Leeds were ‘The Team’ and Lorimer was the star. Wimbledon’s achievement seemed impossible. I write this the morning after dumping Ipswich out of the League Cup, a second Premiership cup scalp in five years. I’ve always cheered for the underdog, and it’s no accident that the team I now adore found their sharpest teeth and their greatest success by channeling David, not Goliath. The way a club treats its old players is important. Wimbledon do things a certain way. You either get it or you don’t, and if you do, we’ll always be glad to see you back. If on the other hand you leave and sign for Franchise, you can fuck off. About that FA Cup victory against West Ham: I moved to Islington 35 years ago and of course almost everyone in my daughters’ school supports Arsenal. There are a fair few fans of the other London Premiership clubs as well, but so far no AFC Wimbledon tops in the playground. If our daughters had decided, like I did in 1980, that they wanted to support their local team and start watching Arsenal, I couldn’t have done much about it (apart from sell them, obviously). But that hasn’t happened. They’re now enthusiastic and well-travelled Wimbledon fans, following both Dons teams on the road. It took me 19 years to visit ten football grounds; Daughter One did it in four. And I’m pleased to say that both are proud of their allegiance. The moments of triumph may come more rarely, “But when they seldom come, they wished-for come, And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.” as Hal says in Henry IV Part 1.
The day after we demolished West Ham, I sent D1 off to school in her yellow and blue scarf. You have never seen a five-year-old head held higher.
- vi) I understand you go along to the AFC Wimbledon Women’s matches when you can with your two daughters, if so is that one of the main reasons you go along?] Maybe give us feel of what you think of the womens setup and its importance/diversity to a wider audience of fans?
Samuel: We’re keen supporters of the women’s team (CHAMPIONS!). This season, because we got a puncture on the way to the men’s opener against Colchester and couldn’t get tickets to Bromley away, the first game we saw was AFCWW v Lewes. And very enjoyable it was too. As Ellie Dorey, the player we sponsor, came on, my daughters screamed with delight. D2 was wearing a new shirt with the name of her favourite player Ashlee Hincks (who she’s met) on the back, and D1 a blue and gold shirt sent to her by her favourite player Will Nightingale, because she made him some ‘Get Well Soon’ cards when he was injured. I was pleased and proud to be part of a club where the players feel real, not remote, and connected to the younger fans. Life in the third tier is going to be tougher for AFCWW, but the summer recruitment was strong and I’m looking forward to a great season. Playing many of the home games at Plough Lane makes a big difference. All four West/Wades were at Wembley to see the Lionesses win the European Championship. Women’s football is deservedly popular, and a well-organised club should reflect that; Plough Lane getting the 2022 League Cup final shows our intent. If I had sons I’d still take them to watch the women’s team; they’re a very successful part of the club.
It’s important that my daughters grow up with good sporting role models, and we now go to womens’ matches often enough for them to ask “Are we watching boys or girls today?” But above that, I really enjoy the teamwork and skills of the AFCW women – and the odd 6-0 win doesn’t do any harm either.
(vii) You come from a much loved and respected thespian family – parents Timothy West and Prunella Scales – but you initially did not intend to follow them into an acting career. I’ve read that you had dreams of becoming a chemistry professor before studying for an English Literature degree. Can you talk about that [is your father interested at all in football by chance?]?
Samuel: I’m fairly certain the last football match my father saw was Wimbledon v Charlton on Boxing Day 1989. We got seats and he watched obediently, but it’s not really his thing.
My mother is a bit more sporty – she taught me to bowl overarm, and thanks to her I was sent for cricket lessons at the much-missed Gover school in Wandsworth. We went to the Oval Test a few times together when I was a kid.
But yeah, I’m the fourth generation of actors in my family. In the end becoming one was hard to avoid, although I’m not sure I ever decided to, and I still want to be a train driver when I grow up. My parents were always impressed by things they didn’t understand. They would have loved me to do physics or chemistry at university, but although I’m still very into science and try to be fluent in it (useful for recording Brian Cox’s audiobooks: I’ve done four), in the end I was never good enough to take it further.
viii) In your distinguished career as an actor and director which performances are you most proud of and why? [I will also be asking you a question about All Creatures Great and Small further on ….]
Samuel: I played Hamlet for a year at the Royal Shakespeare Company. That felt like a big thing. Never got it right – who does? – but it was a pleasure and a privilege to try. I loved being in the first production of Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia at the National Theatre; a very brilliant play.
And I managed to sell out Guildford’s Yvonne Arnaud theatre with my production of Close the Coalhouse Door, a musical about the history of the mining unions. All Surrey’s socialists came. There were a lot of them…
(ix) You’ve described yourself as a bit of a geek with your stamp collecting since you were a child [tell us about your collection of over 200 Two Shilling Blues — a stamp first produced in 1867!!] Your twitter bio states “ Often actor, sometimes director, always geek”?
Samuel: My father wrote home when he was on tour. The stamps were little labels of love in the corner of the envelope; they brought Da’s letters, and I was grateful. A comfort in a confusing universe, a handle on a world that seemed big to a small child. I started to collect when I was six. It gave me a sense of the world, and a sense of the past, which grew as I became an actor and worked in lots of period drama. On set, I would sort through the prop letters in Mr Selfridge, checking that they’d got the stamps right. Now I do it in All Creatures. About 30 years ago, someone indulging my geekery at a party said “Oh, you collect stamps. How many have you got?” and I thought, “What an odd question. That’s not something anyone who collects stamps would ask another stamp collector.” And I wondered why it was odd. It’s odd because the point of stamp collecting is not to collect as many stamps as possible; that’s not a collection, it’s an accumulation. I thought about the difference and I realised: a collection is defined by what it leaves out. That was a revelation. Since you can’t collect everything, why not just collect what you like?
I’d always been particularly fond of one Victorian issue, so I decided to go after that. I now specialise in the 1867 Two Shilling Blue. I have become Samuel West, Collector of Stamp. Elsewhere, my geekery extends to Dungeons and Dragons, silent films, chess, canals, board games…
As a 12-year-old I was an unapologetic trainspotter (as was Nick). Unapologetic, because I’ve never understood why one tribe in anoraks watching trains are sad, and another tribe in overpriced polyester shirts watching a ball are cool. Enthusiasm is cool, full stop.
(x) Another pastime is your interest in ornithology. You were reported as saying “I get itchy if I don’t go birding for a while. It stops me thinking so much about myself.,” Apparently you and Laura enjoy birding in your London garden? Can you talk about the joys of bird-watching around various parts of the country, any favourite spots?
Samuel: I think everyone should watch birds. Or at least listen to them. It makes you happy. There’s a brilliant bit of Iris Murdoch where she talks about looking out of her window, anxious and resentful, “brooding perhaps on some damage done to my prestige. Then suddenly I observe a hovering kestrel. In a moment everything is altered. The brooding self with its hurt vanity has disappeared. There is nothing now but kestrel. And when I return to thinking of the other matter it seems less important.” I love this feeling. And increasingly I need it. Outside London we go to the North Norfolk coast, the weird and wild Romney Marsh in Kent and if we’ve the time, the Highlands (next time we’ll drop in on Will for a Ross County game). In London, we like Rainham Marshes, Woodberry Wetlands and the WWT up the road in Barnes.
I’ve started a Plough Lane ‘patch list’: birds seen at the stadium during games. Only nine species so far, but it does include kestrel – I think a family of them breeds nearby. Sometimes I look up during a particularly uninspiring passage of play, wondering if we’ll ever learn to play the ball through midfield, and I see a kestrel. And when I return to watching the game the midfield thing seems less important.
(xi) You star in the immensely-popular All Creatures Great And Small television series on Channel 5, now in its fourth season. You’ve been quoted as saying you’ve never been “happier than I’ve ever been professionally.. I love the ensemble”. Can you talk about the effect of working in the series has had on you and its likely future [more series?]
Samuel: We’ve just finished our fifth series, which aired in September. No plans to stop yet, and I’m thrilled about that. The first series came out in lockdown, and we benefitted hugely from its storyline and ethos: a community that wins and loses together, that welcomes outsiders but is fiercely protective of those it loves, and has at its heart a decency, a kindness and a desire to reduce suffering. A bit like following AFC Wimbledon, in fact.
[The Samuel West Interview was first published in the October-November 2024 issue of the Wombles Downunder fanzine. Details on how you can subscribe to Wombles Downunder.]
