00:00Well, Pop, it's a privilege to interview you. You were obviously my PE teacher and the PE teacher of many people over the years. 39 years you had at Cardinal Griffin Canock, which is still obviously going strong under the same name, which is an achievement these days for schools.
00:18Yeah, I mean, I did. It was 39 years, really enjoyed it. I didn't want to get out of PE. I just loved working with the kids and some great kids came along, not only good athletes, but characters as well. And that's what makes a difference on a day-to-day basis.
00:31And handball, I mean, you know, it's an Olympic sport. You kind of put the school, Canock and the sport on the map, as I remember at school.
00:41Yeah, I mean, that was a cage ball of, they built a sports hall, a small sports hall, and I wanted to do a sport that the footballers could play in the summer and keep them fit for the football season.
00:53I wasn't a big cricketer and, you know, cricket's only for a minority in a sense. So I wanted a team game. So I learned a little bit about handball.
01:02And then from that, we went abroad to play against opposition. We weren't many teams in England playing at the time.
01:08And that's how we built it up. We got an international reputation that just blossomed and blossomed.
01:14And over the years, yeah, we've had to turn down each year when I was at the school, probably a dozen invitations from Sweden down to, you know, Greece, et cetera, to go and play in tournaments.
01:26They weren't always conducive with the school year. So we had to menu pick when it was a school holiday.
01:32And football as well, that's a passion of yours, isn't it? The school produced a few footballers as well.
01:37It is. We had a great run in the 80s and the 90s with some very, very good teams.
01:42We won the County Cup two times. We were the finalists in one other.
01:46And for a small school, which basically it was, compared to the other schools in the district, we did very, very well.
01:53And, you know, we pushed the football, pushed a lot of sports. I mean, we were very good at gymnastics as well.
01:57We had, in the 80s, we had a lot of rock climbing going on.
02:02There was, you know, a lot of opportunities for kids to get involved in sports that weren't traditional sports.
02:08We encouraged them to go in all of them.
02:09And it's great to be here at Bar Sport in Cannock tonight.
02:12We see some old friends, old pupils.
02:14And it's all in the book, isn't it? Beyond Four Walls that come out.
02:19Yeah, I think it was like a cinema red carpet thing, because all these people are in the book at some stage or the other.
02:27Whether it's on trips abroad, whether it's things that they've done during the school time that have made us laugh and smile, they're all here.
02:36And many of them are friends. Many of them have been to their weddings.
02:40We've been to funerals. We've been to celebrations and so on.
02:45And I count them as close friends. Some of them have built extensions for me.
02:49You know, they've been absolutely out of this world.
02:51And I have to say, I would trust the majority of them in my life.
02:55Yeah. And just to say, Beyond Four Walls, how can you get it if they're ex-griffin pupils or not?
03:02If you're an ex-griffin pupil, it's available on Amazon.
03:05If you're an international, if you live abroad, it's books.buy.
03:10You can go on there and buy it.
03:12It's done very, very well in America and Australia.
03:14Quite a number of editions have been sold there.
03:16Or you can come direct to me, which is scoreuk.books at gmail.com.
03:23And I'll send it out to you post-free.
03:27Brilliant. Well, later you get back to your former pupils and now friends.
03:31Okay. Thanks very much, Paul.
03:32Cheers, Pop.
03:33If it had had a horse, it would have ridden it home for me.
03:36So, I thank you all. Thanks for coming.
03:39If you want to buy the book later, I'll be sat here to sign it.
03:41But it's been an incredible journey. I hope you enjoy it as much as it is.
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