Biography

FF-HOME2

Andrew ‘Freddie’ Flintoff is a presenter, broadcaster and cricketing legend.

Andrew made his first class debut for Lancashire in 1995, and international honours came when he made his Test Match debut in 1998 vs South Africa. His One Day International debut followed in 1999 vs Pakistan. Andrew made his biggest impact for England in the summer of 2005, when he played a major role in regaining the Ashes from Australia. His contributions won him the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award in the same year. In 2006 Andrew was awarded an MBE, yet in September 2010, as one of the biggest players in the game, Flintoff retired from professional cricket due to a recurring knee injury.

Since his retirement Andrew has developed a strong broadcast career. In March 2010, Flintoff became a Team Captain along with Jamie Redknapp on the Sky1 sports panel show ‘A League of Their Own’. The BAFTA winning show has been a huge success and is now in its tenth series. Andrew also worked with ITV2 in 2011 to produce the ‘Freddie Flintoff versus The World’ in which he went head to head with some of the world’s sporting greats in a variety of daring challenges across the globe. Andrew also presented his own radio show in the summer of 2011 for BBC Radio 5Live entitled ‘Freddie’s World of Sport’.

Later that year, Andrew joined the team at Discovery to make the documentary ‘Alone In The Wild’. He was completely isolated without any aid or production team, making his way through the wilderness with only a handheld camera to record footage. This spurned more adventures in 2012 with the channel in a spin off series ‘Freddie Flintoff Goes Wild’.

2012 also saw the BBC1 documentary ‘The Hidden Side of Sport’, which took an insightful look at depression in the world of sport. Andrew met with some prolific figures for the documentary including Piers Morgan, Vinnie Jones and Ricky Hatton. In the same year, Andrew embarked on one of his greatest challenges to date; training to become a professional heavyweight boxer. This was broadcast in a documentary for Sky1; ‘Flintoff: From Lord’s To The Ring’. The culmination of this was a victory on his debut fight at The MEN Arena, Manchester, where he defeated his American opponent.

In 2013, he fronted his own show for BBC Radio 5Live; ‘Flintoff’s Ashes Roadshow’. He also expressed his expert opinion on each Test in a column for The Sun newspaper and worked with William Hill on cricket predictions. During this period Andrew also appeared on BBC1’s The Graham Norton Show and starred in his own TV ad for Jacobs’ creating a cricket themed cracker. Later that year, Andrew embarked on a rainforest adventure for Sky1, accompanied by journalist Rob Penn. Flintoff’s Road Through The Rainforest’, aired on Sky1 in April 2014 and formed a part of Sky’s Rainforest Rescue initiative.

After a chronic knee injury seemingly ended his cricket career in 2009, in May 2014 it was announced that Andrew would play for Lancashire again in the NatWest T20 blast squad. Following on from his stint with Lancashire in 2014 Andrew continued his professional cricket comeback in the Australian T20 Big Bash league in December 2014 & January 2015. As well as playing in the tournament Andrew joined Channel TEN’s prestigious commentary team and made quite an impression with his on field commentary.

Following on from their adventure in the Amazon, Andrew and Rob were reunited in 2014, taking to the highways of Great Britain for a new series, ‘Flintoff: Lord of the Fries’ airing on Sky1 in February 2015. The show followed the boys serving up fish and chips to the general public in their eco-friendly chip van.

In March 2015 Freddie was crowned the King of the Jungle in the first series of the Australian version of ‘I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here’, and later that year fronted a new six part series for BBC2, ‘Special Forces: Ultimate Hell Week’, in which contestants were put through SAS tasks to find Britain’s toughest recruit. Due to popular demand and the success of their podcast, Andrew and TV producer friend Clyde Holcroft embarked on a live tour, 2nd Innings, to celebrate the ten year anniversary of England’s Ashes win. They travelled to theatres across the country in 2015, including performing at Edinburgh Comedy Festival.

Andrew has also fronted large commercial campaigns for brands such as Morrison’s and Jacobs. The Morrison’s campaign in which he featured was followed by two more popular ads for the chain. He has also developed a partnership with clothing brand Jacamo. 2012 saw him launch his own ‘Flintoff by Jacamo’ range which is still hugely successful, and continues into 2017.

Bowled over by the support of the Australian public, Freddie returned to Australia in November 2015 until early 2016 to reprise his role with Channel Ten on The Project twice weekly and to also join the commentary team on the Big Bash League.

Sign up to the mailing list