Host
Alternative Colchester
Alternative Colchester is where football rivalry meets punk rock passion.
Join Tim Young (Labour councillor, former Colchester mayor, and die hard Ipswich Town fan) and Steve Green (Special Duties founder and long suffering Colchester United supporter) as they prove that two blokes who disagree about football can agree that 1977 changed everything.
They were both in the room when Stiff Little Fingers supported Tom Robinson Band at Essex University in 1978 - they just didn’t know it until 2023. Now they’re bringing that shared punk spirit to the airwaves with fierce football debate, classic tracks from 1976 -1980, and the kind of authentic banter that can only come from forty-plus years of living the life they’re talking about.
One show. Two teams. Five decades of passion. No nostalgia without nuance. This is Alternative Colchester - because like the best punk songs, local football deserves to be loud, honest, and impossible to ignore.
Contributors
Host
Tim Young
Guests
Guest
Tony Gardner
Tony Gardner qualified as a doctor at Guy's Hospital, later combining medicine and comedy as half of the award-winning duo Struck Off and Die with Phil Hammond. He left medicine for acting, starring in TV commercials including the iconic Renault Mégane ad, before reaching prominence as Brian Johnson in My Parents Are Aliens, Michael the café owner in Lead Balloon, and Professor Tony Shales in Fresh Meat. Between 2012 and 2020 he played John in five critically acclaimed series of Last Tango in Halifax, attracting over 7.8 million viewers at its peak. He also appeared as Lieutenant Colonel Phillip Smith in Bluestone 42, Dan Miller MP in The Thick of It, and in Tracey Ullman's Show, Lovesick and Not Going Out. Tony has an eclectic taste in music including a love of first wave punk rock, and is a keen football fan whose first love is Man Utd but has adopted local team Colchester United, attending matches regularly with family members.