The words I’ve been dreading typing: Freddie Flintoff’s Field of Dreams On Tour has finally come to an end.
The final episode aired last night and constitutes perhaps the most wholesome hour of television seen this year so far. This is the second series: in the first, he brought together a group of working-class boys with the aim of creating a cricket team in his local town of Preston. In this one, the squad is back together, but this time they’re headed to India, the home of cricket.
What’s made this series feels so poignant and touching, though, is the clearly very personal journey he goes on over the course of the series. In a few episodes, we see him tackle trauma, PTSD and anxiety to coach a series of underprivileged young boys into becoming cricket successes. They tackle the crush of Mumbai: for some of them, this is their first ever time abroad. Flintoff plays cricket in the street. There are tears and moments of euphoria.
It's impossible to resist – especially when you consider how far removed this image is from the Flintoff of yesteryear.
One of the stars of English cricket, he was pivotal in the stunning success in the 2005 Ashes tournament (one of the few times we’ve actually won it).
Fame followed – dizzying fame. And Flintoff was soon in the headlines for different reasons. In his autobiography Ashes to Ashes, he shared various tales of his then-legendary partying. He confessed that he had arrived at a practice session “smelling of booze.” He was pictured stumbling around alongside Kevin Pietersen at a Downing Street reception, and was removed as England’s vice-captain in 2007 after having to be rescued from a pedalo he’d boarded on a night out.
Hardly aspirational stuff, and Flintoff realised it too. “It was a real low point,” he told ITV in 2014.
“I had this press conference and walked across the hotel reception – and the England fans were shaking their heads. I couldn’t make eye contact with them and I thought: ‘This isn’t good.’”
Flintoff later explained that this was the moment he realised that his drinking had become a problem, but by the time he quit cricket for good in 2009, his reputation was in tatters.
Which is what’s made what followed so remarkable. Within a year, Flintoff had reinvented himself as a pundit, appearing on A League of Their Own alongside James Corden and Jamie Redknapp. His on-screen persona was likeable: a cheeky chappie who seemed like somebody you’d sink a few beers with at the end of the night.
And yet, clearly this was not all there was to him. In 2014, he revealed that he’d been struggling with the eating disorder bulimia ever since his early days in the spotlight – and yet only sought help for it after filming a BBC documentary in 2020.
“I don't want to be a statistic,” he said about it. “I don't want to be read about in years to come, that something's happened to me.” Later, he’d also talk about his depression and how it factored into his drinking: brave things to say when you’re famous for being an easy-going, traditional sort of man’s man.
In 2018, he became the new host of Top Gear – the laddiest of lads shows. And then in December 2022, as he was getting ready to film the new series of Field of Dreams on Tour, he had his accident. Driving an open-topped Morgan Super 3 car in icy conditions, the car flipped and dragged his face along the tarmac.
The show treats this sensitively, but it’s clear how traumatic this was for Flintoff. The before and after shots are striking. We see him in hospital, bloody bandages across his face, as he talks about staying strong. We see him after, in his house, confessing that he rarely leaves it these days and that he’s been crying “every two minutes.”
“I don’t want to sit and feel sorry for myself,” he says in a to-camera piece. “I don’t want sympathy. I’m struggling with my anxiety, I have nightmares, I have flashbacks – it’s been so hard to cope.”
“But I’m thinking if I don’t do something, I’ll never go. I’ve got to get on with it.”
And he does, despite how difficult he clearly finds it being on screen. His face is visibly scarred, and his talking affected. At one point, he tells the team he might have to “go cry in my room” if things get too much for him, but his respect for the working-class boys he coaches – and the respect that have for him – is one of the strongest elements of the whole show.
In the finale, in between Holi celebrations, Flintoff sits down with each of them to address their worries and concerns, and talk about their future.
It’s tear-inducing stuff: over the course of the episodes we see him become a mentor, building up the confidence of those in his care and encouraging to talk about their feelings in a way that many boys still aren’t supported in doing. And not just emotionally, but in more concrete ways, too. “Freddie has changed my life,” former refugee Adnan says — he’s gone onto have a flourishing career in cricket, largely thanks to Flintoff. Not bad for a former playboy.
Flintoff signs off by outlining his plans to expand his project across the country, and watching him talk, it’s clear there’s a passion there. He’s found his calling; that the healing power of sport has done just that.
It’s the final act of a remarkable character arc for Flintoff, and one that underlines what a warrior’s spirit he has. Pass the tissues back around: when is BBC Sports Personality of the Year again?
