Take One. Action! Big Chris walks down the seedy Soho street with a suspicious looking parcel under his left arm and a hold-all in his right hand. He arrives at an establishment with `Sex Shop' written in neon lights over the door. He stops, looks behind him, then up the street, then behind him again, before disappearing through the doorway. CUT!

Take two. ACTION! Big Chris walks down the seedy Soho street AGAIN, still with a suspicious looking parcel under his left arm and . . . CUT! Take three. ACTION! Big Chris walks down the seedy Soho street YET again and . . . CUT! If the director had been a referee, Vinnie Jones would have nutted him. But Vinnie, who is making his movie debut as Big Chris in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (a black comedy set in the East End of London) has had to get used to his legs being taken from under him (ho, ho) when in full flight. Vinnie's an actor now and if the director says "CUT", he has to do what he's told.

Sky Sports Centre's Jackie Leavy visited the Wimbledon man on location last Wednesday and had a chat with him in the make-up room, while he was having a little blusher applied to his cheeks. "So you're a thespian now," she said, risking being nutted herself by Vinnie. "You calling me a wufter?" he was about to ask, but he restrained himself and let Jackie away with it.

So, is Lock, Stock and Two Smok- ing Barrels, in which Vinnie plays a debt-collector, the first of many films for our hero? "Well, if it does go well and, y'know, I get offered again, y'know, 'cos I've got quite a lotta, y'know, speaking bits in this and it's come over quite well, y'know," he explained. "I'm not just walking around like a big dummy y'know - I've had more to say in this than Sylvester Stallone has had in three films, I fink."

Any trouble learning his lines? "At first I did but, it's like, you sorta teach yerself how to do the lines, y'know. Like, last night, I've done two pages, just like that! Whereas, before, I had about free months and I came on set and I was sorta all nerves and I just fhought, `how am I gonna do this', but it just, y'know, comes out!"

Vinnie's major scene in the film is when he threatens to `do' Sting (former rock legend) if he doesn't sell his bar to Vinnie's boss. "I understand this comes as a bit of a shock, but let me tell you how this can be resolved," he says, so menacingly that you feel Sting should sell up if he ever wants to sing again. Maybe Wimbledon should send Vinnie over to talk to the FAI, just to help finalise the details on their move to Dublin. "I understand this comes as a bit of a shock, but let me tell you how this can be resolved," Vinnie would say to the FAI lads. "Dublin Dons? No problem Vinnie, make yerselves at home," they might nervously reply. Deal done. You'll have to wait a few months before you can see Vinnie's big screen debut but, if you tune in to the BBC any night now, you'll spot Jack Charlton starring in one of the two-minute films made to celebrate the corporation's 75th anniversary.

Sitting on a very high stool in the middle of, what looks like, the Channel Tunnel, Jack talks about his favourite BBC memories from over the years. "I know people who went out and bought televisions just to see the World Cup final," he says. "I think it was in black and white, wasn't it? Well, I was playing in the game so I wouldn't know y'see, 'cos I didn't see it," he chuckles. No flies on our Jack.

"I'd love to have been a commentator, not on football, but on boxing - I wanted Harry's job," he admits. (No offence Jack, but with you at the microphone, and knowing your head for names, the infamous world heavyweight ear-chomping bout earlier this year would have been between Evelyn Holyground and Martin Tyson).

"I like Radio 5," he continues, "mainly because of James Alexander Gordon - the guy who does the football results. I'd say to the wife, `ask me a result' and she'll say, `how did Crewe go on against somebody' and I'll say . . . 2-0 and I'd get them all right. Maybe it's because of the way he says them, so slowly and so nicely."

Oooh, poor Mrs Charlton. Can you imagine living with Jack? Getting an elbow in your back in the middle of the night - "ask me another result," he'd say. "Ah Jack, it's four in the morning." "Ah go on." "Okay . . . How did Darlington do against Macclesfield?" "Eh, 32!" "Very good Jack - 'night, 'night". "Night love . . . or was it 3-1?," he'd say. "Go to sleep Jack." "Okay." ("No, it WAS 3-2 - I can remember James reading it out, slowly and nicely. Yeah, 3-2. I've a great memory love, haven't I? Love? LOVE? Oh. 'Night.").

Or can you imagine living with Leeds' manager George Graham? Getting an elbow in your back in the middle of the night - "aren't ma fuchsias gorgeous?". "They're lovely George, 'night now."

"When you have ideas and you see them come to fruition, it's fantastic. Those black bulbs coming through the azaleas and the rhododendrons, ah, brilliant. Really nice," said a gushing George to Sky Sports Centre reporter Guy Havord last Thursday.

George recently won the Manager of the Month award, following a spooky spell of high-scoring matches involving Leeds. No award, however, meant as much to him as the decision by Harlow Carp Botanical Gardens in Harrogate to make him an honorary member of their green fingers club. Havord accompanied George on a stroll around the Harrogate Gardens and spotted a bit of an auld analogy between his gardening and football philosophy. "Some of the plants, the fuchsias especially, are wonderful - even now! I'm saying to my gardener - he comes once a month - `I'd love to start doing heavy pruning', but then I say to have colour at this time of year is wonderful." (Heavy pruning? Carlton Palmer, Ian Rush, Tomas Brolin, Tony Yeboah and Tony Dorigo?).

"I don't think you should ever be satisfied in gardening," he went on (and on and on). "I think you can move plants around, but then sometimes you may think: `Let's change that one and try something else'." (Switch from an 8-1-1 formation to 6-3-1?). "Leeds are winning in an unGraham-like way at the moment - 4-3, 4-1, 3-2, what happened to all the 0-0 draws," Havord asked George. "Well, I honestly believe that people should leave a football match excited," he said with a straight face. "They should be talking about goals, efforts on goal, and goalmouth incidents," he said. (Last Saturday's results from James Alexander Gordon: "Leeds United 0, Everton 0". Ooops. More pruning required George.).