Hello I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Disks from BBC Radio 4.

For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

For more information about the program, please visit BBC.co.uk.

Radio 4. My customer is My castaway this week is the cricketer Andrew Freddie Flintoff, one of the best players of his generation.

He was part of the England team that won the Ashes in 2005, a year that marked his

sporting coming of age. On the strength of the historic victory he was awarded an

NBE for services to the game and the public voted him BBC Sports Personality of the Year.

Barely out of his pram when he picked up a cricket ball he turned out to bat for an

under 14 match when he was just six years old. His debut was not in crisp cricket whites,

but in a second-hand Manchester United track suit, setting the tone maybe for someone who's

made a bit of a habit of doing things his way, not least at Number

10 Downing Street, when at a reception for the famous ashes when, somewhat the worst for

where, he weaved into the cabinet room, plunked himself down in the PM's chair, and with his feet

on the cabinet table knocked back yet another bottle of beer.

Since retiring from the game, he's had a go at heavyweight boxing, he won the bout, TV quiz shows, it got a bafter,

and being a dad to his three young kids, one area where he hasn't come out on top,

his sons apparently never listen to his cricket coaching tips. He says

I'm not actually that massively competitive. I shy away from competition. It

really does bring both the best and the very worst out of people so welcome Freddie Flintoff not

being competitive I'm really very surprised that you said that because surely that is

what's at the well really what's at the very heart of a world-class sports person.

I think it's a strange one. I'm not sure if I'm not too competitive or I don't want to be competitive.

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