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Great Lives

John Cooper Clarke on Johnny Green, road manager of The Clash

Great Lives

BBC

Documentary, History, Society & Culture

4.21.3K Ratings

🗓️ 10 February 2026

⏱️ 28 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Johnny Green was a hippy, a driver, a writer, a father and the road manager of The Clash. He wrote about this experience in a memorable book, A Riot of Our Own. Then he found a new passion, cycling, and so he wrote Push Yourself a Little Bit More: Backstage at the Tour de France. Both books are gonzo and stylish, as was Johnny Green. Nominating him is John Cooper Clarke, punk poet and bard of Salford, who hired Johnny as his driver and gentleman travelling companion on the road. "I think about him every day," he says.

With contributions from Topper Headen, drummer with The Clash; plus Chris Salewicz the author of Redemption Song, a biography of Joe Strummer. He says Strummer helped Johnny Green financially with his cycling book. There are multiple, memorable contributions from Johnny Green himself, who was an occasional visitor to Radio 4; and joining John Cooper Clarke and Matthew Parris in studio are two of his daughters, Polly and Ruby Broad.

The producer is Miles Warde who also produced Fear and Loathing in Harrogate. This was a Radio 4 show about a group of punk poets responding to the opening day of the Tour de France.

Transcript

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0:00.0

BBC Sounds, Music, radio, podcasts.

0:07.0

In 2019, we began investigating the disappearance of Dr. Ruzha Ignatva.

0:14.0

I believe we are a very special network.

0:16.0

A scammer who stole billions from investors around the world.

0:21.4

She's on the FBI's 10 most wanted list.

0:24.5

And now we have some unmissable updates.

0:27.8

She has money and when you have money, you have power.

0:30.6

Join me, Jamie Bartlett, as the hunt for the missing crypto queen continues.

0:35.5

Listen first on BBC Sounds.

0:38.0

Today's guest has one of the most distinctive voices in the UK today.

0:43.2

John Cooper Clark, punk poet and Bard of Salford,

0:47.4

welcome to Great Lives.

0:49.6

Whom are you nominating?

0:51.2

Thank you very much, Matthew.

0:52.3

I'm nominating Johnny Green. He lived nine

0:56.2

lives in one. Many of them I don't know anything about, but I have been running into Johnny

1:01.9

for 40 years or so before we even were a double act. I used to see him in the late 70s

1:09.8

when he was looking after the clash.

1:11.8

Yeah.

1:12.0

They were on the road.

1:12.9

I was on the road, going to different cities,

1:15.5

and we'd meet up in sort of service areas.

...

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