The medieval character Ray Winstone based on a football hooligan: “He’s having your dough”
Ray Winstone is ‘ard, and notice that’s without an ‘h’, which is a very important distinction.
Homerton’s favourite son is the quintessential English brute on film, with a gruff voice, a menacing stance, a penchant for rhyming slang and hilarious quips, qualities that have made him a household name.
Sexy Beast, Quadrophenia, 44 Inch Chest, the hits keep on coming for Mr Winstone, but one of the ‘ardman’s earliest successes came in the form of Robin of Sherwood. With Michael Praed and Jason Connery (yes, Sean’s son) playing two different versions of the legendary outlaw, this delightfully shonky fantasy series ran on ITV in the UK for two seasons between 1984 and 1986. Winstone is easily the biggest star to have played one of the ‘Merry Men’, having appeared as Will Scarlet.
Robin Hood is one of the most-adapted characters in all of fiction, whose myths date back to the 14th century and continue to capture people’s imaginations even after dozens and dozens of versions of the story have been told. Basically, Winstone wasn’t short of inspiration to draw from, so one wonders who was his biggest influence: Errol Flynn, Richard Greene, or the sexy fox from the Disney version?
“I based Will Scarlet on a football hooligan,” he told The Irish Times in the most Ray Winstone way possible, explaining, “It was based on a kid I knew. Will Scarlet is a medieval mugger. He goes out, and he robs people. He’s having your dough”.
To give the big man some credit (and because he could definitely still beat me up even though he’s 40 years older than me), this version of Scarlet isn’t like the one in your typical bedtime story.
He is traditionally portrayed as a jovial fellow who loves singing and dancing as much as he does robbing the rich, but in Robin of Sherwood, he’s a deeply damaged man who joins the Merry Men after his wife is brutally murdered by Norman conquerors, making him young, angry, and quick to violence: sounds like a textbook hooligan to me.
Winstone’s love of the beautiful game is well documented, wherein it’s known as a lifelong fan of West Ham United (up the ‘ammers, and all that) and was a featured part of their 2009/10 kit launch. He’s even appeared in a few football-themed movies, playing a manager in the TV movie All in the Game and has appeared as the stepfather of the title character in There’s Only One Jimmy Grimble.
One of Winstone’s old co-stars revealed that there were tentative plans to revive Robin of Sherwood, but given how much worse holliganism has become in the years since the show ended, it’s probably for the best that he didn’t get back into character; he might have actually killed someone.
