Vinnie Jones

The football hardman turned Hollywood movie gangster reveals his lifelong passion for the countryside and fieldsports, and explains how he is encouraging the next generation

- CHARLOTTE MACKANESS

“AROUND here, we’ve got various trusts looking after nature. Well this is the Vinnie Trust,” grins Vinnie Jones, arms stretched out towards the 150 acres of Sussex he calls home. Although he is smiling broadly, Jones is deadly serious. “All this is for my grandchildren. It is so important to protect the natural world we have around us,” he says.

He might be best known as the hard-tackling professional football player turned Hollywood actor, but Jones’s boyish excitement as he points out the sparrowhawk that has made his fields her hunting ground is touching. Equally heartfelt is his sadness that the spot where he found his first skylark nest in the 1980s had to make way for the M25.

“People who live in the countryside are the key to conservation and need support. I’m trying to do my bit here by putting hedgerows back and managing things to allow ground-nesting birds to thrive, as well as helping everything from grass snakes to hedgehogs,” he explains. Jones wants to shine a light on such issues with his new series for Discovery Plus, Vinnie’s Wild Life, which airs in the autumn.

The show, which is filmed around Jones’s farm, is very much in the spirit of his successful YouTube venture, Vinnie Jones The Crafty Countryman. “I’m really hoping the new programme will reach a wide audience and show them a bit about life here and help educate. The world is very polarised. There’s lots of misconceptions and lots of shouting going on,” says Jones, sadly.