The Royle Family's Ricky Tomlinson is back on our screens later this month, playing a football manager - even though he's fallen out with the beautiful game. He tells Steve Pratt how footballers have got too big for their boots and why actors should keep their feet on the ground.

The burly figure on the bench urging on Wirral County footballers is the familiar one of Ricky Tomlinson. But this is a scene you'll only see on the small screen. The star of The Royle Family and Brookside may love his home town team of Liverpool, but you won't find him cheering them on from the terraces.

Plain-speaking Tomlinson is so disgusted with the way the football business has developed that he refuses to go to matches. Which is ironic as he plays a football club boss - not a very good one, admittedly - in his latest ITV comedy project Mike Bassett: Manager.

"I just think it's no longer the beautiful game, it's the beautiful business and the people who run it are destroying it," he says. "I wasn't surprised this morning when I heard Man United had sacked 25 of their staff. That's the thin edge of the wedge, I think other clubs will follow suit.

"I'd like Liverpool to win, but I don't go any more because football has been taken away from the working class. They're ripping people off.

"I get passionate about it because I remember when I was a kid I could go to the Kop in Anfield and pay me shilling to go in and stand in the boys' pen, which was sectioned off. Me dad would stand one side and we'd stand the other to watch the match.

"There's none of that now. I think the kids pay full price. While I was working on Mike Bassett, there was one of the technicians who was a mad Chelsea supporter and used to take his two sons to watch the home games. And he said by the time he's got them there, bought them a sandwich at half-time, it cost him over 100 quid."

He acknowledges that football is a short career so players have to get what they can when they can, but it makes him angry when he hears of them holding off signing a new contract because they've been offered £100,000 and want £120,000. "I wouldn't sign them - I'd tell them to bugger off. Then that fella might be able to take his kids to the game and only pay 50 quid," he says. "A football match is all over in two hours. You can go to the cricket for 20 quid and sit there all day, make a nice day, have a picnic and watch the game.

"I'm delighted to say that, for the first time, England cricket shirts have outsold England football shirts, and that's all due to the wonderful Test series. I can't name the England football team any more. I can't spell them, never mind name them. I can probably name more cricketers than I can footballers."

These days you'll find Tomlinson and his three brothers supporting rugby league as he's bought them season tickets for St Helens Rugby Club.

He can't avoid talking about football because of Mike Bassett: Manager, which has been developed into a TV series following the success of the cinema film. To tie in with that, he's also penned Football My Arse!, a collection of stories about the game and its players.

Initially, he was reluctant to make the TV series because it looked like too much work. Then he read the scripts by Rob Sprackling and John Smith and thought they were so funny that he changed his mind. Amanda Redman again plays his wife, with comedian Steve Edge taking over from Bradley Walsh, who's moved on to Coronation Street, as Bassett's faithful assistant Dodsy.

"It was hard work, it was long days, but we did have such a laugh," says Tomlinson. "I wasn't keen on doing it at first. I asked the lads to recast and they said they couldn't do that. The two writers and the director came up to Liverpool, we had a talk, I read the scripts again and I couldn't let them down.

"I'm really glad I've done it and would look forward to doing another series if this one is a success. The character is such a bumbler that he can go anywhere. When we done the movie over in Brazil, the guys who own Hallmark TV wanted to do a follow-up movie where I went to America and became the coach of the national ladies' team. He could end up in the next series being the manager of a pub team or a school team. He could go any-bloody-where - as long as it's down."

The six-part TV series finds coach Bassett down on his luck after steering the England team to defeat in the semi-finals of the World Cup. He's slipped down the footballing ladder, via stints at Newcastle, Norwich and Colchester, and grabs his last chance of glory by taking charge of struggling League Two side Wirral County.

The phrase "best-loved actor and entertainer" is liberally sprinkled about in show business but Tomlinson really does deserve the label. A plasterer by trade, he's moved from militant trade unionist - imprisoned for his role in a building workers' strike - to one of the country's most recognisable and cheerful actors. He believes in making the set as welcoming as possible, always making a point of going up to newcomers to say hello.

'Sometimes it can be difficult if you're only coming in to do two days and everyone else has been working together for three or four weeks," he says. "It goes with the job to say, 'hi ya, welcome' because while I'm working I don't go for a drink. I don't socialise. I have to go and learn my lines because I'm pretty crap at learning them. So I don't socialise with anybody. I tell them that, that I'm not being standoffish. I make up for it at the wrap party."

He's never forgotten seeing, when he was working as an extra for Granada TV, a leading actor take the time to speak to an old lady who wanted to meet him as they were preparing to leave a location. He went into her cottage and spent 20 minutes talking to her. "It just made an impression on me, I thought, 'that's wonderful'. Normally, it's 'let's get back to the studio'," says Tomlinson.

"I genuinely think it goes with the job. Maybe it goes back to the days I worked on the building site. If a new guy comes on, it's the banter right away. You're piss-taking, laughing and having a joke."

With fame comes recognition, something that he takes in his stride, not even minding how many times people shout out "My arse" at him in the street - a reference to his role as The Royle Family's king of the couch potatoes, Jim Royle. "There were about 20 taxi drivers shouting it out on the way here," he says.

"I can tell how old people are from what they shout at me. Driving through Liverpool yesterday two lads came out of a shop and shouted, 'all right, Bobby' so I knew immediately they were in their forties because it was Bobby Grant from Brookside. Then you get people shouting about Cracker and you get Jim Royle. No doubt, when it comes out, it will be Mike Bassett."

As he approaches his 66th birthday, he's not short of offers of work. Some get turned down, like the movie in America and "the little thing" in South Africa. "I just don't want to go away, kid," he says. "I want to stay home. I'm not looking for any big career or anything lke that. I've achieved what little bit of ambition I had."

He'd like to work on his children's book and there's a play he wrote which the BBC had for a couple of years before deciding it was too much like Auf Wiedersehen Pet and didn't want it.

One thing's for sure. He won't be moving away from his beloved Liverpool. "I've got me brothers, me family, me mates and mild beer -you don't even serve mild beer down here," he says.

* Mike Bassett: Manager begins on ITV1 on Thursday, September 29.

* Football My Arse! by Ricky Tomlinson is published on Thursday, £10.