Ant and Dec initially didn’t bond during their ‘Byker Grove’ days.
The TV presenting duo are celebrating 25 years in showbiz this year but Dec has revealed he didn’t warm to Ant when they first met on the set of the teen soap – in which they shot to fame as PJ and Duncan – in the early 1990s because he thought his co-star had a "miserable face".
He said: "We would mess about and put each other off. I remember seeing Ant in the corner and thinking he’s got a bit of a miserable face.
"It’s not like we walked into the room and went ‘you are hilarious’, ‘you are hilarious too’."
Ant, 38, admits the feeling was mutual as Dec’s terrible jokes put him off being friends with his co-star at first.
He said: "They were awful. Awful. Awful. Awful."
But the pair soon bonded over their mutual love of Newcastle United FC and they haven’t looked back since.
Ant told to the Daily Mirror newspaper: "Honestly it was sat there talking about Newcastle United and the games and who our favourite players were and who we didn’t like – it’s the same chat as we have now to be honest, 25 years on – that’s how we bonded really."
Dec, 38, added: "We finished filming the series and Ant sent me a Christmas card that year and it was Fred Flinstone on the front of it and inside it said ‘have a yabba-dabba-do Christmas’.
"It had ‘PS, fancy going to the Swindon game on Boxing Day?’. So I rang him up and said yes, so that was when we started going to the match and hanging out."
While things were going well on ‘Byker Grove’, Ant admits he did suffer "a lot of name calling and mickey taking" as school bullies used to target him because he was on the show.
Ant and Dec didn’t get on initially
