Oddly enough and I am a bit long in the tooth for fancying young men , but I would find Matt far more attractive than Tom ever was . . I am sure more than his wife finds him a lovely man ,
As for ignoring Toms gurning , Now that was very hard to ignore .

Good God woman what a ridiculous notion !!!!

I don't know if there are any rules for the celebs taking part in SCD but Matt winning that dancing comp when he was on Blue Peter, plus the training he then had with Lilia and Darren, showed that he is an excellent dancer and should have barred him from taking part.

Totally agree. And to think they punished Kara for having a bit of previous.

Whenever a celeb taking part has even a hint of previous dance training, they're automatically slated for having an "unfair advantage". Matt doesn't seem that good in those videos anyway. IMO.

If we literally had contestants with ABSOLUTELY NO previous dance experience (Ballet, Cheerleading, Charity things etc), we'd probably have very few to choose from. I seem to recall one of the sportsmen (Possibly Austin Healy?) commenting on how some of the steps they did in one of the dances were very similar to one of the steps in his dance.

On top of "dance training" actors, actresses, popstars etc seem to have, we'd probably have to have a line up of news readers, and we all know how successful they usually turnout to be.

Honestly, I don't care about their previous dance training. It's really a one-off experience for the celebs and it's a bit of fun.

If they're good, I'll support them, regardless of any previous dance training. (Plus, these unfair disadvantages really don't matter until the later stages at best, do they? It's all about keeping the entertaining duffers in, at least for the first few weeks. I think that's even more unfair than anyone with previous dance training! )

Regardless of what 'previous' Matt has, bottom line is he can move.

As it happens, he lives not a stone's throw from me, and I do cop sight of him from time to time.

And yup - the man can definitely move.

In fairness, while I do think that if they barred Kara for a week to even things our they probably should have done the same for Matt, he has only had one week's worth of training for two Latin dances. So he'll have half a week extra's worth of training when he gets to jive and Paso Doble. He didn't have to do any ballroom dances (so no ballroom hold and no heel leads), he didn't need the hip action present in cha cha cha or rumba and he needed pretty much nothing of samba. He wouldn't even have done a proper ballroom hold.

I did go and watch those clips in the interest of seeing what all the fuss is about and yes, watched them fairly closely. It's worth noting first of all that there were only 15 couples in the first round of their competition (Matt said when waiting for a recall to the second round that they would recall 12 our of 15 couples). Secondly, although we saw the under-14s (?) champion couple and a lot of professional looking couples warming up on the dancefloor, I'm pretty sure Matt and Zoe weren't competing against any of them. It'd be unlikely anyway (usually in comps beginners compete against other beginners, and you can't compete in that section if you've had lessons for more than a year) plus if you look at the brief shot you get of the finalists at the end, none of the couples are dressed like pros, or generally look like advanced dancers. When they announced the winners, the section they competed in was "Special" something or other, which sounds to me like it wasn't one of the main competitions of the day.

In other words, although they did well for a week's training, I think this "he won a competition" is getting a little over-hyped. They did win, but they only had to beat 14 other couples to do so and although there were very few glimpses of the dancers around them, I think it's fair to say the couples they were competing against were pretty inexperienced themselves. As I said elsewhere, I think the fact that he picked it up quickly speaks more of natural aptitude than anything else. And once again, the fact that he did gymnastics will really only help with a general feel for how his body works, fitness and flexibility. An advantage yes, but not an unfair one that I can see. Having watched the men's gymnastics at the Commonwealth Games the day before yesterday, it's pretty clear that dance and music have no place even in their floor routines.

The training he had wth Lilia and Darren was a part of the lead up to the competition, so it's not an added extra on top of the competition stuff.

Sorry, but as others have said, if Matt was barred on those grounds, then you might as well take the trophies away from Jill, Alesha and Tom, and eradicate Rachel, Lisa, Ricky, Ali, Emma, Louisa, Matt and any other singer/actor/stage school graduate from Strictly history.

These 'previous dance experience' accusations are increasingly meaningless - the public like who they like, and that's down as to what they do off the dancefloor as what they do on it.

Are some people so insecure about their own favourites' chances that they feel the need to try and ruin others'? And have they forgotten that Strictly is not just a dance competition ...?

Lol do you know that from his running away?


couldn't resist hehe

Nah - I stay well distant and use binoculars. He doesn't have a clue he's being stalked.

Nice rear view and he can certainly swing his hips.

So YOU were the one who gave them the binoculars idea were you?

Not necessarily. The entire neighbourhood use binoculars to ogle his rear view - could have been any one of us.

I was surprised after seeing the videos that if Kara was penalised that Matt wasn't, as he had more training than she did.

So far I like him better than Kara. He's just one of those people who are good at most things, but I'm not sure he's got the personality to win though.

... only 13 couples this time ... and all of them (including Kara) with less experience than him ... nice!

... in the past I've been really sceptical about the "previous experience" claims ... and I've always considered that so long as they don't have ballroom and latin experience everything else just constitutes life skills that they can bring to the table and use as they will during strictly ...

... Matt has clearly had days and days of intensive latin training from top professionals, way more than Kara had and given that they took a week away from her, they should have at least acknowledged Matt's previous experience ... although given his countryflie commitments I doubt he's able to train as much as the others anyway ...

... Matt's previous experience will give him a real advantage in both the passo and jive and if they have everyone on the floor at the same time doing freestyle again this year his competition experience is obviously going to count in his favour ...

I'd be a lot less annoyed about this if Matt/Strictly had admitted his previous latin experience ... he had every opportunity to do so today on It Takes Two, but didn't mutter a word about it ... oh well, there's nothing I can do about it, so I guess I'll just chalk it up as another SCD change that I'm not keen on, and learn to live with it ...

I just think it is unfair when contestants have previous dancing experience. Matt is great but if he had prior training it should be talked about openly. So many of the contestants have had extensive ballet training and yet go on Strictly claiming they are complete beginners. For example any celeb who has attending Stage School has had DAILY ballet lessons for YEARS!!! I know ballroom is a different form of dance but holding yourself, use of arms, flexibility etc great advantages to have after years of ballet training. Obviously Matt knows what he is doing as was made obvious by his dancing on Saturday!!!

Personally I find men like Gaven a complete turn off. Fancy having to fight to get to the mirror each day!!! Give me a normal man any day of the week. I much prefer men llike Tom and Matt! "Gorgeous" men like Mark the Ramp who was initially promoted by Strictly as a family man, shy and unsure of himself, embarrassed by some of the dancing he had to do etc......loads of videos about his family, his wife, his girls etc., and then we learnt he had a seven year affair on his poor wife and they are now divorced!!. Some of these guys are so in love with themselves!!

Oh for Goodness sake.

He and Zoe had 3 or 4 days to learn how to do TWO complex dances by rote. If you actually watch the linked clip you will see that they made loads of mistakes at all stages of the competition and what we could see of the rest of the field showed that they were all pretty crap.

Oh - and add this to the fact that it would have been 6 or 7 years ago, and I'm pretty sure he has forgotten what he had to do for one assignment out of the hundreds he did during his time on BP!!!

Exactly and he stopped the gymnastics at 15 so he hasn't done any for nearly 30 years. He spent one week of his life learning the dance so it is not as if he has spent years dancing.

He won't win, he's too good at dancing.

But surely dancing experience doesnt really count in the long run? Just look at all the 'good' dancers who havent won! Its the public voting, not the experts.

Has anyone else noticed that he has a bit of a strange nose? I think he's very dull and average looking. I also didn't like the way he treated Zoe after the competition; he blamed her for their mistakes and was not happy about it! He's aggressively competitive.

5 days!. Glad they don't train pilots in five days As if that's gonna make any difference. Give paul two months extra training and he'd still be shite

Its all very strange this previous dance experience. The BBC must take it seriously when they imposed a week ban on Kara but Matt should also have a similar ban. I know people have had all sorts of learning in stage schools but we never had anyone who specifically won a competition in ballroom taking part.

Since when was any contestant having previous dance experience new? In what way is this different? Why is it 'another SCD change'?

CaroUK is absolutely right: Matt had a matter of days of learn his dances for BP. That is a drop in the ocean compared to what every contestant who has been to drama/stage school gets. I know: my OH trained as an actor and had, as a part of the basic course, was taught a number of dances - the training for which went on considerably longer than Matt's. In any case, Blue Peter is a magazine show with a fast turnaround where the presenters have to do different things for each show, all of them in rapid succession: there's no time for anyone to disappear for weeks on end for dance training or, indeed, anything else.

So there's nothing for Matt to 'admit' to, any more than some of the other celeb contestants, past and present.

Sorry if you, and some others, don't like Matt. But if that's the case, don't vote for him - simple as that.

I would also point out that some of the comments on this thread are ripe for quoting in a 'story' fabricated by the likes of the Daily Heil, which is always looking for an excuse to attack Strictly and the BBC. I'm sure this may not be the intention of those posters, but there are an increasing number of instances where DS forum members have their opinions hijacked and taken out of context by lazy journalists as ammunition to knock a show I think it's fair to say most of us enjoy watching and would like to continue doing so. I'm not for one moment saying we shouldn't post criticisms - as if! - but the range of opinions represented here sure as hell won't feature in the anti-BBC press ...