AFTER seeing his former team-mate find the right answers on television’s leading political programmes, Danny Coid will be hoping Accrington Stanley can pose a few defensive questions of Clarke Carlisle tomorrow.

Carlisle technically remains a Burnley player as he returns to East Lancashire with Northampton, where he is currently on loan until the end of his Turf Moor contract in the summer.

The 32-year-old had seen a similar loan deal at Preston cut short earlier in the season before stepping down to League Two and has since helped the Cobblers climb off the foot of the table and away from the fear of relegation to non-league.

Stanley defender Coid graduated from the youth system at Blackpool with Carlisle and, as well as noting his influence on Northampton’s revival, will also have a jovial message tomorrow about his new life away from the pitch.

Carlisle is now the PFA chairman and has made appearances on political programmes such as Question Time and 10 O’Clock Live.

“I’ll say hello and tell him if I see him on Question Time one more time I’m going to throw my telly across the room!” Coid laughed.

“The first time I saw him on it I spat my cup of tea out! I couldn’t believe he was sitting there discussing politics.

“But when I thought about it, it didn’t surprise me because he’s a very clever man – you could see it back in the day that he could be a politician. I’m not really a Question Time fan but I watched it to see what he was saying and he does speak sense.

“I’ve known Clarke from when I was a young kid in the centre of excellence, Clarke was a YTS.

“The under 16s used to play against the YTS team in trial games. He was playing and I was thinking, ‘Look at the size of this guy, I hope I don’t go near him!’ “But when I did sign a YTS he was a first year pro and he was really good with the young lads.

“He was one of the lads we used to go to the arcades with, he used to take us to play snooker, little things like that.

“He was a really good defender at the same time.

“I’ve always said he should have been right at the top.

“He did play at the top but I think he should have stayed at the top for most of his career because he was a really good defender and a top class guy.”

Despite five wins from their last seven games, Northampton still sit 19th and Stanley will be considered favourites for victory – even if they lost 4-0 at home to Plymouth in a similar fixture in Paul Cook’s first game in charge.

Coid thinks the Reds will be much improved this time but knows the difference Carlisle has made at Northampton.

“The timing’s not the best to play them,” said the 30-year-old, who has vowed to play through the pain after sustaining ankle and knee injuries in the past couple of weeks.

“I think it will be a tough game but we should be getting three points really.

“The Plymouth game was just a bit of a one-off. I don’t think that will happen again.”