GRAEME Murty is better at cooking up a storm on the pitch than in the kitchen, said his wife Karen as he prepared for a cooking lesson from celebrity chef Antony Worrall Thompson.

The Royals captain may be great at marshalling his troops on the pitch, but when it comes to making dinner he just cannot score.

In the hope of improving her husband’s form, Karen called in help from the experts and Antony obliged training the Reading defender to cook prawns, lobster, and an apple and apricot crumble.

Before the cooking lesson, an apprehensive Graeme told the Post: “I’m a big fan of all kinds of seafood so I wanted to see what Anthony could show me.

“We’ve asked him to do a chilli lobster, which will be a bit of a challenge because I have never tasted a lobster I liked.”

The celebrity chef turned up at the footballer’s Basingstoke home on Wednesday with an array of pans, ingredients and a live lobster, which crawled around a box on the kitchen floor before meeting its fate in a pot of boiling water.

While Graeme looked on, Antony scooped out the flesh of the lobster and combined it with a diced chilli pepper and seasoning to create a dish that charmed the tastebuds.

The next dish prepared by the gourmet, who writes a column in the Evening Post’s food monthly magazine, was an apple and apricot crumble, which was a big hit with Graeme who has a sweet tooth.

He said: “I have to be careful with my diet while I’m training and generally can only eat very bland food.

“I’m also supposed to have a low-sugar diet because of my high metabolism, so this is a bit of a treat for me.”

Antony followed his own recipe for the crumble, but instead of adding sweet spice cinnamon to the recipe he accidentally poured in a handful of spicy cardamom. “This should make the dish a bit different,” he joked, “but this is how new recipes are created.”

He also showed the Royals ace a couple of his tricks for making the perfect pudding, such as adding powdered milk to the dish to thicken it up.

But after the two-hour cooking lesson, Graeme discovered life was not just a box of chocolates – he had to prepare the dishes for a dinner party for 10 the following night.

“If you can convince 10 people to eat my cooking, I’ll give it a go,” he said.