THE radio presenter who made national headlines last weekend by attempting one wind-up too many on England soccer boss Sven-Goran Eriksson has turned his attention to the North-East and former England rugby star Tony Underwood.

Tony Horne is launching his weekend breakfast show on Sunday, April 1, for Century 105.4 FM in the North-East with a recording of tricking the former Newcastle Falcons player with an invitation to appear on Blankety Blank.

Horne's co-presenter, impressionist Mike Maguire, pretended to be the ITV's show host Lily Savage and tried Underwood out with a few example questions such as (Blank) Hooker.

"We saw Tony on Airline on Tuesday night, training to be a pilot, and we thought he'd be ideal for our first North-East wind-up because he still lives in Newcastle. We kept him on the phone for 20 minutes and he never guessed a thing. He's a really nice guy and took the joke really well," said Horne.

The morning DJ shocked former bosses at Tyneside's Metro Radio last year when he suddenly quit to join rivals Century in Manchester, from where he'll broadcast to the North-East.

In January, he and Maguire spent ten days tracking down England's newly-appointed boss in Italy and fooled Eriksson into thinking he was talking to Kevin Keegan.

Yesterday, Horne remained unrepentant about Maguire trying to repeat the same stunt at 7.30am just before England's vital game with Finland.

Century was forced to apologise to the Football Association about the incident but Horne said: "We only phoned to wish him good luck and he laughed about it.

"We are going to concentrate on celebrities in the North-East. Recently we've done Richard Madeley, Vanessa Feltz, John Motson and Lee Boardman - Jez Quigley in Coronation Street."