Garth was one of three lads collecting a "penny for the Guy" outside the Rovers Return for the forthcoming bonfire night in 1975. Ken Barlow, then a leading candidate for the position of Community Development Officer at the Community Centre across the road, approached Garth and his friends Matty and Wayne and asked if they ever used the centre, to which the dark-haired Matty replied that nobody did. Ken's first project at the centre was a special bonfire-themed activity for the local children, performing a modern version of the Gunpowder Plot, but Garth and his friends shunned it in favour of the bonfires at the Red Rec.