Coronation Street star Antony Cotton, known for his role as Sean Tully, paid tribute to his late pal Matthew Owens on social media after his death at the age of 38

Coronation Street star Antony Cotton has paid tribute to his colleague, Matthew Owens, after he died aged 38. Matthew worked as a fire safety advisor on the set of the long-running ITV soap and on other BBC programmes. Sean Tully star Antony took to Instagram to pay tribute to his friend.

Along with a picture of the order of service from his friend’s funeral, which said Matthew died on July 7, Antony wrote: “Today was a very hard day for so many people, especially Matt’s family. I still can’t quite get my head round it, to be honest. Matt was just a really, really nice lad. We met when he did the fire safety for a stunt block at Coronation Street, 13 years ago and we’ve been friends ever since.

Matt Owens worked as a fire safety advisor on Corrie(Image: antonycotton/Instagram)

“He was a much-loved son, brother, dad, colleague and partner. He was also a quiet and humble, solid friend. I’ll miss hearing from you Matt, out of the blue sometimes, but always with a smile. You are at rest now, no more worries, Matty Boy.”

Friends and fans took to the comment section to pay tribute to Matthew, with one user writing: “Sorry for your loss mate. Condolences to his friends and family.”

One person, who was at the funeral, commented: “I did the funeral today, I was one of the family limo drivers, I saw how sad you were, gave you a little smile, very emotional day. So many people attended, you could tell he was very loved.”

Antony Cotton pays tribute to Coronation Street colleague as they die age 38(Image: RapidFireCover/X)

Another fan posted: “Just reading this news, I didn’t know Matt had passed, really sad news. He was always so helpful and a joy to work with, helped me out lots with projects. Sending love to his family.”

Matthew is survived by his partner Amy and his 11-year-old son Freddie. As a sign of respect for the late firefighter, fire stations across Staffordshire kept their flags at half-mast.

He was a fireman at Cannock Fire Station. He also had a firm that provided fire safety training, extras and props to the BBC and ITV. In 2013, he worked o setting Coronation Street’s The Rovers Return pub on fire. He even trained Coronation Street star Tony Hirst to carry out a fireman’s lift for the soap.

In soap scenes, the pub fire trapped Stella Price and Sunita Alahan, while Karl left Sunita in the cellar to die. She survived and was rushed to the hospital but Karl later murdered her by taking off her breathing tubes so she wouldn’t be able to tell anyone he started the fire.

Matthew previously said of working on set: “It’s all a bit surreal being there on the set and on camera. At one point we were standing outside The Rovers Return, just watching it burn.

“Normally as firefighters, we’d get to the scene and be putting the fire out. It was unreal just watching the fire, especially at such an iconic pub.

“It was a hard three weeks working on the set, we were there from February 11 to last Tuesday. The first week we were working all night, from 3pm to 5am. The second week was all days, doing inside shots and the last week tidying bits up.”