Colin "the hips" Jackson and Zoe Ball might be the judges' favourites, but the two Yorkshire lads have wooed audiences with their honest endeavour and a dash of good old-fashioned sex appeal.
Both have made it to the last four of the BBC's hugely popular Saturday night show which seems to be doing for ballroom dancing what a certain wizard has done for glasses.
When they started out eight weeks ago, neither Gough nor Martin thought they would get past week three. Not only have they achieved that, but there's a 50 per cent chance one of them will win the competition.
"There's still two Yorkshiremen in there, and I don't think either of us can believe it really, it's pretty surreal," says Martin.
For a man who's been getting four hours sleep since mid-October, the TV chef and restaurateur is looking in pretty good shape.
He reckons he's lost two-and-half stone since teaming up with his dance partner Camilla Dallerup, and has now put in more than 200 hours of training, although how he finds the time is difficult to fathom.
He's in the middle of filming a BBC series called Stately Suppers, while touring with the Good Food Show and trying to keep an eye on his restaurants at the same time.
"My average day starts at six in the morning and I will probably do six till six filming, then I will get to a dance studio for seven and work till 11 or 12 o'clock and get home probably about one in the morning.
"I have four hours' sleep and then I'm off again, and it's been like that for seven weeks now, but it is getting tough."
We're sitting in a meeting room somewhere in the labyrinth that is the BBC Television Centre, ahead of yet another rehearsal.
"I never anticipated how much hard work would be involved because they (the producers) were very clever, they said it would be about 12 hours of training a week, but you do about 10 hours in the first day – but if you put in the work you get the rewards."
He had already turned down the chance to take part in I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here and Big Brother when he agreed to take part in the third series of Strictly Come Dancing.
"It wasn't about reviving my career or anything like that, it was just to raise as much money as possible for charity and if you stayed in then great."
He says the past few weeks have been something of a rollercoaster ride.
"When it started I looked down the list and thought I was out the first two or three weeks, because not many people know who you are, and seeing this big six foot three, 16 stone bloke prancing around, you think 'how will that look on TV?' But it has been amazing," he says.
"I'm no Billy Elliott, I come from a farmhouse in North Yorkshire, so this is far removed from what I would normally do. I'm the first person when the music comes on in a pub to grab his pint and disappear to the back of the room."
The 33-year-old was brought up at Castle Howard, in North Yorkshire, where his father ran the catering business, he says his family and friends love the programme.
"They took the mick to start with, but now they love it. My mother gets stopped in the street now and asked for her autograph, it's fantastic." And despite all the effort involved he admits he's enjoying himself.
"To start with, you were aware of the size of the audience and you don't want to make a fool of yourself, but now I just go on and have fun, I love it.
"It's got a lot of people into dancing who never thought they would. I mean my best mate's a big six foot five bloke and he came to watch last week and he's started doing it.
"I was the first to think dancing was a bit of a nonce's thing but now you see the amount of effort these people put in and I take my hat off to them."
He believes the show's popularity is down to it's broad appeal.
"It's a quality programme that every age bracket can watch from young kids to adults and grannies, everybody likes it. You're not peeing in a nettle bush, there's nothing naff about it.
"It's people learning something and you follow them on that journey and you don't want it to stop, well I do, otherwise my restaurants will go bust," he says, laughing.
He sees himself and Camilla as the underdogs, now that Patsy Palmer and her partner Anton Du Beke have been voted out, but thinks anyone can still win.
"I'd like to see a bloke win. I think Zoe's going to be tough to beat, but I think Darren may be there as well.
"The thing is it's not based purely on what the judges think, the audience can swing it so much and the difficulty is if you're top, do people still vote for you?"
He speaks warmly of his fellow competitors and says there is a great camaraderie between everyone.
"The Press try and build up this rivalry between me and Darren but we just can't believe we're still in the damn thing.
"It's been a journey all the way. You try and do the best for your partner and she's trying to do the best for you, and you end up building this rapport together, and you end up being good mates like Darren and Lilia and me and Camilla.
Such has been the chemistry between him and Camilla, that gossip columns have been fuelled by suggestions they are enjoying more than just a working relationship.
He rolls his eyes as the inevitable question follows, but is giving nothing away.
"You are together, then you've split up – speculation is speculation.
"I've always said what you do in your private life is your thing, but people like the gossip side of it, and it is quite funny.
"I wake up on a Sunday morning and my mother calls and says, 'Go out and buy the Sun and the Mirror', that's quite amusing," he says.
Downstairs on the set, Colin Jackson has just swooned his way through a routine, and his much-admired hips appear to be in fine fettle.
But Gough, who is about to be put through his paces by dance partner Lilia Kopylova, is unperturbed.
"I said if I got past week one it would be amazing, but now we're in week eight and a lot of people are tipping us to reach the final which I still can't believe. I'm just glad I'm still here, because it's been great fun."
Gough, 35, says he decided during the summer that he wasn't going to tour with England because he wanted to spend more time with his kids.
"In 10 years of playing for England I've only been home for one birthday, so I owed it to my kids this winter, and as soon as I pulled out, the phone was ringing to do TV stuff and I found myself doing it.
"I was a bit worried people would think I had pulled out of the tour to do this which couldn't be further from the truth."
Although he didn't get off to the best of starts he quickly found his feet.
"The first show was embarrassing and all my mates and family had a laugh and joke about it but since then you wouldn't believe the attitude of people.
"Every Saturday night I get a text from at least seven or eight of the lads in Pakistan wishing me good luck and telling me to phone them and let them know what's happened, they love it."
He openly admits that he's not a natural dancer but he appreciates this is part of his appeal.
"I think one reason the public have taken to me a little bit is because I am a lad's lad, there's no disguising it, people know I like a pint with my mates.
"But I've really enjoyed this and you wouldn't believe the amount of people who say it's encouraged them to dance, and the number of children who've come up to me and said they've always been afraid to dance because they thought it was namby-pamby, but they are really getting into it and I think that's great."
He's had such an impact that even some friends back in Barnsley, not traditionally a hotbed for the cha cha cha, have begun dancing lessons.
"I think some people want me to win because they think it will be good for dancing, because I'm not a particularly good dancer.
"I'm definitely not doing this for another career, I'm a cricketer at the end of the day."

chris.bond@ypn.co.uk