Why we should put a cordon around football to keep the “slebs” out

DEPRESSING news has reached me this week. The BBC are to hire comedian James Corden to provide an alternative – and no doubt ‘edgy’ – analysis after every England game in this summer’s World Cup.

The grim import of this may not be apparent to some Irish readers who may be unfamiliar with the full oeuvre of Corden’s work, or who may calculate, quite reasonably, that the standard of BBC’s soccer coverage which pairs blind, unquestioning, patriotism with the oleaginous Gary Lineker and the monosyllabic Alan Shearer, could not get very much worse. But they would be sadly wrong.

For the uninitiated, James Kimberly Corden played Tims, the tubby one, in Alan Bennett’s beautifully observed narrative of provincial English education, The History Boys, which was thunderously acclaimed at the National Theatre and on Broadway, and was a rare example of a stage play migrating successfully to the cinema.

Since then Corden has written and starred in Gavin and Stacey, a “cult” hit for BBC Three which tells a love story of two young people set against the unpromising landscapes of Billericay in Essex and Barry Island in South Wales.

But equally as representative of his work was the film Lesbian Vampire Killers described variously by critics as an “appalling waste of a perfectly decent title” and “taking all the easy options of bad taste, bosoms and bodily fluids.”

So bad was it that my son, who counts among his preoccupations both girls and cinematic portrayals of the supernatural, and is presumably precisely the demographic that this offering was targeting, would not deign to drag himself away from his pints of Hobgoblin and Amanda Palmer music at his campus bar to give it a viewing.

Unfortunately for the rest of us James Corden has also got soccer in his sights. His dalliance with that commenced in last spring’s Comic Relief when he was filmed giving a “motivational” talk to Gerrard, Ferdinand, and co. That was reprised this month for Sport Relief.

Corden has also landed a gig as the host of Sky TV’s new sports “comedy” show A League of Their Own. This programme has two gags. One of them is that former England cricket captain Freddie Flintoff likes a drink and the other is that Jamie Redknapp spent a long time in his playing career being injured, which seems to be some sort of qualification for playing for Tottenham given that they also had “Sicknote” Darren Anderton on their roster.

Corden is there to provide some laddish jokes most of which have been heard before and none of which surpasses the weekly terrace humour at any of the 92 English League clubs.

Worst of all, he is a West Ham supporter. Presumably because he was brought up in that famous East End suburb of Great Missenden in Buckinghamshire, or perhaps because the colours of his school were claret and blue. It certainly can’t be because of where he lives now. That’s in South London, proper Millwall territory.

Why are they always West Ham? It would be a recurring vision of hell to be wedged into the lower tier of the Bobby Moore stand alongside the likes of Corden, Russell Brand, Dirty Den, Tony Gayle, Ray Winstone and Alf Garnett with all that talk about how West Ham Won The World Cup, how Beckham and Terry let their country down, Frank Lampard’s body mass and dark mutterings about people “taking liberties” on their “manor.”

The blame for all this must really rest with the broadcasting companies, and particularly with the BBC for giving unsuitable platforms to what it likes to call “the talent.” The whole process started with the 1970 World Cup when the celebrity panel was a novelty. But it was quite one thing to hear the colourfully-expressed views of Derek Dougan, Brian Clough, Malcolm Allison, and even Bob McNab because they had a pedigree in the game.

Even when they made outrageous comments, such as claiming that Pele chickened out of the challenge when he produced his mesmerising body swerve in the semi-final against Uruguay because he didn’t want to be clattered by the onrushing ‘keeper Ladislao Mazurkiewicz, there was the sense that there was some experience behind that judgement.

Calling in the showbiz “slebs” to provide a bit of street-style is something else entirely. BBC just about pulled it off in France 1998 when they paired Martin O’Neill with Robbie Williams and even then it was most interesting for O’Neill’s knowledge of the works of Take That and the rivalry with Gary Barlow rather than Robbie’s grasp of the role of Zidane.

Somehow I can’t see RTÉ recruiting Colin Farrell to sit alongside Bill Herlihy, Dunphy, Giles and the rest to discuss Dunga’s deployment of Lucio as an attacking option from the back, or video linking to Shane McGowan for an insight into Sneijder’s qualities in the hole.

And a good thing too. That’s why I will be avoiding the BBC this summer.

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