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clive whittingham: the world cup on tv

Will abject England’s World Cup exit lead to a merciful pulling of the ‘James Corden’s World Cup Live’ plug?

Posted: June 27th 2010
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I have seen some shit in my time. In fact as somebody who grew up watching a combination of Grimsby Town, Scunthorpe United and Queens Park Rangers I would say I am something of a connoisseur of shit. I know shit when I see it and I’m not afraid to return to the source of the shit despite the risk of shit being served up again.

I have, for instance, seen Bob Malcolm playing professional football. And John Gayle, and Darryn Stamp and Bob Taylor (the fat Gillingham one, not the half decent West Brom one). I have been at Glanford Park to see Scunthorpe lead three nil as I left to go and beat the traffic, only to lose 4-3. Twice. I have spent eight hours battling road and rail disasters to reach my seat at Port Vale only for the QPR goalkeeper to be sent off for a professional foul after four minutes. I have seen QPR lose to Vauxhall Motors. I have seen Sammy Koejoe in the flesh. I have sat in cold empty football grounds and uttered the words “this is a load of shit” so many times it doesn’t even really bare thinking about...

I have sat and watched England at one international tournament after another. “This could be the one” they cry as yet another “golden generation” jets off, and then flies back early after once again proving that we’re really not as good as we make out. This one has been worst than most, I’d fancy myself to pick a Championship eleven capable of beating Algeria and Slovenia, but the result is pretty much the same – we’re not very good. There aren’t enough English players in our top division, and the ones that are there are so wrapped up in their Premiership and, more importantly to them, Champions League bubble that when they do make the national side they’re not all that bothered. I write this column an hour and twenty minutes after the Germany mauling, and I’ll bet we’re well into the thousands now of players, managers and supporters across the country who have said “well at least Gerrard/Lampard/Rooney/Cole will be fresh for the start of the domestic season now.” England matters now because it’s the summer and there’s nothing else on, but during the season our managers and players moan about having England games because it crowds the schedule and tires them ahead of that crucial third group game against Sporting Bellypopper Utd who finished fourth in the Macedonian First League of Fine Quality. Until rules are brought in forcing clubs to pick a set number of English players in their team I’m afraid we can forget it as far as England winning anything goes.

Still, let’s look at some real positives. Maybe, just maybe, an earlier than anticipated (even little pessimistic old me thought we’d make the quarter finals) exit for England might see a premature cull of James Corden’s World Cup Live – ITV1, 9.30pm after evening matches. The television companies are left with a big headache now – huge swathes of schedule committed to a tournament that boasts few big names, poor football generally, dire atmosphere and negative tactics. How we laughed at the French and gawped at the Italian fall from grace like motorists slowing down to look at an accident on the other side – all very funny and dramatic at the time, but who really wants to watch Slovakia and Mexico play? Audience figures are sure to plummet.
If that proves to be the case and ITV can no longer justify so much prime time coverage for the worst World Cup in living memory, then can they really justify continuing to give James Corden half an hour a night to spew bile that aims itself at the dregs of our society, and most of the time misses even them?

Allow me to surmise the basic gist of James Corden’s World Cup Live, and indeed James Corden’s appeal in general. James Corden is fat. That’s basically it. He’s a fat bloke with a big hairy belly and man boobs and when he lifts his arms up sometimes some of that spills out over his trousers. Now sometimes fat can be funny. I couldn’t think of an example offhand to be honest because without wishing to be a pretentious arse I need more than that to make me laugh, but there’s no accounting for taste so I typed ‘fat bloke’ into YouTube and found one or two clips of fat people getting stuck in things, fat blokes dancing, a fat bloke going through a KFC drive-through on a mobility scooter that he probably got because he was too fat to walk in the first place, probably because when his feet did work they took him to KFC. You see, some people find fat people funny, for maybe 30 seconds or so.

It remains a mystery though how anybody can find somebody who’s basic line is ‘look I’m fat’ funny enough to support three series of the God awful Gavin and Stacey plus Christmas specials, a sketch show on BBC Three that even Corden himself admitted was embarrassing, a terrible mock vampire film and now this abomination live on ITV throughout the tournament. Look there’s James Corden playing golf with Steven Gerrard, doesn’t he look funny in a flat hat and golf jumper? Now he’s playing tennis with Peter Crouch, look how he can barely move around the court. Now he’s boxing with Jermaine Defoe, imagine that. “Christ this is good stuff” - a fucking simpleton may say, while their full time carer wipes dribble off their chin.

I’ve never, ever got it with Gavin and Stacey. My mum and step dad had it on at Christmas last year and sat through two hour long episodes without so much as cracking a smile. Then afterwards had a discussion about how brilliant it was. I have had house guests who have sat and shouted “GAVLA” at each other repeatedly through a Sunday meal and cracked up laughing every single time.  That’s another thing Corden is, loud. Fat and loud.

World Cup Live is a bit of a mixture of TFI Friday, Soccer AM and Fantasy Football League – taking all of the bad points of each and mashing them together in one horrific car crash. I told myself I’d watch three or four for the purposes of the review, but I got through one and a half and then had to have my shoelaces and sharp objects taken away. I’m not sure I believe in life after death but it doesn’t matter a great deal - being nailed into a wooden box and burned is infinitely preferable to this.

The show basically sees James Corden being fat and loud with two or three guests in front of a studio audience that is encouraged to bay and whoop every now and again. By encouraged I mean a clip of action from the World Cup, say a North Korean player firing a shot wide but then appearing to clench his fists in celebration anyway, will be shown and then the camera will cut back to the silent studio and Corden will shout “we love a premature cello don’t we” while banging his cue cards on the desk and the massed ranks of nobodies will cheer and clap.

The guests do not necessarily have to have anything to do with football. Soccer AM has fallen into this trap in recent years – guests are invited on because they’ve got a new single out that they need to promote, rather than because they like football. In fact so few of the guests on there actually knew a damn thing about football last season they had to have a drum with team names in so they could draw one out and make them an honorary supporter of it. On the second night I watched Corden he had Columbian singer Shakira on. And why not? I mean Columbia didn’t make the finals, Shakira has no interest in football and could contribute nothing to what little discussion there was, and she hadn’t watched the games earlier that day. An obvious choice for guest if ever there was one. Whenever asked anything she just wibbled on in that strange way singers/artists/writers/wankers do about journeys and being lost in moments and caught up in euphoria.

The first time I watched it one of the guests was Emma Bunton, who claimed to be a big football fan before saying without a hint of shame that the best bit about Brazil v Ivory Coast was that Kaka has a funny name. Still, at least when she was talking the other guest that night Chris Moyles (he’s fat too you know, and came on with a pint in a plastic glass) wasn’t and that can only ever be a positive.

There was five minutes of fill before an ad break where they all played “Joachim Low or Joachim No”- a true or false game about the German manager. It’s Loew actually, or Löw, pronounced  Love or Lurve, but why let that get in the way? “I cannot believe we’re doing this on television” Corden cried midway through. You and me both mate, you and me both.

There was a prank call to the Slovenian team hotel to tell them the England game had been moved to a later kick off time as well. Again this went over my head. Prank phone calls are only mildly amusing when they’re done well, and surely they’re only done well when vaguely believable to the person on the other end for at least the first part of them? Christ Steve Penk was doing rancid prank calls twenty bloody years ago and they weren’t very good then.

Abbey Clancy, in need of something other than taking cocaine to do while boyfriend Peter Crouch is away, seems to be a permanent fixture and occasionally read out (slowly) a text or e-mail for reasons known only to her, Corden, and whichever producer came up with this drivel. 

I could go on, believe me I could go on. Do you know I can sit through Friends repeats I’ve seen a thousand times before. Still now if there’s nothing else on I’ll still watch the six of them arsing around with their two character traits each being played on a loop. I don’t mind shit, either on the football pitch or on the television. But when I can actually feel my brain melting into a mushy pulp inside my skull it’s time to pull the plug, and hopefully ITV will do too.