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The World Cup produced some truly awful TV. Cameron Carter relives the BBC's late-night shocker, while Barney Ronay laments the humiliation of Paul Gascoigne

BBC ~
I admit it doesn’t take too much to appear the clever one in a broadcasting partnership with Denise van Outen or Kelly Brook, but Johnny Vaughan has been funny and will be funny again (like our plucky England team, he’s relatively young). It is, however, becoming increasingly difficult to find people who still believe this. Like his recent sitcom ’Orrible, Johhny Vaughan’s World Cup Extra provided fewer moments of pleasure than a motivational talk from a reformed crack addict.

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Luke Chapman says two new hooligan documentaries show the viewing public's appetite for violence is undiminished, especially if it has a good soundtrack

It was the adverts that gave the game away. The usual parade of booze, car and financial services promotions, clearly aimed at the programme’s target market: males, 18-45, high disposable income – with perhaps a penchant for a bit of fisticuffs. Welcome to Football’s Fight Club, where viewer and subject were perceived to be one and the same.

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The world is against Leeds United if you believe David O'Leary's vision of events. Mike Ticher takes issue with a spiky work of self-defence

Football clubs are not open institutions and successful managers, on the whole, are not warm and fuzzy people. To be really good at the job you have to be a hard bastard of one type or another. The same is true of many chairmen, who are led to concentrate so in­ten­se­ly on what seems best for their club that the whole of the outside world is filtered through the needs of XXFC. These are hardly original insights, but they are strongly re­inforced by Leeds United On Trial. Despite the storm over the book’s amazingly crass timing and title, it probably provides more evidence about the nature of football clubs in general than it does about Leeds United and David O’Leary in particular.

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Dear WSC
Watching the Seinfeld rerun “The Doll” recently, in which Frank Costanza rebuilt his son George’s old bedroom into a poolroom, I happened to see something peculiar behind the back of the ginger Korea vet when he is arguing with his wife Estelle. On the wall is a plaquette with the words “Pool is not a matter of life and death. It is …” well, take a guess.Does this mean that for the first time in history the Americans have picked up a lesson from a foreigner or might it be that Shanks’s quote was not so Shanks at all?
Ernst Bouwes, Nijmegen, Holland

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Ireland may not be Britain, but the downfall of of Jack Charlton's team against Holland in his last match in charge spoke volumes for the limitations of a certain British style, says Cris Freddi

Both sides had known for some time that the play-off was their only real chance of reaching the finals of Euro 96, but recent results left them with very different expectations. While Holland were winning their last three qualifiers without conceding a goal, the Republic had won only one of their last five, drawing in Liechtenstein and losing 3-1 home and away to Austria and 3-0 to group winners Portugal. Austria’s 5-3 defeat in Belfast gave them the play-off chance, but Big Jack’s reign seemed to be coming to an untidy end.

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