Danny Dyer’s Funniest Football Foul-Ups review (DVD) ★★

I have no excuse for Christmas catching me unawares. First of all, although this point is academic, it falls on the same date every year. Before that though, there’s the raft of review copy DVDs that signal the imminent arrival of the festive season and the need to buy your dad / uncle / male relative / friend a stocking filler of some description.

With all the inevitability of, er, Christmas then comes Danny Dyer’s Funniest Football Foul Ups, a collection of soccer cock-ups from the last few years. Glaring misses, accidental slips, general howlers: all are here in their “how the hell did they do that?” glory, and all are given the extra, er, “joy” of having Danny Dyer explain in voiceover why they’re a cock-up. Then just in case you didn’t spot it the first time round, some of them get repeated three or four times until you’re very aware of what the player’s just done that he really didn’t want to.

While there is a market for such titles – and it’s generally the sort of stocking filler I’d rather receive than, say, more socks, another ratchet kit of anything else that screams impersonal to this level – this is one of the weaker attempts of recent years. While I don’t have a problem with Dyer per se – indeed, I still suspect he’s going to give a performance one day soon that will make us have to reconsider his cheeky chappy persona – he doesn’t help his cause by reinforcing the stereotype to this level. His “facking hell, look at that nob” comments aren’t funny and merely serve to beat the viewer around the head with facts that, unless they’re blind, they really don’t need to hear.

The forced bonhomie of the setting – he’s in a pub – and the “Matey” nature of his cockney-themed dialogue also seem laborious and, worse, read off an autocue. Frequently. Like. An. Automaton. It’s not clear if Dyer is actually a football fan but the obvious gags clearly demonstrate he’s no comedian. To get away with this “genre” of DVDs, you need a natural wit and a football lover, which is why Danny Baker was so good at these. You’ll appreciate him even more, and wish him a speedy recovery, after a look at this.