KENT NEWS:

It’s all started so horribly – as deep in our hearts we knew it would.

England? Well, obviously. But, no, the really fascinating performance of our World Cup summer was always going to be that of Adrian Chiles.

Amid great fanfare, the former Match of the Day 2 and One Show host departed the BBC to host ITV’s coverage of this wonderful tournament.

Born partly of a fit of pique over the lining-up of Chris Evans for his Friday night One Show appointment with Christine Bleakley, the move has begged the question: should a sports presenter ever switch sides to ITV?

The answer has invariably been ‘No’ – and sadly  the likeable, everyman, hugely-intelligent-but-with-that-common-touch Mr Chiles appears to be following a wholly familiar and unhappy course.

Those of a certain tooth-length will remember Bob Wilson. The former Arsenal and Scotland goalkeeper chucked in his BBC frontman role to wind down his career with ITV. And wound down it certainly was – far more grimly than he could ever have envisaged.

It all concerns the crossing of an invisible line – something that transforms a man from a competent or even talented presenter to at best a nobody and at worst a clown.

In truth, Bob was never a TV natural, but while with the Beeb he did the job sufficiently in an age when expectations were lower.

Once the switch to ITV was made, however, his drabness was magnified to the extent that his studio performances were an embarrassment.      

It was the same with Des Lynam: OK with the BBC – next to useless with ITV.

This odd process does not even have to occur sequentially – you can witness it evolving in a strangely parallel world.

Take Gabriele Marcotti – the Italian-American football journalist you hear on BBC Radio 5 Live football debate. Here his wisdom, articulacy and passion for the game make him one of the station’s strongest pundits.

Now picture him during ITV Champions League nights. It cannot be the same man, surely.

Gone is the wisdom, gone is the insight, gone is any kind of meaningful contribution.

Instead we have a distressingly overweight buffoon stuck in a sofa grunting the sort of inanity you hear down the pub. Another who’s crossed that invisible line.

All of which brings us back to Adrian Chiles. If anyone was going to make that transition and win, it had to be him, but already he has the haunted look of a man who has awoken to the calamitous error he has made.

He looks pained, awkward, lacking any kind of chemistry with his studio companions.

Sadly missing is that easygoing, sharp patter that made Match of the Day 2 such a treat and justified a late finish to our Sunday nights.  
It’s no excuse to suggest the stultifying mediocrity of Andy Townsend and Gareth Southgate is simply too overwhelming – Chiles knew what he was letting himself in for.

Perhaps the lure was that, in appearing next to Southgate, the only man on television uglier than himself, he would be covering the sole flaw in his armoury.

But, of course, Chiles’s talented ordinariness was one of his greatest strengths. Now, with ITV, he will just be ordinary.