Do not come to the Untold UK documentary series about some of our greatest – or at least most famous – or at least most infamous – footballers looking for insight, interrogation, reflection, analysis or contemplation. Come for energetic hagiography and celebration. Or fuck off, as its latest subject, Vinnie Jones, would almost certainly put it.
Even if you have never watched an entire football match – despite your dad and his friends’ best efforts as they solemnly lined up cans of Boddingtons and commandeered the living room every FA and World Cup final, perhaps – you will have heard of Vinnie Jones. For most of the 90s he was hard to miss – first as a player, then as a liability making endless tabloid headlines, and then as a film star. His beetle-browed, charismatic, menacing face would have stared out at you between the crossed shotguns resting over his shoulders when the Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels marketing campaign briefly took over the world.
