Clattenburg's return as referee critic spells trouble

NOSTALGIA is a powerful drug, so I’ll admit to being pathetically excited at the BBC reboot of Gladiators.

- Dan Kilpatrick

It only took 15 minutes into the first episode, though, to realise I could not recapture the giddy childhood passion for the Nineties original.

Among my disappointments with the remake was Mark Clattenburg, the former Premier League official who succeeded John Anderson as the show’s referee but offered only a pale imitation of Anderson’s booming Scots authority.

Yet it felt fitting that the publicity-hungry “Clatts” appeared to have found his calling as a TV gimmick.

Surprising, then, to see Clattenburg suddenly back in the thick of the Premier League soap opera at the weekend, now in his new role as “referee analyst” for Nottingham Forest. Clattenburg had been in the position for less than a fortnight when he popped up in the mixed zone — an area usually reserved for post-match interviews with players — to criticise referee Paul Tierney after Forest’s 1-0 defeat to Liverpool on Saturday.