I ALWAYS thought that returning to find that your house had been ransacked would be the quickest, most depressing way to come back to the real world after a relaxing family holiday. Not any more. You do not even need to have exited the car park at Gatwick to be sure that you have left the beach a long way behind. Just climb into the car and turn on 606.

The back door off its hinges and a gaping hole where the television should be could scarcely have been more dispiriting. What once was a flagship show on one of the BBC’s best stations, Radio 5 Live, was being vandalised by an endless succession of whingeing phone calls without a theme, without joy and devoid of wit.

Some old pleasures can still be found on 5 Live but 606 needs either to be revamped or put out of its misery. No more Bills from Chatteris complaining about missed handballs at Norwich or Jims from Nuneaton moaning about a rude steward at Peterborough. If they are to be allowed on air, these malcontents at least need a presenter who can steer them somewhere interesting or tell them to get a life.

Alan Green prides himself on being one of football’s most distinctive and provocative commentators, but his journalistic work requires him to show balance and moderation. Not the ingredients for a lively phone-in show, but then, as 606’s most successful presenter will tell you, it was never about the football but the people.

“It has become a disgraceful old bore of a show,” Danny Baker, now an afternoon presenter on BBC London as well as a columnist for The Times, said. “They think it is about 19th-hole banter, but football is as dull as dishwater, like train-spotting and stamp-collecting, if you just talk about the game.

“It’s like finding yourself on the long bus journey home and the man next to you asks, ‘How do you think McClaren’s doing?’ And you’ve got another three hours of it. Let’s not hear about your team, about your club. Let’s hear about you.

“When I left I told them it was about good radio and not about football. I told them they should give it to Nick Hancock and this was before he was widely known. I think it went to David Mellor.”

The show’s long, sorry decline can probably be traced back to that decision and it is too much to hope that it can return to its heyday under Baker, whose second stint ended with dismissal in 1997. First he got into hot water for attacking referees — and Mike Reed, in particular — although his description of “a maggot at football’s golden core” is more poetic than anything you will hear on the modern 606.

He was subsequently enraged by a truculent caller, Baker shouting at his producer to “lose him, lose him, lose him. I don’t want to hear the other side. I am not interested in some kind of balanced argument.” It was irreverent, exciting radio. “I have heard shows trying to do the wacky stuff, but you need good producers who know what calls to put through,” he said. Off the top of his head, he rattles off “tramps at grounds” and “footballers walking down the street in their kit” as topics to improve the present, dismal offering.

It raises the question of whether Baker would go back and he says that he “would like a shot” before adding that “I only say that because it couldn’t possibly happen”. Oh well, but something needs to be done, and urgently, because the present show is an assault on the intelligence and the ears.

Zidane's spitting image

ZINÉDINE ZIDANE was invited to the London premiere of Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait in Mayfair on Sunday evening, but, as in the World Cup final, he was keeping his head down. He has conducted only one interview since that infamous head-butt and even the retired maestro’s agent is said to have trouble getting hold of him.

His sending-off in Berlin will tempt many to flock to their nearest cinema, although they should do so in the knowledge that it was co-directed by Douglas Gordon, a Turner Prize winner who once slowed down Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho to last 24 hours.

This film lasts only 90 minutes, but as one reviewer put it, is “an ode to the loneliness of the athlete, the poise and resilience of the human body”. In other words, this is art rather than sport.

Do not expect Zidane’s top 20 goals. Mostly, he breathes heavily and spits.

• Real Madrid have made reassuring noises about David Beckham being offered a new contract, but if he needs an exit, there is a huge eagerness to take him to the United States, where he has business links with Los Angeles Galaxy through his academies.

  Bosses at Major League Soccer dream of Beckham heading to the West Coast while Ronaldo joins New York Red Bulls on the east. They are confident that it will happen one day. It is simply a question of how long the fading legends can keep pace with Fabio Capello’s tough new regime.

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