Very Specific Football Question No.22: Was Andy Townsend's Tactics Truck real?

Two-thousand-and-fifteen years on, very few people could earnestly claim to have anything better than a hazy recollection of the birth of Jesus Christ, while some refuse to believe that it happened at all. And in this sense, and possibly this sense alone, the virgin birth is very similar to Andy Townsend’s Tactics Truck.

There is a general acceptance among Britons that for a brief period near the dawn of the current millennium, the Maidstone-born ITV pundit was commissioned to live inside a heavy goods vehicle, which would be stationed next to a football ground hosting a Premiership match. Legend has it that Townsend would lie in wait in the stadium car park during the game, before luring one of the participating players into the vehicle for some hard-hitting post-match analysis.

However, there now remains no physical evidence that any of this actually happened.

An exploration of YouTube, which contains everything that has ever been recorded - from a cat falling over in France to clips from the Brittas Empire - recovers no footage of the so-called Tactics Truck. Meanwhile, the location of the truck itself is a mystery, while Townsend’s whereabouts are also unknown.

Yet there are some who claim to have witnessed the Tactics Truck in action. This group of believers mostly comprises a small group of soccer aficionados who tuned in to the ITV show ‘The Premiership’ in 2001.

It is said that Townsend would welcome footballers into his truck immediately after they had showered - often their hair was still damp, just as Townsend liked it - and bombard them with tactical wizardry. The tough-talking pundit would be assisted by two servants who were good with computers, and these technicians would present a kaleidoscope of replays and camera angles on state-of-the-art TV monitors.

Again, this technological opulence cannot be verified as no photos exist of the Tactics Truck’s interior. Townsend would often be seen holding a pen, but this would never be used.

The first player to enter the vehicle was Middlesbrough’s Ugo Ehiogu, who minutes earlier had been sent off in a 4-0 home defeat by Arsenal.

“I do feel in the first half you gave them a lot of room,” Townsend commented while playing back some footage of Ehiogu giving Arsenal’s attackers too much room. To the surprise of many viewers, Ehiogu resisted the temptation to clasp the collar of Townsend’s cheesecloth shirt and slam the pundit’s head repeatedly into the desk until he was dead. He was rewarded for this restraint by gaining the respect of Townsend, who said, “I respect the fact you’ve come in here today.”

Unfortunately, Ehiogu will no longer talk about this incident and therefore its occurrence cannot be proven.

Other guests invited into the Tactics Truck included Liverpool’s Jari Litmanen, a Champions League-winning forward who seemed bewildered by the experience of having Townsend - a man he had never seen before - lecturing him about what had had happened in a match he had minutes earlier been playing and scoring in.

Another guest, Dion Dublin, became so disillusioned with football after visiting the Tactics Truck that he will now only engage in conversations about property prices.

Contrary to rumours, Townsend is not believed to have lived in the truck, preferring to reside in a detached home he shared with his family. It is understood that Townsend spent one night sleeping in the truck - this at the request of his wife following a late-night trip to an Indian restaurant with Paul McGrath.

The Tactics Truck was quick to be withdrawn from British TV screens due to the distress it caused to viewers and guests alike. It has not been seen since, and some argue that it was merely a figment of the collective imagination. A hallucination brought about by nationwide stress associated with the Y2K millennium bug. At ITV’s London studios today, there is nothing to attest to the Tactics Truck’s existence.

Police have asked for anyone with information about the whereabouts of the Tactics Truck to come forward as there are suspicions that its tax disc has expired.

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