THERE comes a time in the life of any professional sports star when thoughts move to what’s next.

Cast out when still in your prime but no longer quick or skilful enough to compete at the highest level, most are faced with decades still ahead of them.

I would imagine it’s a strange existence, constantly living off past glories as your name drifts into obscurity.

Both Matt Dawson and Phil Tufnell have been more successful than most at keeping the flame alive but on this evidence you have to wonder how much longer they’ve got.

Both are credited with reinventing themselves as happy-go-lucky TV quiz show stars and the audience here is as anxious to hear about their escapades on the strictly dancefloor as on the pitch.

But their blokey humour and leery chat harks back to the nineties changing rooms of their youth and sits fairly uncomfortably in the modern age.

Even the set for the show, with its pints of beer and pictures of pin-ups, looks like something Baddiel and Skinner would have concocted in their heyday.

That duo were at least genuinely funny and could have audiences crying with laughter, which is never something that ‘Tuffers’ and Dawson ever achieve in this, with a gentle titter the best they seem to be able to muster.

The major problem is that the show doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be.

At its most engaging it gives an insight into the often shadowy life of a professional sports star, which sounds a lot less athletic than you might think.

Dawson’s account of the moment England won the World Cup is genuinely uplifting while Tufnell’s stories of wild excess serve as an interesting antidote to the downright boring stars of today.

But at other times the show drifts into weak stand-up and there’s a pointless general knowledge quiz section which adds nothing.

You get the feeling both are going to need something new to dine-out on before long.