Last weekend, Tottenham put in one of the worst performances in the history of the known universe. Although only losing to Chelsea by a single goal, every statistic, and the eye test, confirmed that Spurs (at home and starting the day in the Premier League’s top four!) had stunk the place out. Sluggish, disjointed and lettuce-limp, they used 17 outfield players (a concussion to Lucas Bergvall gave them an extra sub); between them, this swarm produced a total of three shots, one vaguely on target. The data-chompers at OPTA suggested afterwards that Tottenham, playing as they were, would’ve needed another 15 hours before they could reasonably expect to score. The players were booed off at half time; people deliberately stayed till the end so they could boo them again.

Here’s the rub. Even the most highly trained, keenly motivated and usually reliable individual or group can have an off-day. It happens. And these calamities – sporting and beyond – allow us all to enjoy the unfolding fiasco; they are train wrecks without victims. We all warm our hands on the cringey stories of the time everything went completely sideways…

In football, everybody will have a favourite. Seasoned journalists admit to growing astonishment at England’s infamously inept efforts in the 2-1 defeat to unfancied Iceland at Euro 2016. Indeed after Wayne Rooney shanked yet another five-yard pass off the playing surface, one survivor told me the press box erupted with disbelieving laughter.

My own favourite footballing disaster involves the equally notorious World Cup semi final between Brazil and Germany in 2014. The background is familiar. Brazil were the hosts for the first time since 1950. That tournament, where they eventually lost out to Uruguay, had left a massive scar on the psyche of the nation. Even five subsequent world titles hadn’t healed the wound of failing at home. 2014 was supposed to fix all that. The teams lined up for the national anthems. Brazil looked nuttily overhyped; some of them were in tears.

Meanwhile, in a cavernous TV studio in east London, Danny Baker and I were doing the latest of our Vaguely Sporting Phone-Out shows to a no-doubt minuscule audience. We had decided not to have the game on the monitor on the set. Instead, in front of us, was an empty stool. The idea was that if there was a goal in the big game, a chap would walk out, sit on the seat, and drily announce the strike.

Now, this TV show was, for better or worse, unique. It was unscripted and unrehearsed. After a few weeks of sullen bewilderment, the studio crew began to really get into the swing of the thing, and to be joyously creative. Thus it was that when our herald strolled on and announced that underdogs Germany had taken an 11th-minute lead, Danny and I didn’t bat a lid. But when he returned after 23, 24, 26, and 29 minutes to declare further goals for the plucky Germans, we genuinely assumed that this was all a joke being played on the presenters! But of course it wasn’t. Brazil had had some sort of collective breakdown, led by almost psychedelic efforts from David Luiz and Marcelo. Even their late ‘consolation’ goal (replying to Germany’s SEVEN) seemed only to add to the joke. And the pain.

Historically, as every school kid knows, the all-time worst performance in professional football happened in a Scottish Cup tie in 1885. Arbroath beat Bon Accord FC 36-0, but even this familiar fact hides an amazing story. Because, that very same day, just a few miles away in Dundee, another cup tie was unfolding in remarkably similar fashion. Dundee Harps were shellacking Aberdeen Rovers. The referee calculated the score as 37-0, but a Harps official insisted that he’d miscounted. And so the Scottish FA duly received the news that the game had ended 35-0. They may have been microscopically comforted on the day, but that recount robbed Aberdeen Rovers of their eternal place in football’s horrible histories.

It’s not just teams. Individual players sometimes put in a calamitous shift that they will definitely not want repeating, years later, in lurid columns like this. Again, everyone will have their particular ‘highlight’ but few Worst Effort shortlists will be without Jonathan Woodgate’s debut for Real Madrid. Following his slightly surprising 2004 move from Newcastle to the Bernabeu, the England defender had spent 17 months on the treatment table before finally making his Los Blancos bow against Athletic Bilbao. Didn’t go well. After 25 minutes he rocketed a diving header into his own net. On the hour he got first use of the loofah following a second yellow card. He played eight more games in Spain before returning to his native Middlesbrough.

Even less forgiving was the fate that befell 57-cap Swedish full-back Erik Edman. Having played a single season (2004/5) for Tottenham, he returned to the familiar surrounds of White Hart Lane, with Wigan Athletic, in 2009. The first half was unremarkable; Peter Crouch giving the home side a 1-0 advantage. The second 45, though, saw the wheels come off for the northerners. And the axles, the radiator, and the wing mirrors. Jermain Defoe scored five times in half an hour as the inhospitable hosts won 9-1. Wigan’s goal was a handball the officials missed! Defoe’s quintet was the standout statistic but behind it lay the awful torture inflicted on Edman by his quicksilver opponent Aaron Lennon. Time and again the defender risked whiplash as he watched Lennon sear past him like a demented greyhound, laying on chance after chance. Poor Erik was never picked to start for the Latics again, and a few weeks later his contract was cancelled. By “mutual consent”.

But if Edman ever loses any sleep over those events in north London, he can comfort himself with the fact that at least he’s not Argentinian striker Martin Palermo. In 1999, Palermo entered the Hapless Hall Of fame. He was the reigning South American Player Of The Year when, in a Copa America match against Colombia, the centre forward contrived to miss three – count ‘em, THREE! – penalties. The first hit the crossbar; the second went into orbit. When the third was awarded, maybe it occurred to one of his legendary teammates – perhaps Diego Simeone, Juan Roman Riquelme, or Javier Zanetti – to relieve Palermo of his spot-kick duties. They did not, and the third shot was saved by goalkeeper Miguel Calero. The only ever trio of penalty misses in 150 years of international football.

Footnote: there is a happy ending to the story. After the penalty fiasco, Martin quickly faded from the international scene. Until, that is, a decade later, when Diego Maradona recalled the then 37-year-old hitman for the 2010 World Cup qualifiers. Against Peru, he scored a critical 93rd-minute winner. Maradona, never one to downplay the drama, described it as “The Miracle of Saint Palermo”.

It isn’t just football, of course. In every field of human endeavour there are bad days at the office, days when the photocopier belches blue smoke, you staple your thumb to the desk, and someone steals your limited edition Twix from the fridge…

It can happen in the theatre. Lionel Bart was a genius. He composed Oliver!, most people’s idea of the greatest musical of all time. The movie adaptation won the Oscar for Best Film. Bart was the theatre’s Lennon and Mccartney and was earning a fortune. The follow-up to Oliver!, Blitz!, did well too. Then came Twang!! A satire on the Robin Hood legend, it was waist-deep in talent, including James Booth from Zulu, Barbara Windsor, Bernard Breslaw, pop star Long John Baldrey, Ronnie Corbett, and Bob “On The Buses” Grant. The phenomenal Joan Littlewood initially directed; Beatles producer Sir George Martin assembled the soundtrack. But Twang!! was an unsaveable monstrosity; it ran for just five weeks, usually to empty houses. It cost Bart his personal fortune; in an attempt to resuscitate the show, he sold the past and future rights to all his work, including Oliver!, to entertainer Max Bygraves… for £350.

It can happen in Hollywood. Despite all the no-doubt clever folk whose names endlessly jostle for attention in the end credits, some films are just so bad that you’d use those blue plastic gloves to pick them off the pavement and put them in the bin. Examples abound of clunkers with which neither critics nor public had the slightest truck. But Tinseltown doesn’t worry too much about such frippery; they measure success by the much more tangible gauge of cold, hard cash. When 1980’s Raise The Titanic ended up losing millions, its producer, Lew Grade, reflected ruefully: “Raise The Titanic? It would be cheaper to lower the Atlantic.” And by the steely calculation of wasted dough, three recent(ish) flicks stand out: adjusted for inflation, John Carter, The Lone Ranger and The Marvels each lost around $250 million. That’s over $2 million dollars for each minute of unwise, unwanted, unwatched footage.

It can happen in music. Pop history is littered with terrible albums by great artists, usually because a concept overwhelmed the tunes, or ill-judged re-fuelling overcame the concept. David Bowie, Van Morrison, Kanye West, Prince, Lil Wayne, Neil Young (more than once!), Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan and ALL the solo Beatles have made terrible records. Some have been happily confined to the dustbin of collective amnesia; others have been the subject of half-hearted, mostly vain, attempts at reappraisal. But one double album remains impossible to unhear, beyond reassessment. By the mid-’70s, Lou Reed was both an influential cult and a bona fide pop star. Then, for reasons still unexplained, he unleashed Metal Machine Music, an hour of unrelenting noise, the sound of old freight trains and rusty washing machines being fed into a car-crusher. The bewildered record company did their best (‘File Under Classical’ the optimistic cover sticker suggested!) but it was withdrawn after just a few weeks. Reed remained a star till the day he died, but his reputation never totally recovered. The old curmudgeon would probably say “but you’re still talking about it”, if he could be bothered.

And (in case you think I’m just picking on other people) it can happen to even the most revered, award-studded broadcasters. Years ago, on BBC London, I did a radio interview with the singer Elkie Brooks. It lasted about 20 minutes, it seemed like 20 hours. It was a horror show. Probably my fault, but Elkie clearly loathed me, resented my questions, and wished she was somewhere, anywhere, else. I, and no doubt she, had long since put it in the rear view mirror. One of those things, best forgotten. Until, a few years ago, a young woman doing work experience at my current radio employers, gingerly sidled up to me. “You’re Danny Kelly, aren’t you? I recognise your voice. I’ve been doing training at the BBC. They use that chat you had with Elkie Brooks. As an example of how badly wrong interviews can go…”

Gulp.