Independent, The (London): SPORT ON TELEVISION: Calculating mind fires the rage of Superbrat

IN A PUB quiz this week, the curious fact emerged that "self- destruct", used as a verb, only entered the English language in the late 1960s, thanks to Mission: Impossible and its famous incendiary briefing tape.

It came to mind watching The Real John McEnroe (Channel 4, Tuesday), a long, hard look at a genius who bestrode his chosen arena like a man seconds away from spontaneous human combustion. But the analogy ends there, because, as the film makes clear, the most famous tantrums in sporting history did more to destroy his opponents than McEnroe himself.

The film addresses the old question about Superbrat: how far were his blow-ups the white heat of genuine rage, and how much was pure gamesmanship? His Wimbledon contretemps blaze most brightly in the memory, but it was in another event, against the 1985 Wimbledon finalist Kevin Curren, that the calculating nature of McEnroe's ire seemed best highlighted.

After a few minutes of raging that left the South African visibly discomfited, McEnroe refused to come out for the next game, and under the Code of Conduct he had 30 seconds to play or be defaulted. As the count went down, to 20, to 10, to 5, he sat there pouting. At two, he rose quickly, strode on to court, and, as Curren put it, "plays unbelievable tennis and kills me."

The son of a high-powered lawyer, McEnroe inherited his dad's sharpness, and there was another great shot in the film, during his celebrated "You're a disgrace to mankind" snit.

We saw him, in the far corner of the court, mutter the offending words, then look to the heavens in disgust when he was docked a point. He strode over to the umpire's chair, deep in thought, and as an old friend of his says in voice-over, you can see his brain turning over furiously, "working out the defence position".

"I was talking to myself!" he said finally. "Is there any rule that says you can't talk to yourself?" A great defence, even if it didn't work.

McEnroe is in a personal pantheon with the likes of Bestie and Muhammad Ali, and I have always preferred to see his anger as beyond his control, a rage for perfection and all that. But a childhood friend, Mary Carillo, who went on to play professionally herself, had no doubts. "He would say: `I know just how far I can take it'," she said. "When people thought he was losing it, he knew just what he was doing."

I suspect the truth is slightly more complex, though. His long- standing doubles partner Peter Fleming quotes him as saying: "I'm afraid that if I do take that edge off, if I do become a nicer, kinder guy, maybe I'll lose this thing that made me great."

And when you consider his school report - "he is crushed by any error he makes and pressures himself too much" - it's obvious he couldn't help himself, even if he was well aware that opponents couldn't deal with his anger as well as he could.

McEnroe recently added gameshow host to his CV, on a programme so dull, despite the novelty of measuring its participants' heart- rates, that I've expunged its name from my memory. But he shouldn't ask Rhona Cameron for any tips.

The lesbian comic, hosting a sportsmen's edition of a particularly witless quiz programme called Russian Roulette (ITV1, Tuesday), made a significant contribution in the I'm-glad-she-said-that-and-not-me department, introducing Nick Gillingham as "from one breaststroker to another..."

Her Frankie Howerd look at the audience was well done, but that was as funny as it got. Cameron expressed chirpy but genuine shock every time one of the sporting types could answer a question pitched at the "how many noses have you got?" level. Frank Stapleton seemed to be doing the best (Richard Dunwoody, Dennis Taylor and Steve Cram were also taking part), but I can't tell you who won because that would have meant watching it to the end, now, wouldn't it?