Gary Lineker naked? “Ooh yes please,” mutter many of my female friends. So is it going to happen? Will we get a chance to see the well-loved Match of the Day presenter clad only in what his mother gave him? Well sadly not.

After Leicester City pulled off a stunning victory and defeated Chelsea 2-1 to top the table in December, Gary Lineker, a former striker for the club promised to present the first day of the 2016-17 campaign wearing just his undies. At the time, Lineker didn’t realise just how well Leicester City were going to do, but they have beaten all the odds and as every round of the Premier League passes by, it seems Leicester winning the title is becoming a more likely prospect. There’s every chance that while we won’t see Gary Lineker naked, we will get to see him in his undercrackers.

Lineker’s promise was tweeted on Twitter and of course, social media users are keen to ensure he doesn’t back down on his word. Lineker has a great sense of humour, and is keeping ‘abreast’ of Leicester City’s progress, and has tweeted a picture of himself topless on the beach.

So the female half of the UK population, and some men, are willing Leicester City on to big things, in the hope of seeing Gary Lineker naked soon. Meanwhile, I wondered how many other people have said things they’ve later regretted or had to follow through on, and there are some great obvious examples. How about these?

1. Andrew Mitchell

Who can forget the ‘plebgate’ saga? PC Toby Rowland who was at the centre of the “plebgate” row accepted £80,000 in damages from Conservative MP and ex-chief whip, Andrew Mitchell, after a High Court judge ruled that the MP probably had called, an officer on duty at Downing Street’s gates, a “pleb” when the office refused to let him cycle through the Downing Street gates. Mitchell ascertained that he had used bad language but claimed he did not use that word.

Mitchell lost a high-profile action against the publishers of the Sun and had to pay £300,000 in legal costs to the Sun newspaper and the Police Federation.

Rowland’s solicitor noted that, “The payment of £80,000 damages by Mr Mitchell sets the seal on PC Rowland’s vindication, as well as providing compensation for the injury to his reputation and the distress caused to him and his family over many months.” Initially Mitchell had denied the claims that he swore at officers and called them “plebs” who should learn their place.

Poor PC Rowland was damned with faint praise however, when the judge stated, he was “not the sort of man who would have had the wit, imagination or inclination to invent on the spur of the moment an account of what a senior politician had said to him in temper”.

2. Steve Harvey

Live television has claimed some fantastic scalps. In 2015, Steve Harvey – an American comedian, television host, radio personality, actor, and author – crowned the wrong Miss Universe live in Las Vegas. He mistakenly announced Ariadna Gutiérrez Arevalo (Miss Colombia) as the winner, despite the judges having actually chosen Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach (Miss Philippines). Miss Colombia had her crown removed a few minutes later. It was excruciating and tearful for both poor Miss Colombia, and the erstwhile Steve Harvey.

3. Olly Murs

Olly Murs’ career as a presenter seems to have been derailed after he made a boo-boo while presenting the X-Factor. Reviews of his partnership with Caroline Flack were poor, but then Murs made a terrific gaffe when he told contestant Monica Michael that she was going home just after the contestants had technically entered a ‘dead heat’. Flack tried to hastily cover up the error with a hasty “No, Olly, she’s not, no, no we’re going to deadlock” and she later (at the appropriate Cowell defined time) read from the envelope that, yes, Monica received the fewest votes and would be going home, which we all already knew thanks to Olly. X Factor fixed? Of course.

4. Mel Gibson

Gibson managed to drive his career off a cliff pretty sensationally. Having filmed The Passion of the Christ in 2004, the movie made massive box office. Unfortunately, Mel Gibson was accused of homophobia and anti-Semitic overtones. He subsequently apologised, and perhaps everything would have been smoothed over and forgotten, after all we know how fickle Hollywood can be, but then Gibson was recorded – ostensibly – racially abusing his ex-girlfriend. This is a claim he denies and his ex-wife is on record as stating she was never abused by Gibson. Gibson claims the tapes were edited.

Nonetheless, if that wasn’t enough he was arrested for drunk-driving in 2006, and told the police officer that Jews were responsible for all wars. His career has largely been in the doldrums ever since.

5. Boris Johnson

Boris bashing is turning into a national sport so maybe it’s a little unfair to pick on him. No? Ok then. Boris has been consistently misleading people about facts and figures relating to Brexit in recent weeks, and the root cause of it may well be, that like the Queen, Boris doesn’t truly understand the value of the money in our pockets. Take for example, the time in 2009, when he was interviewed by the BBC on Hard Talk and referred to the £250,000 pa salary he receives for a weekly Telegraph column as ″chicken feed″. No wonder he’s been running away from reporters anxious to ask him about his offshore accounts.

6. John Terry

John Terry was a highly rated footballer, who captained both Chelsea and England, but his arrogance has known no bounds. Constantly surrounded by controversy, he has been accused of everything, from parking in disabled bays, racism, to being paid for undercover tours, and for sleeping with the wives and girlfriends of his team-mates.

7. Lord Ashdown

Paddy Ashdown offered to eat his hat on the night of the General Election in May 2015 after seeing the shocking election night exit poll on the BBC that indicated the Lib Dems would lose all but ten seats. Ashdown famously said, “I can tell you – that is wrong. If these exit polls are right, I’ll publicly eat my hat.”

A few minutes later, Alistair Campbell, the Labour spin doctor at the time, made a similar pledge and suggested the BBC’s poll was ‘over-inflating the scale of the SNP’s prospects in Scotland’ after it predicted 58 wins for the SNP. Campbell said, “I won’t eat my hat, but I will eat my kilt if they get 58 seats”. The SNP romped home and ended the night with 56 MPs.

Lord Ashdown was gracious in defeat, humbly stating on Radio 4, “I think it’s the last time I will challenge an exit poll.”

The pair were presented with a chocolate hat and kilt on a subsequent BBC Question Time programme and both got stuck in.

8. Johnny Ace

Johnny Ace was an R&B singer (June 9, 1929 – December 25, 1954) died while playing with a pistol during a break in his concert set. He’d had a number of hit singles in the mid-1950s including “My Song”, “Cross My Heart,” “Please Forgive Me,” “The Clock,” “Yes, Baby,” “Saving My Love for You,” and “Never Let Me Go.”

On Christmas Day 1954, after having been drinking in the evening, he started to wave a gun around. Someone admonished him and told him to be careful. His last words were, “I’ll show you that it won’t shoot.” He pointed it at his face, and bang.

9. Gordon Brown

Poor Gordon Brown. He seems like a sweet fella and he was a good chancellor, but he probably wasn’t our greatest Prime Minister.

In 2010 in the run-up to the election that year, Brown got into a car to be driven away from a meet and greet with the public that had been arranged in Rochdale, but he made the fatal error of not turning his microphone off. It carried on recording what he said about Gillian Duffy, 65, whom he had just met. He announced she was a ″bigoted woman″ to his aide, but Sky News was recording. Cue much embarrassment.

10. Dennis Skinner
Dodgy Dave
Labour MP Dennis Skinner was thrown out of Parliament for labelling the Prime Minister ‘Dodgy Dave’ over his personal finances. Skinner, 84, who has clocked up 45 years as an MP was asked by the speaker, John Bercow to withdraw the jibe, or to “withdraw that word and think of another” to describe the PM. It was hilarious. Skinner refused to take back what he had said, and was more than happy to withdraw from the Commons, entirely unremorseful, telling the speaker to “do what you like”.

Over to you!
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