Matt Le Tissier’s descent into the world of conspiracies is alarming

What is the significance of this numerical sequence: 10, 15, 8, 1, 14, 3, 18, 21, 25, 6, 6, 26, 4? If you answered ‘Johan Cruyff coming back from the dead’: congratulations! Have you been watching videos about numerology? Is everything okay?

Hopefully someone has asked the same question to Matt Le Tissier, who appeared on Tom Bushnell, aka Tom Numbers’ YouTube channel this week. Mr Numbers assigns a value to the letters which make up words, often throws in a date, adds up the total, multiplies by pi, carries the three then comes to the conclusion that Princess Diana, JFK Junior and “maybe even JFK” are plotting a comeback even more remarkable than Granit Xhaka’s at Bayer Leverkusen. I have never been so relieved when looking up someone on social media to see the sentence “Not followed by anyone you’re following”.

In the 64-minute Numbers x Le Tiss meeting of the minds they cover Donald Trump, time travel, Harry Potter, ley lines, Christopher Nolan, eclipses, George Michael, the band Busted, vampires, Tesla (inventor not car) and the apparently significant fact that Jerusalem has the words “USA” in the middle. Mostly it is the host rambling like someone you would move away from on a crowded train. Occasionally he is interrupted by Le Tissier asking questions like “what do you make of the pyramids?”

Le Tissier, as ever, seems affable. Charming, even. But there is a fine line between eccentricity and alarming behaviour. It is one thing to suggest the government is controlling the weather, it is another to appear on Joey Barton’s podcast. In 2022 he seemed to cast doubt on the severity of the Bucha massacre in Ukraine, for which he later apologised.

“I’m not saying I actually believe everything, I’m just putting these things out there as possibilities,” said Le Tissier this week. In other words, he’s more of a provocateur than a zealot, the chemtrails Chris Sutton. That is a defence of sorts until you start associating with people like Mr Numbers. You are the company you keep and you hope Le Tiss also has some social engagements lined up with his old and more level-headed friends. Jeff Stelling, Charlie Nicholas even, to a point, Paul Merson. Less chat about the Cruyff (re)turn, more about what a good job David Moyes is doing.

Perhaps this was a predictable path for Le Tissier. As a player he was responsible for half a dozen of the best goals ever scored in English football, but he is a born outsider. McMuffins before training, a one-club man with Southampton and despite immense talent his best moment for his national team was in an England B friendly at Loftus Road.

He is not completely divorced from the world of retired footballers, he is after all playing lots of golf and hawking CBD products. But as his views become ever-more recherché it is hard to see him reclaiming his status as an uncomplicated neutral’s favourite. His intensely memeable face does not help, slightly hangdog, slightly smug. Grabs from his alarming media appearances are being posted alongside increasingly loonyish statements online as he becomes shorthand for tin hattery, this generation’s David Icke.

There is one overarching point Le Tissier has made over the past few years which most would agree with: lockdowns were a nightmare. Everyone became deranged in their own way. For you or me that might be getting weird about the correct ratio of spirits in a Negroni, buying an objectively terrible football shirt designed by a child featuring a picture of a dolphin jumping over a rainbow, or printing out a map of the postcode you live in, walking down every road in full over a series of weeks then marking each completed street with a highlighter. Okay, all of those were me.

For many others a latent interest in conspiracy theories became all-consuming, an entire personality. This is a tough hole to emerge from. There is an odd comfort in applying order to a chaotic world, even if it means believing in shadowy Freemason cabals manifesting our perceived reality through alternate dimension 5G masts, and making it too windy for April. Along with the scorn, Le Tissier might need some sympathy.