Adrian Chiles: My footie shirt saved me from jail!

Adrian Chiles says his football team West Bromwich Albion and former player Robert Koren helped him in mysterious ways after a horrific car crash in Slovenia. At ITV1's World Cup launch, Adrian told whatsontv.co.uk about his recent dramas while on holiday. He said: "I had quite a nasty car accident in Slovenia a couple of weeks ago when I was driving to Croatia. A girl in another car just came around the corner and slammed into the side of us. We were driving a hired Lexus – it was a terrifying experience but everyone was fine. He went on: "The police turned up and just stared at me and my mates - three big brutes – and then at this traumatised Slovenian girl. You could see what they were thinking, but then we had a West Brom shirt with us! We showed it to the copper and said: 'Robert Koren plays for us!' and off we went. They love him in Slovenia, thankfully! "It was a good job it happened then as Koren was released by West Brom the next day. We could have still been in a jail there now if the timing had been wrong!" England are due to play Slovenia on June 23 in South Africa.

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Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix.

An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.