Apply Immediately (BBC2)

"VERY surprising people do succeed. I don't think he's one of them," was the opinion of George Brock, managing editor of The Times, after interviewing would-be journalist Pierre South.

This was not a good start for salesman South, who feels he's stuck in a rut. Perhaps stuck isn't the right word for someone approaching 30 whose work record shows a lot of movement and was summed up by career performance coach Mary Spillane: "Boy, he's had a few jobs, and only lasted in a couple longer than one year."

Apply Immediately set out to make South's dream coming true, with much talk of turning his passion (football) into his profession (sports writer). In reality, this was Channel 4's Faking It without the competitive element and not half as interesting.

Partly, this was because of its subject. South elicited little sympathy as he attempted to enter the noble profession of journalism. Watching football matches for a living probably sounded a cushy number to someone suffering nine-to-five hell. He discovered there was more to it than that.

Brock was not impressed by South's declaration that he'd always loved writing, mainly because he discovered he read only a couple of newspapers. "I don't want to be a hack," he said, adding he'd settle for being a political journalist on The Times for no other reason than to impress his interrogator.

Occupational psychologist Colin Gill, asked what job might suit South, noted his "capacity to display what other people would call anger and you would say was controlled assertiveness". Arrogant and cocky are other words that come to mind.

He went on a writing course, where he came top of the class in research. He did work experience at the Press Association news agency, when he was late for a press conference with England manager Sven Goran Eriksson. But his story was OK, according to sports writer Mark Bradley.

South's ambition to be a journalist was focused when he was sacked from his sales job halfway through the programme. More help was brought in. Paul Ridley, former sports editor of The Sun, became his Svengali - only to have his advice to start on a provincial paper rejected.

Eventually The Mirror offered to let him cover a football match and print his report, but without payment. His six paragraphs became one. "It screams out it's not a professional journalist," said the sub-editor. And he mis-spelt the name of one of the players.

Ten months into his career change, he began taking advice and applied for any job going on provincial newspapers. All he got was a stream of rejection letters which, quite honestly, just made me mutter, "Serves him right" under my breath.

Having failed in print, South decided he wanted to be a football broadcast journalist. We left him without a job, still determined to go into journalism. He rejected the offer of a job in sales, saying: "I would rather do glue, cut off my sexual organs and be called Enid for the rest of my life".

That's a no to the sales job, then?