Graham Taylor pioneered this means of humiliating oneself in front of the largest possible audience when he allowed Channel Four's Cutting Edge to shoot his pathetic attempts as England manager to lead his squad to the finals of the 1994 World Cup.

On his descent to hell, Taylor infamously exploded in expletives on the touchline during an away tie against Holland and watched as San Marino, those giants of world football, effectively ended England's chances of qualification by scoring a goal inside 10 seconds. Subsequently, the phrase 'Do I not like that' entered the lexicon of the English-speaking world, and long after the dust has settled the poor chap has barely been able to show himself in public again.

Coincidentally, around the time Taylor was exposed to public ridicule, Gordon Smith was beginning his career as a media pundit. But any lesson was apparently lost on the Scot, because 14 years later, this same Smith permitted a camera crew to follow him through his first year as chief executive of the Scottish Football Association.

He must be barmy. BBC Scotland's film, From Player To Power, could only work as a piece of television if its subject, like Taylor, dropped a series of clangers on camera. And to the delight of the producers, Smith duly obliged, with a couple of embarrassing public performances defining his first year in office.

If you follow your football, you'll know what happened. In January, at a press conference to reveal George Burley as the new Scotland manager, Smith inexplicably rounded on the press, for their (perfectly justifiable) speculations of the previous few days.

"It was 18 minutes in," complained Smith. How could anyone accuse him of hijacking the press conference? He would soon find out, because his next mistake – surely against the advice of his "smile, smile, smile" PR man – was to guest on a radio sports programme, where he was confronted by his former broadcast colleagues, Jim Traynor, Richard Gordon and Billy Dodds.

Didn't Smith accept that his outburst had taken the gloss off George Burley's big moment, wondered super-reasonable Gordon. "Not really. His moment had arrived. He'd had his time and spoken," barked backed the big man.

What about the other candidates for the job? Why had Smith failed to call Mark McGhee to tell him his application for the post had been unsuccessful, before Burley was announced. Smith had interviewed the Motherwell manager but said abjectly: "I didn't have his number." Traynor crowed: "You should have rung me, I'd have given you it."

On a computer screen beside the panellists a listener's e-mail says: "This is awful. I'm changing station".

These were grim moments, but Smith was still unable to perceive where the heart of his difficulties lay. "I don't regret going on (the programme] at all," he said to camera. "I learned a vital lesson that day. I went on there with people I considered to be my friends. In this job you maybe don't even have friends."

With these incidents at its heart, this 30-minute film was too short to deliver a full portrait of its subject. We discovered he had a devoted wife, enjoyed eggs for breakfast and took to boxing to release frustration. He'd even gone a few rounds with Tommy Sheridan, the man from the red corner, and won the bout on a points decision. Work isn't hard, says Smith, compared with boxing. "In boxing if you have a bad night you end up with a bad face as well."

But above all, we learnt this silly fellow couldn't resist the temptation to make himself the centre of attention and bring the cameras into his life. At the start of film, he told us that if he hadn't played football he could have been a company chief executive by his late twenties. By the end, there he was, a pathetic figure, still in his suit but dodging the cameras by running away from that embarrassing encounter in the radio studio.

What a spectacle – a famous chief executive flees the film of his life. And I bet there was just one thought in Smith's head as his feet clattered over the cobblestones: "Do I not like that."