The National:

ICONIC football pundit Chris Kamara has joked that he was asked “for the MBE back” after his attempt at a Scottish accent did nothing to prevent him being kicked off the latest series of the Masked Singer.

The wildly popular show, which sees celebrities don elaborate costumes and perform while the audience tries to guess their identity, has just returned for its fourth series on ITV and STV.

The costumes on show included phoenix, jellyfish, otter, and the rather less imaginative ghost.

READ MORE: ITV reveals first look at new The Masked Singer costumes

But the audience and judges were thrown a curveball by the anonymous celebrity in the ghost outfit, as their accent seemed to have a distinctive Scottish lilt.

“I’m ghost and this is my gaff,” they started. “Chances are you’ve heard me wailing, I’ve wailed with some of the best.

“I like to haunt all of the rooms in the house from the cellar to the attic, that’s where I read scary stories.”

But the slaughtering of the Scots accent didn’t stop there, as ghost kept it up even while singing a rendition of the Drifters’ classic Save the Last Dance for Me. 

It didn’t help though, as ghost found themselves in the bottom three alongside “Knitting” and “Cat & Mouse”.

In the end, the judges chose to save the others, leaving the identity of ghost to be revealed.

The Scottish accent must have at least fooled the judges a little, as Davina McCall guessed it was Wet Wet Wet frontman Marti Pellow behind the mask, while Jonathan Ross thought it was Love Island narrator Iain Stirling, another Scot.

Ghost was revealed to be the football pundit Chris Kamara, who joked about his poor attempt at an accent afterwards.

“They have just asked me for the MBE back after that singing in a Scottish accent,” he wrote on Twitter, sharing a GIF of Fred from Scooby Doo unmasking him as ghost.

Kamara was given the honours in the new year’s list for services to football, anti-racism, and charity.