This might be the week that the WAG dream finally exploded, sending acrylic nail tips, bottles of fake tan and thousand-dollar handbags flying across England. It is a sad time indeed for the women whose dream - to hook up with a famous footballer - now must surely seem as appealing as covering oneself in cat food and diving in with the sharks.
It took the public humiliation of a top WAG (that's wives and girlfriends, for you normal people) to burst the glittery bubble. Toni Poole, the wife of England captain John Terry, has spent the past week hiding in Dubai with her children to escape relentless speculation about her husband's extracurricular activities. In particular, he's alleged to have carried on an affair with Vanessa Perroncel, the former girlfriend of Wayne Bridge, who used to play with him at Chelsea and is his England teammate. Scoring a goal in a friend's net, you might say, and in the macho world of soccer. It's quite a no-no.
All of Britain seems to have an opinion about what effect this will have on the team's chances at the World Cup this summer, which had been surprisingly robust until this point. I'm more interested in whether this will finally end the obsession, among a certain group of young women, of latching themselves to football players to find riches and happiness. Riches may well materialize, but they'd have a better chance of happiness latching themselves to a nuclear warhead.
It's hard to overestimate the cultural influence in Britain of WAGs. Pictures of them with flowing hair extensions, George Hamilton tans, and sunglasses the size of dinner plates fill newspapers and magazines. Some, like Wayne Rooney's wife, Coleen, write popular columns. A study from 2008 showed that girls could name more WAGs than female politicians. A few months ago, Britain's Citizens Advice Bureau blamed "WAG-like spending" for a rise in bankruptcies. By emulating their heroines, young women were using their Louboutins to dig themselves into debt.
They are the subject of books, websites, TV shows. They model underwear, appear in advertisements, and while apparently unable to walk more than a dozen paces, they can carry 10 times their weight in Prada. There are not a lot of chemical engineers or architects among them.
Really, it's not a life you'd wish on a dog, and it's gobsmacking that any modern woman would want it - let along pursue it avidly. Imagine living in a gated community with nothing to occupy your mind except your next waxing appointment and whether that would be enough to prevent your man scoring away from home. Even WAGs who are celebrities in their own right, like Victoria Beckham and Cheryl Cole, have been dogged by rumours that their husbands strayed. (Speaking of dogging, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Stan Collymore, the one-time Aston Villa star whose penchant for public sex with women who were not his wife landed him in trouble - not least with the wife.)
Football and sex scandals are not strangers. While many players live quietly, many more do not. When you bestride this tiny island like a colossus, and get treated like a giant, perhaps you forget how the little people are expected to behave. This doesn't mean that their privilege excuses their transgressions, merely that the women who are so keen to enjoy that privilege should realize it might have consequences.
Once, early in my London sojourn, I found myself at a Mayfair nightclub that had paparazzi outside and a roped-off area inside that might as well have been labelled "Orange tans and ludicrous boobs only, please." It was the kind of place where off-duty footballers liked to hang out with their friends, Cristal and Stolichnaya. Around the VIP area, a group of expectant-looking young women were huddled, like seals waiting their midday herring. Seals in silver thongs, that is: These women, in dress and general comportment, made Pamela Anderson look like an Amish widow.
"What are they waiting for?" I said to the English woman beside me. "Husbands," she said dryly.
That's the dream, to meet a Premier League player, fall in love, and end up holding a fuchsia-themed wedding that ends with the release of a hundred doves dyed to match the flowers, and the bride and groom sitting on matching thrones (just like David and Victoria!). Not pictured: the couple collecting the cheque from OK! Magazine.
But a relationship doesn't need to be so protracted to be lucrative for the wannabe WAG. If she has an amorous encounter in a restaurant's toilets or the back seat of the star's car, a tabloid is always standing by, ready to buy the story.
Perroncel, the French lingerie model who allegedly had the affair with John Terry, has hired Max Clifford, PR healer to the celebrity maimed and broken, and is said to be fielding offers from British newspapers. I'll be surprised if we don't see her story this weekend. Chances are that some girl from Essex or Salford is going to read it, clutch the paper to her breast, and think, "One day, that could be me."