Lonely, Bored and afraid: It's a Wag's Life

What use are bling and designer bags when his club treats you like dirt and girls on the pull can ruin any night out? By Alison Kervin

Who'd be a WAG? Is there anyone left on the planet, after the recent unsavoury revelations about the love life of John Terry, who honestly believes that all the glittery hair accessories, handbags that cost more than the average family car and earrings so large you get whiplash every time you turn around, are worth the pain and humiliation that now seem endemic to the role? No wonder they wear sunglasses so large that they look like beetles - I'd be trying to hide my face from the world, too.

Terry's behaviour and his failed efforts to protect himself from the consequences of his actions appear to mark a new low in the lives of modern footballers, but this is certainly not an isolated incident.

Three years ago I began the process of "infiltrating" the world of the WAGs for a series of novels that I planned to write. After years of covering sport for national newspapers, I witnessed the theatrical displays at Baden-Baden along with everyone else and became convinced that there was great, funny and over-the-top fiction to be written about the Planet of the WAGs. It seemed to me that they were comical, funny, lively and childlike creatures, living out the dreams of six-year-olds in a Barbie-pink world of free shoes and enough champagne to kill you. I planned a tongue-in-cheek, humorous account, but I wanted to have a look at what reality for these women was like.

What I discovered, from the women to whom I spoke, was shocking and sobering. For many of them it was a desperately lonely existence, coloured by fear about what their husbands would get up to when out of sight. Their lives were defined by playing second best, which led to constant worry and isolation where other women, other players, agents, the media, the clubs, the national team manager and even those closest to them often seemed as if they were out to get them.

"One time an ex-boyfriend was sending me all these abusive letters and I was desperately worried about it," one WAG told me. "I wanted to tell my husband, but he was away with the club so I told his agent. He told me not, under any circumstances, to tell my husband until after the game. I felt as if my safety was far less important than his football match.

"I sometimes think that if I died they'd wait until after the whistle to tell him. I'm probably being paranoid, but I do feel like a very unimportant person in his life compared with football. I'm hoping that it will change when he retires, but while he's a footballer I'm nothing."

This was a view expressed in different ways by the WAGs I contacted. Many couples live together happily, but such is the culture of the sport and the tolerant way in which it treats its players that the wives frequently feel as if their husbands' real commitment is to the footballing world and not to their families.

Many of the WAGs felt the same as one another, so one might think there would be a camaraderie between them and a shared understanding of what they go through as the partners of England's leading players. You'd imagine there would be a support network, shoulders to cry on, friends to lean on. The women to whom I spoke certainly do view each other with a lot of affection and many of them have become friends, but what is interesting is that while Manchester City players came out in support of Wayne Bridge - after a recent game they wore "Team Bridge" T-shirts - there has been nothing but silence from the WAGs.

"It's difficult to be publicly loyal to another WAG when her husband has misbehaved because if her husband is a friend of your husband it will be embarrassing to him and he's the only reason you're a WAG in the first place," one wife said. "You feel as if the club would say to him 'Shut her up, will you.' It's as if it's not your place to comment."

To research my books I headed for Oxshott, a pretty village in one of the richer parts of Surrey. It's a collection of large houses and luxury estates surrounded by woods, with a flower shop, convenience store and small beautician's at its centre. Some of the houses are extraordinarily grand - beautiful mansions set in acres of land with intimidating gates and staff working dutifully inside.

It is here that John Terry lives and where his England and former Chelsea teammate Wayne Bridge once called home before a move to Manchester City took him out of the area - clearing the path for the England captain to move in on Bridge's former girlfriend Vanessa Perroncel, the mother of Bridge's child.

Other top footballers live in the area and I rang the buzzer on the outside gate of one of them and was allowed through several sets of gates to a player's house where a tiny, desperately pretty girl came out nervously and invited me inside. She looked worn and tired after going out with her husband the night before.

"Did you have a good time?" I asked. "Not really," she replied. The pair had been to a party in a nightclub and it had been "an exhausting" evening. She revealed that she had spent the night chasing away girls who threw themselves at her husband. "It's horrible, I hate it," she said. "I have to make sure they don't get near him every time he's out. They just have to get near him once and they've got a story and wrecked my marriage."

It is interesting to note, though, that these predatory women rarely "get their man". Consider the England WAGs: Coleen Rooney and Alex Gerrard met their husbands before they were famous footballers. Cheryl Cole (whose husband, Ashley, is accused of indulging in 'text sex') and Victoria Beckham were famous themselves before embarking on relationships. They didn't circle them in bars and plant their phone numbers on the footballer of their choice.

One should give some credit to the players, perhaps, for realising that the girls in short skirts who hunt them down in nightclubs are not necessarily the best life partners. If only they could stop sleeping with these girls, the WAGs' lives would be easier. As it is, the wives and girlfriends of the players seem to feel as if the onus is on them to keep the other girls away, rather than on their husbands to resist. No one expects much self-control from them. Perhaps that is the crux of the problem.

The culture of footballers having women throw themselves at them in such numbers took off when the sport got a huge injection of cash after the launch of the Premier League in 1992. It led to higher profiles for the players and new sponsorship deals for the sport. Soon footballers became household names, wealthy beyond their dreams.

I went on a night out with a group of WAGs a couple of years ago. To say that I was shocked at the behaviour of the girls who hang around, eager to trap the players, would be an understatement. It's war out there. As soon as one girlfriend left her seat next to her boyfriend of three years to go to the lavatory, four scantily glad girls jumped into the "vacant chair" and began their "assault" on the player.

Interestingly, one of the girls left the other three to it and went to the ladies to try to delay the girlfriend - giving her friends more time to make an impression on the player and hand out their numbers. There was team work, strategy and a considerable amount of planning involved. These girls hunt in packs. The whole scene reminded me of lions pouncing on a wildebeest.

It's hard not to feel sorry for the WAGs in these circumstances. What doesn't help is that the behaviour of the players is tolerated by their peers. Everywhere a player goes, he has attractive, half-naked girls throwing themselves at him, phoning him and texting him. Add to this that few in his footballing circle are going to think less of him if he drifts off with one of them, and you've got a culture in which young men are free to behave as they wish.

Agents, managers, teammates and coaches cover for players all the time - and money can be used to pay off girls. Most things can be "sorted" or bought. It has created a breed of rather unpleasant men. Not all footballers are like this, but enough are.

I bumped into John Terry at a restaurant in Esher, Surrey, several years ago. It was a lovely Lebanese restaurant and it was a balmy summer evening so everyone sat outside. My table was next to Terry's. There was a certain buzz in the restaurant as everyone turned to take a glimpse at this famous diner. Terry was clearly aware of the interest that he was generating. He looked at the menu and looked up at the waiter who came to take their orders.

"I'll have a burger and chips," he said. His wife looked embarrassed. "You can't, John. It's a Lebanese restaurant. They don't have burger and chips here," he was told.

"That's what I want," he said. Clearly what Terry wants he usually gets. The waiter explained that they had no burger and chips. "Everything we have is on the menu. We serve only Lebanese food."

Terry sent the waiter inside to check with the chef and bring him what he wanted. The waiter came back out again and said he was sorry but the chef said no.

"Send the chef out," Terry said.

Minutes later an apron-clad chef came storming through the restaurant towards Terry's table. He approached the England captain from behind and said angrily: "This is not a burger bar. It's a Lebanese restaurant. We don't do burgers." He then looked down and saw who he was talking to and said: "Oh my God, John Terry. I'm a big Chelsea fan. Of course you can have burger and chips. I'll get them straight away."

If you are Terry, it seems, the rules are different from those that exist for other people.

Perhaps, though, even he has now overstepped the mark (he has since lost his captaincy). As his wife flew to Dubai threatening divorce, the woman he had an affair with was talking to Max Clifford and his role in the England team hung in the balance, he may have reflected that sometimes, just sometimes, there are consequences, even if you are John Terry. - © The Times, London

• Kervin's novel, Wags at the World Cup , will be on the shelves on May 27