The WAG’s Diary

I’m a good party animal because I like people—I like seeing other people and being seen by other people. I like football parties best of all because I LOVE being in the football world. Although I’d prefer to be in the England team’s football world—with Victoria, Coleen, and the one who always wears crop tops—but until Dean gets his act together that’s not going to happen.

I squeeze into a chair next to Michaela and Suzzi—the loveliest people in the world. I’ve known them for ages and they both always look great, with shiny white teeth and permanent tans. I always say you can tell things about someone’s soul by how shiny and white their teeth are.

The waiter puts the menus down before us, and in one great synchronised move we all push them away quickly. The last thing you want to do is look at the menus, in case you see something really yummy on there.

There are twelve of us round the table—one girl has dark hair, all the others are blonde. The dark-haired girl is Michaela and she is not, strictly speaking, a Wag. All the blonde girls are. I’m not saying that for any other reason than to state the facts as they stand, but it does rather confirm my long-held belief that the real key to a footballer’s heart is a head full of bleached hair. Mich has luxurious long dark hair that tumbles over her shoulders. It’s glossy and healthy-looking and people stop her in the street to compliment her on it. Trouble is—it’s not blonde. I’ve told her a million times to stop worrying about whether it will suit her or whether it will wreck her hair and just dye it—only then can she be sure of attracting a football-playing man.

While Mich has devoted her life—rather unsuccessfully, it has to be said—to attracting a footballer, and has gone through players from most clubs in the London region in the process, Suzzi is very much a one-man woman. She married her childhood sweetheart—Anton Chritchley. They’ve got three kids so far—Bobby and Jack (named after the Charleston brothers, who I assumed were a comedy duo but it turns out they were footballers) and Wayne. No need to tell you who the last one is named after!

Sometimes I’m envious of Suze. I’ve just got one daughter and I think I’d like to have had more. Then I go round to her house and see these boys crashing round the place and making a real mess and I think ‘Wooooaahhhh…Trace—you got off lightly there.’ I’m from a one-child family and so is Dean, and though I’d have loved to have brothers and sisters when I was growing up (and a father!), I’ve found myself repeating the pattern and only having one child myself. Odd, isn’t it?

Still, I’ve got an extended family here at Luton Town, so I never feel lonely, and my daughter, Paskia Rose, loves watching the football (she does—seriously—she actually loves watching the football, whereas I only go to watch the other women and see what they’re wearing, who they’re talking to and what they’re saying).

Some of the girls have gone to town today and, as predicted, they’re really dressed up. I think the total cost of clothing around the table would pay off the debts of most third-world countries. Twenty-four eyes flicker around the room, taking in the assortment of clothing on display. The predominant colour is baby pink, of course, with white in second place. No change there then. We have a peculiar relationship with fashion, I guess, in that we have to be bang up-to-date on all the latest styles, but we still like to have them in the same shades of soft, girlish colours. So, in that latter respect, you could say we have our own distinctive take on fashion.

I recognise most of the outfits around the table.

‘Mindy, you went for the Pucci swirls,’ Suzzi says sarcastically. ‘How brave of you. I saw that blouse but thought it looked just a little bit too much like Mum’s shower curtain so decided against it.’

Ooooo…nice one, Suzzi. An early goal to us: 1-0.

Suzzi’s pregnant at the moment but she manages to look great all the same, in a white Lycra sheath dress. The lovely thing about it is that it’s so tight you can see her belly button through it where the Lycra’s stretched over her bump at the front. Ahhhh…sweet! I’m so proud of her for continuing to look so great. You can tell just by looking at Suzzi that she’s a Wag, and that’s more than can be said for some of the girls I see on the terraces. Some would-be Wags last season didn’t have a hope of bagging a footballer. One of them had trousers on with flat shoes. FLAT SHOES!!! At a football match!! I thought I’d die laughing when I saw her. Someone needs to do something to help these poor lost souls.

‘Tracie, you’ve gone for pom-poms,’ says Mindy. ‘How last year!’

I smile, and they smile, and we all drink. 1-1. Shit.

Our group divides into the newer Wags (we call them the Slag Wags), and the more experienced Wags. Mindy is the leader of the Slag Wags in the same way as I would be considered leader of the Old Nag Wags—that is,the Wags over twenty-five. We’re a bit outnumbered these days, to be honest. Most Wags are just out of their teens. It’s only me, Mich, Suzzi and Loulou who are over twenty-five, and Loulou’s husband is injured so she’s off the scene at the moment.

There’s a certain amount of bonding between all the Wags and a great deal of competing. I guess it’s like the players themselves. During a game we’re a close-knit group, but away from matches we’re all jostling for position. We all want to be the number one in the team. The situation at Luton Town, though, is that I am the number one. My husband, Dean, is the captain. He’s a former international player and the most experienced player in the side. That makes me the most experienced Wag, and I don’t think there’s a person round this table who would dispute that while I may not know much about Middle East politics or quantum physics, when it comes to matters of a Waggish nature I know all there is to know.

I’m pleased to see that no one round the table today is the colour of normal human skin. We’re all shades of shoe polish—mainly orange tan, but with a few cherry browns from the girls who don’t know when enough’s enough at the spray tanner’s.

‘How’s Nell?’ asks Mich. ‘Still crazy?’

Nell is Dean’s nan and Mich thinks the world of her. I do, too—she’s one of my favourite people in the world. I’ve no idea whether she was always so mad, or whether the ravaging effects of age actually cause more damage than wrinkles. Perhaps she was perfectly normal forty years ago? It’s hard to believe.

Things have a tendency to go wrong around Nell. You know how some people are like that—they’re always just three minutes away from the next crisis? (Luckily I’m not like that.) Nell went to have a gentle wave put in her hair a couple of weeks ago—she was after the sort of body that Elle Macpherson has but in her hair (like that was ever going to happen), but the hairdresser insisted on giving it a perm and now she looks more like Tammy Wynette.

‘Nell’s great,’ I say. ‘Mad as usual.’ Then I tell them all about the hair. Mich and Suzzi are really upset about the perm until I explain that Nell’s not bothered at all. The thing with Nell is that nothing really bothers her. She shrugged off World Wars and not seeing her husband for four years while he was away fighting the Germans, so I suppose a bad haircut’s not going to affect her in the same way as it would cripple me. If I ever had a bad haircut it would be a drama of epic proportions, probably resulting in a suicide attempt and certainly ending in a flurry of threatening legal letters. Nell just pulls out the afro comb and gets on with life.

I can see some of the girls on the far side of the table making mock yawning signs. I ignore them. This is Nell we’re talking about, she’s not like other old ladies—she has the heart, if not the wardrobe, of a Wag. She’s the life and soul of the nursing home she lives in. She used to be the social coordinator of the place until she invited a Barry Manilow look-alike to play there, and her best mate Gladys tried to get off with him. Barry’s agent complained and Nell got an official warning. Then there was the time she was told off for chasing some old man down the corridor. ‘Only having fun,’ she said. But she nearly gave the poor guy a heart attack. She has a cat living in her flat, too, which is strictly against the regulations. Coleen (I named her) lives under the sink where no one can see her.

‘I couldn’t bear to spend so much time with an old lady, but I guess you’re that much older than me,’ Mindy says. ‘And me,’ say Debbie and Julie in harmony, before collapsing into fits of giggles.

‘Not that much older,’ I counter, smiling through the pain.

‘Aw, come on,’ says Mindy. ‘How many of these lunches have you been to?’

A grin has spread across her pinched and painfully thin face. The others stare with open mouths. They’re all rude, these Slag Wags, but even they can’t believe the viciousness contained in the question I’ve just been asked. Their faces are registering utter disbelief. I can see they’re dying to hear what I will say, and who can blame them—I’m dying to hear what I’ll say, too. Right now, I have no idea. How can I answer a question like that—more loaded than the mini pizza starters we’ve just ordered but that no one will touch?

This is the Wag version of starting a brawl. It’s like a footballer turning to a fellow player and asking him if he wants to go outside for a fight. No, it’s worse than that—it’s like one of the footballers punching another player in the ribs when he’s not looking. I just stare back at Mindy. She knows what she’s done and so do the others. Even though we are rival groups of Wags around this table, there is still a Wag bond, and she has just broken it. Certain topics are strictly off-limits. It’s like the rule about not mentioning politics or religion at dinner parties. In Wag Land it’s weight and age.

The thing is, we all lie about our ages all the time, so in order to answer questions likely to reveal your age, you first have to remember how old you said you were, and thus, with that age in mind, what the answer to the question might be. So, a simple ‘How long have you been watching football?’ demands the mathematical brain of a genius to work out the answer. I can’t tell Mindy that I’ve been a Wag for exactly twelve years (it’s my anniversary tomorrow!!!!), and that this is my eighth time at a Luton Town’s pre-season ladies’ lunch. I simply can’t say that, because it’s the truth, and the truth is outlawed. My world is a complex one…let me explain why:

Assuming Mindy can add up, which isn’t guaranteed, me telling her that I’ve been married for twelve years will make it extremely unlikely that I am the twenty-six that I claim to be, unless it turns out that Dean’s a bloody paedophile, or a podiatrist as Suzzi once said (as in: ‘There’s this child abuser in Luton advertising that he can get rid of veruccas!’).

Still, she’s asked the question, and I need to answer it. She fired a penalty at me when I was tying my shoelaces, and I have to work out whether I should leap up and defend it, or just let it go into the net and accept that we’re 2-1 down against the Slags before the starters have even arrived.

Everyone’s looking at me. There are glances and giggles, but I ignore them. I just offer a strained and unconvincing smile and down my Bacardi and Cherry Coke without answering. I’ve let the opposition score. Mindy had an open goal, and even if she did use dubious genital-grabbing tactics the fact remains that she scored. 2-1.

I call the waiter over and order myself a glass of champagne. I thought I could do this sober but, as ever, I can’t. I also order a selection of fattening nibbles for the girls on the other side of the table. ‘Deep-fried brie and tempura. Oh, and potato skins,’ I say. ‘Do they come with cheese and bacon? Do you have any deep-fried avocado?’ I shove a twenty-pound note into his hand and whisper to him: ‘If they don’t eat the fried food, put dressings on their salads and sugar in their coffee.’

This is not an unusual state of affairs. This is what we do.

‘You all right?’ asks Suzzi.

I nod, but I’m not.

I’m the oldest person here and I don’t want to be. I want to be like Mindy—a gorgeous twenty-two-year-old with the world of Wagdom at her pedicured feet and a beautiful striker from the Ivory Coast in her bed. I don’t feel pretty and indestructible any more—I feel old. In a minute, and with one barbed comment, my world has come crashing down. This happens to me far too frequently these days—my grip on positivity becoming more tenuous as time passes and the wrinkles spread. I’ve gone from thinking my glass is half-full to being able to see, quite clearly, that it’s almost empty.

I knock back my drink and try to think happy thoughts about my lovely daughter, Paskia Rose, and the great relationship I have with Nell. I try to think of Dean himself and how much I love him, but that makes it worse and it becomes a fight to stop the tears that threaten to spring forth and wreck my carefully and heavily applied eye make-up. The thought of my false eyelashes coming off in a torrent of tears makes me feel even more like crying. While I sit there, having a battle of wills with my tear ducts (do tear ducts have wills? Probably), the girls have moved on to talk about their holiday destinations. Mich went to the Seychelles with a guy she was seeing for a while. ‘He had a yacht,’ she announces, but she doesn’t dwell on the subject because he wasn’t a footballer so she really doesn’t want people asking too many questions.

‘We went to Spain,’ announces Mindy, with a predictable,‘Olé!’ Then she climbs onto the table, much to the delight of the waiters who gather round to watch this drunk woman in a very short pink skirt negotiating the climb. ‘Viva L’Espana,’ she shouts, while clicking her invisible castanets. She begins to undo the few buttons that are not already open and throws back her pink Pucci blouse to reveal a bikini full to the brim with fake breast.

‘Good lord,’ says Suzzi, as the Slag Wags cheer. They’re all used to this behaviour on the youthful side of the table, except for Helen—the new girl in the group. To her credit, she is open-mouthed and looking very uncomfortable with the way the lunch party is developing. Mindy is simply unable to whisper discreetly, ‘I’ve had my breasts done.’ She has to put on a strip show at the ladies’ lunch.

‘Anyone for melon?’ asks Mich.

‘No, you mean anyone for football?’ asks Suzzi, and they fall about laughing. Suze is so funny. Actually, though, in all honesty, each of Mindy’s new breasts is roughly the size of a heavily inflated football.

My caesar salad comes, without croutons, cheese, anchovies or dressing, and I move the lettuce around the plate. Pudding arrives. I didn’t order it. I haven’t eaten pudding for years, certainly not since I started wearing a bra. The pudding is clearly part of the sabotage techniques of the Slag Wags, designed to test my willpower. I delicately smash up the creamy-white mound sitting in the centre of an icing-dusted plate and move it around without tasting it. I don’t even know what it is, I just know that it’s full of calories that I cannot possibly consume. I wonder whether Mindy has realised that I changed her order so she’s drinking sweet white wine and normal lemonade! She doesn’t seem to have noticed that it’s not diet, not the way she’s throwing it down her throat.

Julie’s noticed, though. She’s making funny faces as she drinks her cocktail. I guess it wasn’t subtle to request it loaded with double cream. The sad thing is, though, that a few extra calories isn’t going to make a difference to those girls—they’re young, skinny and pretty…unlike me. I suddenly feel so obsessed by the thought of the passing years and the desperate, wrinkle-filled, grey-haired world towards which I’m clearly on a fast train, that I can’t think properly, or take any joy from their sabotaged drinks.

In the end, I resort to testing myself by guessing the number of calories in every item on the menu. I work out all the various combinations. Christ, I can do calorie calculations in my sleep. I often think to myself that if they’d done sums at school in calories, I might be lecturing at Harvard now, instead of devoting my days to ensuring I look ten years younger than I am.

I’m so absorbed in the calorie-counting business that I don’t see a burly man in a fluorescent jacket enter the restaurant and indulge in a heated exchange with one of the restaurant’s waiting staff. The waiter walks over to the table, but I’m too busy wondering how much vanilla and caramel custard you’re likely to get with the cinnamon whirl, and thus how many calories it’s likely to be, to hear him ask,

‘Does anyone have a four-by-four?’

Everyone at the table simultaneously says, ‘Yes.’

‘Is anyone’s car parked illegally?’ asks the waiter.

‘Yes,’ chorus the women.

He walks away, shaking his head, and tells the man in the fluorescent jacket that it’s impossible to identify the driver.