Goal Diggers: WAGS And Habitual Tabloid Culture
ASBO teens to beauty queens.
The 2000s accommodated the so-called “golden generation” of football, with the English national team housing the likes of Wayne Rooney, David Beckham and Gary Neville. While the back of the newspapers documented the players’ on-field performances, the antics of their wives and girlfriends were splashed across the front pages.
Overly tanned wives sporting extreme amounts of fake hair and heels in the stands attracted the tabloids: latching on to footballers’ partners in order to catch a glimpse of their glamorous lifestyles at a time when celebrity gossip and paparazzi were at an all-time high. Fans were rubbing shoulders with some of the most famous women in England — Victoria Beckham, Cheryl (formerly Cole) and Abbey Clancy, to name a few — yet their identities seemed to be stripped away, their titles reduced to a single phrase: “WAG.”
Misogynistic headlines accompanied the women throughout their supporting careers and — following an unfortunate loss to Portugal in the 2006 World Cup — they were blamed for “distracting” the England boys with rumbunctious, chaotic displays. During their time in the usually peaceful town of Baden-Baden, the girl gang of WAGs were observed drunkenly dancing on tables, being caught in drug scandals and racking up extortionate hotel bills. Coleen Rooney (childhood sweetheart of Wayne Rooney) famously spent £57,000 in an hour, diminishing the shopping trip to “just a few bits and pieces.”
Partners were completely banned from attending the following World Cup in South Africa, with many holding the “WAG brigade” liable. The judgments and misconceptions made about footballers’ partners tend to stem from the women stealing the limelight from their husbands, with many managers feeling threatened by the high-profile relationships.
Gone are the days of messy scandals, with most WAGs keeping a low profile in order to uphold the reputation of their significant other. Women still dominate the stands, donning their chosen number … with less tabloid buzz and pitch-side PDA.
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