Ah, the heady 00s heyday of the Wag. This was the decade when football players’ wives and girlfriends outshone their pig’s bladder-kicking partners. The golden era of Victoria Beckham, Cheryl Tweedy, Coleen Rooney, Louise Redknapp and their pouting, perma-tanned pals. They shopped hard, they partied harder, they were somehow blamed when England lost. And maybe it was all inspired by one infamous TV drama.
Riding high from the ratings success of its schlocky prison series Bad Girls, production company Shed – co-founded by Corrie alumni – decided to bring a bit of filth to the beautiful game. Glossy ITV romp Footballers’ Wives debuted 20 years ago this weekend, and instantly became a seminal slice of TV trash.
Early scripts were loosely based on Footballers’ Wives Tell Their Tales, a book of candid interviews by Shelley Webb, the wife of former Manchester United and England midfielder Neil. Except the resulting TV show was so salaciously over the top it made its source material look like Enid Blyton by comparison. It shot. It scored. It celebrated with a fishbowl cocktail and a lapdance.
Gaudily glamorous, shamelessly steamy and knowingly camp, Footballers’ Wives was modelled on 80s US supersoaps Dallas and Dynasty. Its scheming anti-heroine Tanya Turner (a role written with actor Zöe Lucker in mind) was JR Ewing and Alexis Colby rolled into one bodycon-frocked, bling-draped package.
Set at the fictional Premier League club Earls Park FC, nicknamed Sparks, the story initially focused on three contrasting couples. First came the sweet, sympathetic pair: new Sparks signing Ian Walmsley (Nathan Constance) struggled to find his feet in the first XI, while his wife, Donna (Katherine Monaghan), tried to track down the child they were forced to give up for adoption in their teens.
Next came the Posh-and-Becks avatars. Gloriously named glamour model Chardonnay Lane (Susie Amy) and resident heart-throb Kyle Pascoe (Gary Lucy) were busy planning their Snow White-themed wedding – a fairytale bonanza of bad taste with matching pink thrones, sponsored by a glossy magazine. Remind you of anyone?
However, the most compelling couple by far were villainous team captain Jason Turner (Christian Solimeno) and his wife, Tanya, AKA Lady Macbeth in a mock-Tudor mansion. This alpha tigress sashayed across the screen with her peroxide power-bob, trademark long talons and rattling jewellery, ruthlessly plotting her way to the top.
Lucker admitted she based her portrayal not on any specific real-life Wag but on Sharon Stone’s performance as gangster’s moll Ginger in Martin Scorsese’s Casino. The production’s makeup artist apparently went through 22 tubes of mascara per series on Tanya alone.
Action unfolded in boardrooms and bedrooms, rather than on the boring old football pitch. Outrageous plotlines took in child kidnapping, cocaine-snorting, psychotic stalkers, sexually abusive nurses, deadly drunken brawls, megabucks match-fixing and high-profile court cases. And you thought the “Wagatha Christie” scandal was daft.
Kyle’s meddling mother, Jackie (ageless EastEnders stalwart Gillian Taylforth), had graphic sex with love rat Jason on a snooker table. Cue insalubrious “potting the pink” headlines and Tanya accusing him of “shagging Old Mother Hubbard”. Series two climaxed with a Who shot JR?-style cliffhanger when Jason fell from a rooftop to his death after an unseen assailant walloped him with (what else?) a champagne bottle.
It duly became one of the most talked-about dramas on TV, albeit not always for the right reasons. Ratings reached an impressive 7m. Sky’s long-running but relatively pedestrian soccer drama Dream Team had topped the TV league table until Footballers’ Wives swaggered on to the scene and snapped up all the silverware like a glory-seeking club with a new billionaire owner.
Characters lived in Essex mansions with swimming pools and ponies. “We’ve got it, so spend it!” went the wives’ motto. Stadium sequences were filmed at Crystal Palace’s Selhurst Park ground and the now-demolished White Hart Lane, the former home of Tottenham Hotspur. The show’s logo was a glitterball/football hybrid, with the programme title styled as “footballers wive$” – all lower case with no apostrophe, which only irritated the snobs even more.
It spawned late-night spin-off Footballers’ Wives: Extra Time and even a mockumentary chatshow, Footballers’ Wives TV. The series was remade in Germany, Italy, the US and Canada (where the sport was tweaked to feature the wives of ice hockey stars).
Celebrity cameos added to the in-jokey cheesiness. Among the familiar faces popping up were footballers, obviously (Sol Campbell, David Seaman, Teddy Sheringham) plus a ragtag selection of random C-listers (Katie Price, Peter Stringfellow, Rula Lenska, Peter Andre, Lionel Blair, Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, Richard and Judy). Earls Park started to resemble a provincial panto.
From the third series onwards, the action revolved even more around its MVP, the newly widowed Tanya – notably her love triangle with Amber and Conrad Gates, the club’s bisexual new skipper and his violently possessive wife (played by Laila Rouass and Ben Price). The two women had a designer handbag-swinging catfight in clear tribute to Dynasty’s Krystle v Alexis fisticuffs.
Shark-eyed players’ agent Hazel Bailey (Alison Newman) arrived to stir up trouble (and sleep with Tanya). Chardonnay died from anorexia. A baby was swapped for another, then smothered by a jealous pet pug. Tanya literally shagged a rich old man to death for money. Between the third and fourth series, the demonic diva “crossed over” into Bad Girls for three episodes after she was jailed for drug possession. Naturally, Tanya soon poisoned her fellow HMP Larkhall inmates and blagged her way out.
Casting became a revolving door. Storylines disappeared up their own players’ tunnel (suicide pacts, Chinese Triad gangs and intersex babies ahoy). Viewership dwindled to 3.7m. The final series was graced by former Dynasty super-bitch Joan Collins, one of Tanya’s touchstones, but not even the doyenne of melodrama could halt the ratings slump. The final whistle was blown after five series and 42 episodes.
At least it got a suitably ludicrous send-off. The 2006 Sport Relief telethon featured a spoof mini-episode titled The Last Ever, Ever Footballers’ Wives, with Graham Norton playing Earls Park’s latest signing, the tastefully named Brendan Spunk.
The show is now regarded as something of a kitsch cult classic, regularly appearing in meme form on social media. A nostalgic fanbase means it does brisk business on streaming service BritBox. There are periodic rumours of a reboot.
Its influence can also still be felt today, in the likes of Apple TV+’s breakout hit Ted Lasso – a more comedic, transatlantic take on the same material. Richmond FC and Earls Parks FC are both suburban London teams who wear blue kits. With her blond mane and power-frocks, club owner Rebecca Welton even bears a visual resemblance to Tanya – perhaps inspired by actor Hannah Waddingham’s brief stint on Footballers’ Wives back in the day. Meanwhile, Keeley (Juno Temple), the model girlfriend of coach Roy Kent, is a Wag straight out of the Earls Park VIP lounge.
Unlike folksy Coach Lasso and co, Footballers’ Wives might not have bagged Emmys nor Golden Globes. Heck, it barely earned any TV Quick Awards. But it was huge fun while it lasted and now it’s turning 20. We’ll raise a glass of vintage Chardonnay to that.
