In the sleepy German town of Baden Baden in June 2006 the England camp were preparing for the forthcoming World Cup finals. There were boutiques to explore, Luis Vuitton handbags to purchase and tans to be topped up, and all in time for the Three Lions’ opener against Paraguay that loomed on the horizon.

As is traditional for any big tournament build-up, the media obsessively covered every detail as an anxious nation waited with baited breath on the fitness of 'Posh Spice' as she nursed a cocktail hangover and worried about how 17-year-old Melanie Slade was adjusting to her meteoric rise and was fitting in with the rest of the squad. There were tactical considerations, too. Was Colleen McLoughlin stealing some of the limelight away from Cheryl Cole? Could team morale suffer as a consequence?

In the Black Forest mountains that sprawl away from the town, the football equivalents played out. Wayne Rooney was fighting a desperate battle to be fit after suffering a broken metatarsal against Chelsea. Theo Walcott was the new kid at school, while the old debate as to whether Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard could play in the same side raged on.

The latter considerations were dutifully plastered across the back pages, but the WAG roadshow dominated every nook and cranny of the media. Interest was insatiable and the public’s apparent mania wasn’t solely regarded as a hors d’oeuvre, a distraction before the main course of England competing in the finals. During games, corners, free-kicks and throw-ins were often eschewed for yet another shot of the players' wives and girlfriends watching en masse behind designer sunglasses.

What a strange phenomenon it all was, this infatuation with women in a relationship with high profile footballers, a phenomenon that arguably began the moment David Beckham spied Victoria Adams in the player’s lounge at Old Trafford and confided to his best mate that she was the fittest Spice Girl.

For a spell –and it seems so bizarre to claim this now – such was its omnipresence it felt like it could snowball even further to become, ridiculously, almost a sport in its own right.

A study from 2008 revealed that becoming a WAG was the fifth most desirable occupation for aspirational schoolgirls. The more general aim to ‘be famous’ was fourth. Almost exclusively keeping a player in the same bed at night was beginning to be regarded as an achievement, something to be celebrated and revered.

It all coincided, of course, with the explosion of celebrity culture as an imperfect storm brought together newly-minted footballers and pop stars with Heat magazine and a multitude of imitators that took up half the newsagents' shelves. The socialising, shopping activities and most of all love lives of Chelsea full-backs and Girls Aloud mimers were pored over, slagged off, and envied, but what surprised many was that this evidently wasn’t a fad; the British public were more than content to delve into these shallow waters again and again, producing an endless churning sea of paparazzi pap.

You would think one photograph of Steven Gerrard’s other half Alex Curran walking down a high street burdened by shopping bags would have sufficed. In the event we apparently needed thousands of much the same.

It all peaked in 2006, but conversely at the time it felt horrendously like the start of something. Something big and new. Something nauseating and utterly meaningless.

So what changed? Did we wise up as a society? Sadly no. We have the changeable flow of fashion to thank as influential articles you would only reluctantly read in magazines left in dentists' waiting rooms decided that WAG culture was no longer ‘on point’. Through over-exposure a ‘WAG-lash’ ensued with the term – and any association with it – becoming derogatory over time rather than desirable.

Which leaves us with here and the present. Jamie Vardy has prompted acres of news coverage this season and could conceivably be the most famous man in the country by July 10th when he rockets in a last-minute winner in the EURO 2016 final. Yet do you know the name of his girlfriend? I don’t, nor do I have the slightest interest in finding out. I have also had to consult Google to find out if Harry Kane is happily settled down. He is, with a childhood sweetheart who finds it a little crazy when she is pictured walking her dogs. I wish them both well and hope she is present at the Stade de France when her bloke is setting up Vardy for his moment of history.

We won’t know because the cameras will remain aimed towards the pitch. As it should be.

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