England’s new football WAGs are swapping shopping – for swotting

. . . with degrees in sports science, theatre make-up and childhood studies

FORGET the garish fashions and fake tans – the new generation of football WAGs are a far more cerebral group, with six of the current girlfriends and wives boasting university degrees.

Their preference for swotting over shopping contrasts with the party-loving partners of the England players who stayed in the spa town of Baden-Baden during the World Cup in Germany in 2006.

The term ‘WAGs’ was coined during that tournament when the antics of partners led by David Beckham’s wife Victoria, Frank Lampard’s girlfriend at the time Elen Rivas and manager Sven-Goran Eriksson’s then-partner Nancy Dell’Olio made more headlines than the team.

Illustrating the shift, the wife of current England captain Harry Kane is Katie Goodland, a 27-year-old mother-of-three

Graduate Katie’s ‘a normal girl in her 20s who is a little bit shy’

with a degree in sports science. She works as a fitness instructor and friends say she’s a ‘normal girl who is ‘a little bit shy’.

Fern Hawkins, 27, fiancee of defender Harry Maguire, has a degree in physiotherapy from Sheffield University. The mother of the Manchester United star’s two daughters, Lillie Saint, two, and oneyear-old Piper Rose still uses her qualification, according to friends.

Goalkeeper Jordan Pickford’s fiancee Megan Davison, 25, has a 2:1 in childhood studies from Sunderland University, while Raheem Sterling’s girlfriend Paige Milian, 25, has an accountancy qualification and runs her own property empire.

Recent recruit Kalvin Phillips’s girlfriend Ashleigh Behan, 26, has a degree in theatre make-up from Leeds University and works as a specialist artist. The youngest among the WAG smart set is law student Mia McClenaghan, the 21-year-old girlfriend of Chelsea star Reece James, who graduates from Royal Holloway University this summer. She already works with prisoners at HMP Coldingley in Surrey, giving inmates legal advice. The brainy bunch of footballers’ partners has prompted calls to retire the term WAG which, some say, has been in decline since the retirement of David Beckham, the demise of nightclub culture and a decline in celebrity magazines.

‘ David and Victoria Beckham were the halo to the culture,’ said one insider. ‘He was the rock star of what everyone thought was the golden generation of footballers. You don’t have women turning up at nightclubs hoping to snare a rich player any more. Instead, they now direct message on social media or use the selective dating website Raya. And there are no longer the big, starry weddings in the glossy magazines any more. Footballers want a more understated life.’

Another source said: ‘When you look at 2006, you had Sven and Nancy. Today, you have sensible Gareth Southgate and his normal wife Alison. That sums it all up, really.’