Читать книгу Welcome to My World - Coleen McLoughlin - Страница 9

During the World Cup the newspapers made out Cheryl didn’t mix with the rest of us and she and Victoria hung out on their own together all the time, but that wasn’t the way it was. She might not have come out in the evening all the time but we met up and went out for lunch and she’s a lovely girl. Victoria was criticized in the same way. There were headlines saying how she never mixed with anyone. But she was with us in the hotel, and travelled on the coach to matches with us all and the families. We had a great dinner one night, when my best friend Claire came along, but the press don’t really want to report that kind of thing. It makes a better story to say there were divisions in the camp.

After the World Cup was all over, the newspapers used us, the wives and girlfriends, as an excuse as to why the team didn’t get any further. But that’s all it was, an excuse. If England had won the World Cup they would have said that having the wives and girlfriends over in Germany was a good thing. But, let’s be honest, the families haven’t been allowed to travel with the England team in the past and I can understand if it’s true that the FA will not in future be making official arrangements for the girls. But before we start blaming anyone, let’s be clear. We’ve only won the World Cup once and that was in 1966 when we had home advantage. Why were we in the papers so much? It’s not that we asked for the attention. If you think about it this was the first World Cup played out in the digital age and the era of celeb-obsessed media. It was a European tournament, only two hours ahead of England, and the photographers with their state-of-the-art technology had no problems meeting their editors’ deadlines. From day one, the newspapers decided we were the other story and were going to turn us into headline news whether we liked it or not. As far as the press were concerned the girls were seen as fair game for criticism and sometimes ridicule, and, in the end, easy to blame for England failing to win the tournament.

On the day of what turned out to be England’s final match, against Portugal, we had to get up really early in the morning. Everyone was excited, because the further we went in the tournament the more exciting it got. Especially now we were against Portugal, who’d knocked England out in the 2004 European Championship. Everyone was saying that we’d get our revenge and win this one. There was me and Claire, my dad, my granddad, my elder brother Joe, my youngest brother Anthony and my cousin Shaun. We’d taken a vote among the families and decided to go by coach rather than plane. It was about five or six hours to travel from our hotel in Baden-Baden to the ground in Stuttgart.

I remember things that have happened to me – days out, nights on the town, events I’ve been to, work contracts, modelling shoots – by the clothes I was wearing. In general I’ve got a terrible memory, but show me a photograph of myself and I’ll immediately be able to tell you where I was and what I was doing. It’s weird, but I’ve always been like that.

On the day of the Portugal match it was roasting. I had on this little grey jacket over a vest from one of the high-street stores, black denim shorts and Marc Jacobs wedges. I remember not wanting to wear jeans, as I’d done at previous games, just because it was too hot. However, I didn’t travel in those clothes, I went in a Juicy tracksuit. Quite a few of the girls had jogging bottoms on because it was such a long journey to the ground. I know the newspapers said there was competition between the girls as to who could wear the most designer labels but it really wasn’t like that. That’s not to say you don’t check out what everyone else is wearing. That’s only natural. It’s the kind of thing you do automatically if a girl’s wearing something nice or interesting. Well, I do. Wayne tells me off all the time about it. And my mum too. When I was younger she used to say that one of these days I would get a smack! But I don’t do it in a horrible way. I’m just interested in fashion. Wayne says that if we’re in a restaurant and someone’s wearing something I like, I just look and keep looking for ages. He will be talking to me and I’ll ignore him until he starts moaning at me to stop staring!