Week 3 - RIP Wag Generation

Last Night Rob and I (plus select members of the family sworn to best behaviour) went to the hallowed ground to watch the Liverpool V Arsenal Game enshrouded in Luxury. We were of course invited into the Boardroom, the Ultimate Liverpool Match watching experience surrounded by an epiphany of Liverpool legends, the walls superbly adorned with photographic memories of these legends and this iconic Clubs History.

 

Sober as a judge and of course now the designated driver for all social events, I couldn’t help but reminisce about our Liverpool days as I mindfully debated how, not just Liverpool but football times have changed and matured like a fine bottle of Amarone.   Talking of drinks, the entire bar and including the non-alcoholic drinks selection has clearly improved from the players’ lounge days I could remember, not a rola cola in sight and the food, Oh wow, move aside tatty tubes of Stacks pretending they are Pringles, oh no this is full on Michelin star gourmet cuisine.  It is well and truly ‘In a league of its own’,  minus Freddie Flintoff of course.
 

On the pitch the Liverpool players look mighty fine, not their footwork skills, I haven’t an iota of footballing knowledge to share, clearly I am referring to their distinctly dandruff free locks which I can’t help but think must be a credit to Jason McAteer and his Head and Shoulder campaigning back in the day.

 

Sadly I couldn’t comment on the Arsenal players Barnets as they were rarely vertical long enough for me to get a good look at them, but rather spent their pitch time rolling around the grass and clutching their ankles. C’est la Vie.

 

Anyway since going alcohol free almost three weeks ago, I am doing a lot of self-reflection, reminiscing about the past and trying to piece together the moment Irene stomped into my life and booze stopped being simply a vessel to celebrate and instead, commiserate, liberate, violate and a million other words ending in …..ate.

 

Marrying a Footballer in 1998 opened my eyes to many things, the real life changing ‘I’ve made it moments’ (clearly deluded) like, line jumping in nightclubs, VIP areas and VVIP areas (only wives, girlfriends and those plus ones allowed!), private lock ins, posh bubbly, wrapped in ludicrous yellow cellophane with equally ludicrous price tag,  trading speeding fines for autographs and learning to exit a stretch limo ‘sans undergarments’ and not having your foof splashed across the ‘News of the World’ for your Mother to see.  Footballers cribs, well, nothing quite screams wealthy bitch like a bit of mock Tudor cladding on your house in Ellesmere Port and a chandelier the size of a Small Country in your living room.

 

Oh those fabulous memories all gone it feels, in a perma tan puff of thin air and a blink of a heavily false lash clad eyelid.

 

Now us 90’s Wags were hardcore, gaudily glamourous, shamelessly steamy and tacky as fuck.  We shopped hard, partied harder and somehow got blamed for England losing the World Cup but that’s another story. 

 

We were like pissed up, Asti Spumante swilling protégées of Jimmy Five bellies who was our iconic, almighty Wag Gang leader.

 

We boogied to booze inspired ballads, ‘Hit me with your best shot’ was a popular one of mine which involved necking neon coloured blue curacao, lucid green melon liquor, or stomach churning B52’s before strutting your shoulder pad stuff on the dance floor, under direct supervision of the wags designated,  politically correct bouncer, who looked like she regularly punched articulated lorries full on, simply for the fun of it.

 

‘Girls just wanna have fun’ YES WE DO,  ‘Material girl’ YOU CAN SAY THAT AGAIN and nothing was quite so much fun as going to the bar heavy Wag handed for a bit of 90's sexual innuendo drinks ordering.

 

‘Barman, my dear friend,  I would like a screaming orgasm and so would all of my fellow friends.  Once you’ve finished and if you are still up for it, after that we’d all like sex on the beach………..’, quickly followed by raucous laughter, a lot of pleather clad hip smacking and the inevitable fledgling psychedelic puker who falls from the bar stool and from grace after an over excited session on the neon shot round.

 

Back in the room and glancing at the Magnificent Boardroom Bar, it occurs to me that I have handbags older than the incredible team of expert mixologists and sommeliers standing proud and ready to pour in front of me.  Change, I remind myself is healthy, change is good and for the rest of the wonderful night, I can see that this new me, the one with the clear head, is going to be okay.  No more Hooch or Snake Bites to give me Dutch courage for the evening ahead, instead, tonight Mathew, I am a coffee whore.

 

Life won’t be the same, but I think there’s every chance it will be a whole new improved chapter just like the Liverpool players lounge and I have for the first time Hope about the future,  just as Rob does too albeit his is that Liverpool get their shit together for the second leg lol and well and truly beat Arsenal.

Raising a glass of new bubbles, the sparkling water kind to Hope ..and whatever tickles your ‘hope’ fancy  xx