The summer a golden generation lost its shine

Two weeks after the Beckhams’ party, the players headed to Germany, where they were greeted by several hundred fans before being whisked off to their secluded five-star castle-like hotel in the Black Forest. Further down the hill in the centre of Baden-Baden, the arrival of their wives and girlfriends caused even more of a stir. Many were celebrities in their own right who just happened to be romantically involved with top footballers, others were girl-next-door types with ordinary jobs seen as living a glamorous dream. All were lumped together as WAGs – an acronym of ‘wives and girlfriends’ that in years to come was recognised as sexist – and all were eagerly followed as they shopped, partied and sunbathed. Showbiz reporter Clemmie Moodie explains in the documentary that her brief in Germany was to “ignore the football” and “watch these WAGs, see what they get up to”. It was easy to keep track because the FA had housed them in the same hotel as many of the journalists. Your browser does not support this video Much of the action happened in Garibaldi’s – an Italian restaurant in the heart of Baden-Baden that had a (paparazzi-friendly) glass front. “It was 22 WAGs, plus their friends and family, spending thousands of pounds at a time doing limoncello shots and cocktails,” says Moodie, who added that Victoria Beckham had even called this her “attention-seeking era”. …