Their salaries may not be in the same stratosphere but whether it’s Barcelona, Buenos Aires, Belgravia or Belfast, the fact remains the same – behind every successful sportsman, there’s a smart, glamorous woman.
Seven of these women, commonly known in the media as Wags, a phrase coined during the 2006 World Cup to refer to the footballer’s wives and girlfriends, are followed in a new six-part series from BBC Northern Ireland.
These wives and girlfriends of Northern Ireland’s top sportsmen have a lifestyle that is the envy of women up and down the country. Fashion shows and football matches, Grand Prix and galas, society weddings and shopping trips to Las Vegas, Best Dressed Ladies’ Day and holidays in the sun, charity auctions and style awards ... their glamorous lifestyle just never stops!
In the spotlight are -
Lisa Harrison, a 28-year-old fashion stylist and on/off fiancée of A1 Team Ireland’s chief executive Mark Kershaw
Twenty-four-year-old solicitor Leeanne Druse whose partner is Armagh GAA player Ronan Clarke
Zara Shaw, a 22-year-old model, whose boyfriend is former Bohemians and now Lisburn Distillery footballer Chris Kingsberry
Ydele Steele, a 27 -year-old PE teacher, who is married to Irish cricketer Andrew White
Lauren Hood, a hair extensions entrepreneur and 25-year-old girlfriend of Ulster and Irish rugby player Stephen Ferris
Julie Moore, a 3 -year-old air hostess and wife of mixed martial arts champion Rod
Debby Armstrong, 32 year-old property
developer and mother, whose husband is
former Northern Ireland football
international and TV pundit Gerry
Armstrong
The first programme shows the Wags’
sporty side, as we watch them leaving home
to cheer on their men at the A1 Grand Prix
in Amsterdam, the football international
between Northern Ireland and Iceland in
Reykjavik, rugby matches at Ravenhill, cricket
at Stormont, a GAA club game and an
Ultimate Fight Revolution bout.
The rest of the series follows the ladies as they indulge in a bit of retail therapy. Partying and pampering is the name of the game in another programme and the series also follows the girls on holiday to fashionable locations like Puerto Banus and Las Vegas.
The series will also look at the glamorous jobs that these girls do including a hair extensions business, modelling and fashion styling. The final programme in the series will look at weddings including gorgeous dresses, proposals, massive rings and those oh-so-embarrassing wedding videos.
And what makes this series that bit different – and well informed – is the fact that producer/director Veronica Cunningham knows the territory extremely well. She is married to Ulster rugby full back Bryn Cunningham.
Veronica says: ”The past ten months of my life have been spent caught up in a whirl of wall-to-wall glamour. Filming the hectic lifestyles of these seven girls has provided the camera crew and myself with jam-packed social diaries of our own. We became regular jet-setters, accompanying Northern Ireland’s wags on their various outings to places such as Las Vegas, Amsterdam, Marbella, Majorca, Iceland, London and Dublin.
It was all great fun as it meant that we could mingle with the beautiful people and gain filming access to the hottest parties, lavish weddings, sumptuous spas and of course the best seats in the house for major sporting events. While it has its origins in the football World Cup of 2006, the ‘WAG tag’ has now become something of a global phenomenon, applied to the ‘wife or girlfriend’ of any man involved in any sport.
The selection of seven very different, very stylish girls from a wide range of successful local sports is what gives this entertaining six-part series so much variety and - so many surprises. Viewers’ stereotypes may be shattered when they discover the smart, independent, fun girls behind the spray tans and stilettos. I have to admit, there are worse ways of making a living!”
NI Wags is a Waddell Media production
for BBC Northern Ireland.