England WAGs Caster Semenya Make Over, In Pictures

England WAGs Caster Semenya Make Over, In Pictures

UPDATE: Caster Semenya Has ‘Internal Testes’ And ‘No Womb’

IT was always going to take something huge to push war and Katie Price off the tabloids’ front page, and last night it happened: England qualified for the World Cup finals in South Africa.

Newspapers rejoice. Next summer will be a halcyon time when the news comes to you every day and after a period of 90 minutes plus injury time, full of key facts, exotic names and hate figures.

And there are the WAGS, who we will follow from the moment they pop a boiled sweet into mouths at 30,000ft, through the shops and into the stands to gossip on phones and ask each other what the score is. And watch out for Victoria Beckham’s Caster Semenya makeover.

Hello! has already started the countdown, delivering its “HOW TO BE A WAG” guide, with lectures from Lizzie Cundy, Nicola T and Jadene Bircham, none of whom will at the World Cup in an official WAG capacity unless Coleen Rooney brakes a nail or Victoria Beckham has been airbrushed out of existence, literally.

OK! features the “WORLD CUP WAGS”, “the ones to watch in next year’s tournament.” Having predicted Jade Goody’s death, successfully, OK! was confident England would qualify and fill three pages of copy with the aforesaid Beckham and Rooney, Cheryl Cole, Alex Gerrard, Carly Zucker, Toni Terry, Abigail Clancy and controversially Elen Rives, who reintroduces the debate: Can you be a WAG if you are no longer dating a footballer, in Rives’s case Frank Lampard? Or is it a case of once a WAG always a WAG?

The Mirror screams “BOK OF THE NET” and back in the Sun the sub editors are invoking Bjørge Lillelien’s famous 1981 Commentary after Norway had Beaten England 2-1 in a World Cup Qualifier:

“Lord Nelson, Lord Beaverbrook, Sir Winston Churchill, Sir Anthony Eden, Clement Attlee, Henry Cooper, Lady Diana, vi har slått dem alle sammen, vi har slått dem alle sammen [we have beaten them all, we have beaten them all]. Maggie Thatcher, can you hear me? Maggie Thatcher […] your boys took a hell of a beating! Your boys took a hell of a beating!”

Lillelien’s recalls of Beaverbrook impressed many historians, not least of all the Beaverbrook family. So what the Sun’s experts on Croatian afairs conjure up. Well, nothing. England beat Croatia 5-1 but now ignore them. Instead, they opt for a swipe at the South Africans.