FOUR years ago this month, a gaggle of tanned and toned girlies, with very nice hair, packed up their Balenciaga bags and took off for a little town in Germany where their fellas were working for the summer.

They flew out wives and girlfriends and they flew back WAGs.

You will remember it well, I am sure. It was the summer of the 2006 World Cup, in Baden- Baden, when the action was hotter off the pitch than it was on.

It is safe to say that while the men worked (if you can call kicking a ball around a field work), the women played. And they played hard.

They shopped till they dropped, they sunbathed, they went out drinking, they danced on tables and they got photographed.

They got photographed a lot. Mainly looking like they were having the time of their lives.

And then they got the blame for England crashing out of the tournament.

Which is funny because I could have sworn it was down to penalties, Portugal and that uber-tanned little winker, Cristiano Ronaldo.

But, then again, men have been blaming women for their own failings ever since Eve and that apple.

Fast forward four years and, as the current England team jets to South Africa carrying with them a nation’s hopes, things have changed quite a bit on the WAG front.