Victoria Beckham, Coleen McLoughlin and Cheryl Cole set the ball rolling, but there's an increasing number of girls who believe that becoming a footballer's wife is a desirable career choice.

Programmes like Wags' Boutiques and Footballers' Wives have fuelled interest in the lifestyles of this group of females - dubbed Wags (wives and girlfriends) during the World Cup last year - famed for their mammoth shopping sprees, San Tropez tans and drunken nights out.

The thought of a lifestyle of vast wealth, designer labels, endless beauty treatments, cosmetic surgery and hair extensions may prompt many women to go out of their way to meet the footballer of their dreams, but is the life of a Wag all it's cracked up to be?

Perhaps not, says award-winning writer Alison Kervin, who has rubbed shoulders with many Wags in her time as a sports journalist and also in the course of her research for her debut novel, The Wag's Diary.

Alison studied the lifestyles of a number of footballer's wives, went out on the town with them, and conducted a series of interviews with some of the more famous ones (but on condition they weren't named) to find out what makes them tick.

"The women who are married to footballers at higher levels don't think of themselves as Wags and find the term slightly demeaning," she says. "But below that there are a lot of women who want to be Wags. It's a complete throwback to the early part of the last century when women married themselves into a lifestyle. It's regressive."

Typical Wags tend to be girls working in a branch of the beauty industry who have known their partners for a long time and given up their jobs as soon as they marry. They have no interest in football but are happy to use their husband's fame to gain a clutch of celebrity friends.

They are not often academically intelligent, although some of them are streetwise and savvy - understanding what they are worth and how they can make the most of their fame, she says.

"Coleen McLoughlin came into the spotlight when she was 18 or 19 and has turned into a megastar. Her book last year outsold Wayne Rooney's. She has become someone people identify with.

"People like that are savvy, they know what they are worth. Some will go to the opening of an envelope - it's quite tiresome to do that, but they do work at it."

They work at the look' too. Wags tend to be skinny with long blonde hair and go for the Barbie image, wearing lots of make-up. Clothes tend to be white or pink, tans deep from endless spray treatments.

"Many have had boob jobs and are really skinny. The bustline would be more fitting for a size 16 but the girl's actually a size six. It looks like they are going to topple over," says Alison.

"A lot of the fashion is about labels. They adopt a uniform, in a way. The clothes are girly. If there's a fashionable new dress they will go for it in baby pink or white.

"You can't imagine them in a simple navy blue A-line shift dress. It would be in candy-floss pink with shortened hems and big wedge heels. They want labels to be clearly demonstrated."

WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO BE A WAG?When Alison Kervin asked the women she met why they wanted to be Wags, they looked at her incredulously. What would you not enjoy about having as much money as you can possibly spend and being constantly in the papers?

They spend their time going to lunches, beauty salons and on shopping sprees, let their hair down in nightclubs and get far more drunk than most of us.

But the fairytale lifestyle can soon be shattered if their partners are a. unfaithful; b. transferred to a town with no designer shops or c: failing in their career.

The Wags' existence is determined by their husband's performance on the pitch - it's an uncertain one, says Kervin.

"They hate their husbands being seen as sex symbols. While you are going out with them it's fab, but once you are married to them and if you've got kids and a home, and they are all over the paper pictured with sexy young girls, it's hugely threatening.

"You can't go out for a meal without 10 people asking for an autograph. The idea of being in Hello! is fabulous, but the reality of being in the Sun every time you pop out for a pint of milk is less fabulous."