GIRLS LIKE BOYS

From the Guardian

When she was 18, Amanda Hughes started sleeping with famous footballers - lots of them. Here, she talks about three years of bad sex, low expectations - and a lucky escape

When I read the tabloid stories about Wayne Rooney sleeping with prostitutes in Liverpool this summer, I was shocked. Not so much that he had cheated on his pretty young girlfriend, Coleen - after all, he is a famous footballer and a millionaire: what do you expect? What surprised me was that he hadn't just cheated on her with any one of the willing groupies he was likely to meet. And I should know: for three years I was one of them.

In 1997, when I was 18, I went on holiday with a big group of friends to Ayia Napa. I was dancing in a bar when I felt someone grinding along to the music behind me, slipping his hands around my waist. I turned around and there was a young, newly-signed England player standing behind me. (I'm a regular reader of the back pages, and knew all the details of his transfer fee.) I was young, and surprised and flattered that he had singled me out; all the boys in our group, and most of the girls, were incredibly impressed. He whispered "I'll see you later" into my ear and wandered off to the bar.

The next evening, in a different bar, he approached me again and told me that I was going back to his hotel with him. Had he been a complete stranger, or even a regular, non-famous guy, I would have told him to get lost. But because he was famous - and because I was aware that all my friends were impressed by him, too - I went back to his hotel, along with a girlfriend and one of his team-mates (another England player). We went to the hotel, had sex (all in the same room), and 10 minutes later headed back into town - where, presumably, they picked up another couple of girls.

I didn't really care: it had been fun, he was gorgeous, and maybe we'd all meet up again back in London. I was a student at the time, but in the three years of my degree course I never once went out with anyone from university. At 18, I thought these men were somehow better judges of character than my fellow students, and, ridiculously, the fact that they wanted to spend time with me mattered more.

Over the next few years, until I graduated from university, I slept with four current England players, 10 Premiership stars, and a couple of Real Madrid players my friend and I met on a pre-season tour. I was studying during the day, and spending Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights out at various clubs, mostly the Emporium in Soho (there would always be at least three players there on a Saturday night). We would also travel up to Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds, looking for men.

On one occasion I drove from London to Manchester to meet a United player in a hotel car park. He handed me a wad of cash to go and book a room - which I did, and then waited there for him. We both knew that if I wasn't prepared to, there were hundreds of other girls out there who were. With the arrival of mobile phones and text messaging, you can imagine how bored young men whiled away the hours on the night before a game - and it wasn't by watching Jonathan Ross. The filthy messages we constantly received were years ahead of the "Becks Text" scandal.

It amazes me that managers don't do more to coach footballers in how to avoid negative publicity. They could start with the basics: show a girl some respect, be nice and don't ignore her the morning after. Sometimes players would talk about the girls who had sold their stories and say they had "no self-respect"; these were the same men who slept with a different girl every weekend, sometimes with a wife or girlfriend waiting for them at home.

I'd like to see clubs arrange workshops on Managing Your Libido, or Elementary Respect. They could invite a player who had ruined his own marriage, and they could hear from girls who had been "persuaded" to take part in group sex and amateur porn videos. They could be asked if they would mind if their sister or mother was treated this way. I admit it's a big ask: you'd have to be an incredibly level-headed youngster to stay grounded after signing a £40-million contract and finding yourself the object of national adoration.

After getting my degree, and after so many humiliating experiences, I decided I wanted nothing more to do with footballers. That was nearly five years ago, and I have been with my current boyfriend for nearly three years. (He doesn't even like football, and knows nothing of my groupie past.)

Now when I read the kiss-and-tell stories in tabloids, I'm grateful that I got out when I did - that I saw how empty it all was. And when I read reports of gang rape, I know it could easily have gone the same way for me - those occasions when a player's friends would suddenly "appear" in the bedroom doorway, and it would be assumed you didn't mind, that in fact you were so dirty you would love it if a stranger joined in.

Very occasionally, I feel sorry for the footballers, too. Most of the players I knew had more hangers-on than friends. They were so jaded by fame and money that you wondered how they ever managed to drum up any passion on the football pitch, let alone in life.