Before the week is out...Watch this
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Your support makes all the difference.There was a time when players used to worry about life after football. When Alan Hansen retired in 1991, he signed a deal with Adidas worth pounds 600 and decided to become a soccer pundit. Last year, David Beckham signed his deal with Adidas for pounds 600,000: the problem now, in the Premiership Era, is how a twentysomething with talented legs can learn to cope with too much money, superstardom and constant media exposure.
In Tuesday's The Football Millionaires (BBC1 at 10.30pm), Hansen talks to Beckham and his contempoaries: Michael Owen, David Ginola, Tony Adams, Graeme Le Saux... Kicking a ball round on Saturday afternoons is not the half of it: there are the book signings, the sponsorship deals, the commercials, the film premieres, the Spice Girls - and, presumably, a lot of shopping and frequent trips to the bank. In the end, Hansen goes to commiserate with Norman Whiteside who scored the winning goal in the 1985 FA Cup Final. He was earning pounds 350 a week at the time. Is he envious? No way, says Norman, hoping some of us will believe him. He has since trained as a physiotherapist. At least he and Hansen have something to do with the rest of their lives, apart from playing golf and watching Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? RB
If you fancy the idea of tabloid reporters camping on your doorstep and 30-odd years of C-list celebritydom, then you'll be dimming the lights and changing the sheets on Saturday night. For 20 March is the date doctors are suggesting as the ideal day to conceive a millennium baby. The odds against success are daunting (fewer than 4 per cent of births take place on the expected day) but this doesn't seem to be deterring couples from going to bed before Match of the Day this weekend. It just goes to show what people will do for a few hundred packs of free Pampers. LF
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