Footballers' Wives (ITV1): 'I DON'T believe I'm hearing this," said Noah the gay footballer. Come off it, I felt like saying to him, remember this is Footballers' Wives - the ultimate in flash and trash, where anything goes.

Anything, that is, except football action on the pitch. A dressing room or shower scene is the closest you'll get to ball play. The Earls Park team are great at playing the field but as useful on the pitch as putting Long John Silver in goal.

Chairperson Hazel, who has the look of a woman that eats babies sunny-side-up for breakfast, had the measure of the Sparks players. "You make me sick," she told them. "I hope one day, when you can't kick a ball any more, yours shrivel up and drop off."

She was appalled at their behaviour on a golfing break in Spain where one of the sexy tequila cadets claimed she'd been raped by a footballer at a wild poolside party.

Conrad had willingly let these pink PVC-clad young ladies help him with his swing. "Who do you want to handle your wood - a 14-year-old Spanish lad or one of these?," he asked, as the spirited girls approached bearing alcoholic gifts.

In Noah's case, he'd have preferred the lad. He's come out of the closet and admitted he's gay. It was difficult to deny after he was seen on close circuit TV having sex with a male guest at a party.

He's now joined The Church of the Found which claims it can "turn him" into a heterosexual. But not before fellow player Darius inquired about the ins and outs of gay sex: "What do you do sexually? They never taught us at school". Clearly he didn't have a public school education.

Back home, the results of what Conrad does in bed with every available woman were appearing. Amber and Tanya both gave birth to his babies (allegedly, but more of that in a minute).

While Amber screamed and hollered in a birthing pool, Tanya laid back and thought of England - the England team, I suspect - while a Caesarean was performed. She didn't even remove her make-up. I'm surprised she wasn't on her mobile or buffing her nails during the operation.

There's a chance that the infant Troy is actually her late husband's (that's Frank, the bloated Brummie with the dicky ticker that she killed with too much sex).

Perish the thought, said Tanya, and arranged for her baby to be swapped with Amber's infant. Her accomplice smothers the baby in fake tan to give it Amber's dark complexion. It's the little details that count, don't you think?

This is the sort of situation at which Footballers' Wives excels. No storyline is too outrageous or distasteful to explore. The writers have lost none of their ability to take a serious situation and reduce it to trash TV of the highest order.

The 90-minute opener concluded with a scene so utterly sick and horrific that you could only gasp at the sheer cheek of it.

Published: 01/04/2005