Sexual intercourse began in 1963, said the poet Philip Larkin. The year George Best made his debut, he should have added. Before George, the boy genius who became a legend at boozing and birding, football and sex went together like, well, England and penalties. The baggy-shorted players before him could barely afford Brylcreem with their maximum wages, let alone champagne, hotel suites and fun-loving blondes inside them. But George changed everything. Suddenly soccer was sexy. In the 60s, the pill and permissiveness fuelled the revolution; in the 70s, playboy stars boasted of their conquests; in the 80s, the tabloid kiss-and-tell became a boom industry; by the late 90s, players’ lavish lifestyles inspired their own raunchy prime-time soap, Footballers Wives, which won more viewers than the Premiership highlights. But if modern players have Best to thank for their sex-on-a-plate lifestyle, then they can curse him, too, for our fascination with their antics. Until recently soccer sex was good clean fun - relatively speaking - with soccer studs and Page 3 stunners scoring three, four or five times a night. But the recent explosion in salaries for adolescents rich enough to indulge their every fantasy has bred a new style of bed-swapping superstar. In Ayia Napa in 2000, three drunken young England stars were videoed having sex with women back at their hotel room. Just as this book was to have been published, in 2003, a series of sickening new scandals rocked the game. Police investigated alleged gang rapes by footballers on women in London and La Manga. For legal reasons, Playing Away had to be shelved for a year. All the stars were later cleared, but a new culture came to light. Incredibly, the following year was even more torrid. England captain David Beckham's alleged philanderings with three different women were as surprising as they were shocking. Beckham’s carefully nurtured reputation as the perfect family man earned him millions in advertising deals. When his poor form contributed to his team' s pitiful exit from Euro 2004, legitimate questions were asked about whether his private life was affecting his professional one . . . and our chances of victory. Next, England' s teenage sensation Wayne Rooney admitted having sex with prostitutes. Then, days before publication, the Football Association itself was exposed. England boss (and legendary ladies' man) Sven-Göran Eriksson and chief executive (and separated dad of five) Mark Palios had bedded the same FA secretary, Faria Alam. The FA had at first denied any improper relationship . . . then was forced into a catastrophic U-turn. Soon it was revealed that someone at the FA, the guardian of the game's moral code, had offered to leak every detail of the manager's affair to a newspaper if it kept the chief executive's name out. Palios resigned within hours. Eriksson was cleared of lying to his bosses. But the men earning huge salaries to save our national game from financial ruin, rebuild Wembley and win the World Cup after all those years of hurt had risked everything over sex with a secretary. This was a West End farce with Shakespearean themes of lust, power and betrayal. Anyone who says footballers' sex lives don't matter has a screw loose.