Shelley Webb

Shelley Webb is a British TV presenter, writer, and sports journalist and author of the book "Footballers' Wives Tell Their Tales".

She married former England footballer Neil Webb, and the couple had two children Luke and Josh, who today are both young professional footballers.^[1]

When Neil moved back to Nottingham Forest F.C. from Manchester United F.C. for his second spell in 1992, Shelley wanted to develop her own career. Having trained as a journalist before her marriage she started out in the local Nottingham Evening Post newspaper as an occasional sports writer, and then progressed to TV presenting.^[2] This led to her being interviewed about her role as a footballer's wife, and subsequently she wrote the book "Footballers' Wives Tell Their Tales" in 1998,^[3] the year she and Neil split up.^[4]

Her Footballers' Wives looked at the reality of being a modern footballer's wife. Based on interviews with fourteen wives the book set out to show that not all women associated with footballers were "Malibu drinking, white stiletto wearing bimbos". It showed that the lives of footballers' wives varied greatly, and highlighted the positive aspects, as well as the negative, of being a "footballer's wife".

Although bearing the same title the later, 2002 ITV series Footballers' Wives was not inspired by Webb's book and did not draw from it.

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