In the 2006 World Cup in Germany, the England players received less attention, and fewer column inches, than their wives. For the first time ever, England’s coach allowed the footballer’s wives and girlfriends – including Victoria Beckham and Cheryl Cole – to the event, and boy, did the Wags give the residents of Baden Baden a sideshow of glitter, fake tan, table-dancing and astronomical spending.
Twenty years on, at this 2026 World Cup, the Wag circus is nowhere to be seen. The England team’s partners tend to keep a lower profile, with many having ordinary jobs outside of the home. And another notable difference is that several of the top players are in long-term relationships with their childhood sweethearts. After a match, they have the stabilising, grounding experience of going home to partners who have known them since they were awkward kids in the school corridors – before they got rich and famous.
Harry Kane, England’s all-time top scorer, met his wife Kate Goodland at Larkswood primary school in Chingford, east London, and both continued on to Chingford Foundation School. They grew up streets apart, and were friends throughout school. In 2005, when Kate was 11 and Harry 12, they had their first sporting celebrity moment together on a class visit to the David Beckham Academy (a now-defunct football training programme), and had their photo taken together – with Beckham himself.
Harry and Kate get their picture taken with David Beckham in London in 2005 (Photo: Clive Rose/Getty)Kate and Harry attended prom together, too, and started dating at 18, before getting married in 2019. Harry, 32, said of his wife; “When I was in school she was my friend… We always spoke, but just got closer and closer and it went from there. She’s seen my whole career. Of course she’s finding it a little crazy.”
Kane, who earns £21.6m a year, has said he feels lucky to be married to someone from his life before he became a star. “If I was single now and meeting people,” he said in an interview, “you’d never know if they were with you for the right reasons. Is it the money? You’d never really know.” Kate, who went to Middlesex University to study sports science, is a qualified fitness instructor.
She generally seems to dodge high-profile events, and by all accounts treats Harry like the classmate she’s known since childhood, rather than “King” Kane the sporting icon. Harry once said: “She brings me down to earth. If I score a hat-trick, Kate will say, ‘Well done – you can make me a cup of tea when you get home.'”
Their life isn’t exactly ordinary – after being transferred from Spurs to Bayern Munich in 2023, they now live in a £30m hilltop mansion in Munich, in an area known as “the Beverly Hills of Bavaria”, with their four children: Ivy, nine, Vivienne, seven, Louis, five, and Henry, nearly three. They also have two Labradors, Wilson and Brady. In the moneyed, lavish world of premiership football, there is, of course, a lot of temptation. Yet, Harry has talked about the importance of his roots, and his non-celebrity marriage. “I have a great family, they keep me grounded and they’ve worked just as hard as me to get me where I am.”
Kate is the longest-serving Wag on the England team – seen as “mother hen” by the others – and is said to be best of friends with another of the veteran Wags, Megan Pickford (formerly Davison). She is goalkeeper Jordan Pickford’s childhood sweetheart. The couple met around the age of 14 at St Robert of Newminster Catholic School in Washington, Tyne and Wear, where they both grew up. They went on their first date to the cinema, and moved to Cheshire in 2017 when Jordan got signed by Everton, during which time Megan went to the University of Sunderland to do a BA in Childhood Studies. The couple got married in 2020 during the lockdown – Jordan in ripped jeans, and Megan in an ivory-coloured blouse – before having a lavish ceremony in the Maldives in 2022.
Jordan and Megan in 2023. They went to the same school in Washington, Tyne and Wear (Photo: Anthony Devlin/Getty for Disney+)She and Everton goalkeeper Jordan live in a £5.7m, eight-bedroom historic manor house in the “golden triangle” of Cheshire, which has been the home of other top footballers including Beckham, Wayne Rooney and Peter Crouch. Megan spends her time looking after the couple’s son Arlo (born 2019), and daughters Ostara Haze (born 2023) and Misty Celine (born 2025). She is also an influencer to 173,000 followers, although she and Jordan cover the children’s faces in social media photographs to protect their privacy.
While Kate Kane is said to be more low-key, not into parties, or social posts about herself, her friend Megan embraces the luxury fun of old-school Wag culture, with a £500,000 engagement ring, fake tan, and big Gucci hats. Recently she’s been posting Instagram videos of her designer shopping trip for the big trip to the US for the World Cup, and wore a white Chanel mini-dress to cheer on the team from the sidelines.
Another key childhood sweetheart on the squad is Lauren Fryer, the 27-year-old long-term girlfriend of midfielder Declan Rice. The couple met at 17 at Grey Court School in Ham, south-west London, and have a four-year-old son, Jude. Lauren has known Declan since his teenage years in sixth form – his life changing beyond recognition after his £100m transfer to Arsenal in 2023.
Declan with Lauren, son Jude and the Premier League trophy at Selhurst Park on the last day of the season in May (Photo: Sebastian Frej/Getty)Lauren is the most low-profile, and most private, of the Wags. In 2024 a photographer snapped some holiday photos of her in a swimsuit, and she was then trolled online with messages saying that the footballer could “do better” than her. After that, she became even more private about her personal life, deleting all social media and any traces of her life online.
Declan spoke out against the attacks on his partner’s appearance, saying: “She is the love of my life and I don’t need an upgrade.” The effect on Lauren was so profound that she reportedly considered missing this 2026 World Cup altogether, for fear of being thrust into the spotlight again. But in the end she did fly out with her son Jude and baby dubbed by the tabloids as ‘a mystery’, because the couple have not spoken about or publicised what appears to be a new addition to their family.
Love Island star Dani Dyer – the daughter of actor Danny Dyer, and wife of England player Jarrod Bowen – said of Lauren in an interview; “I love Lauren… she’s just so nice. It was so hard for her, the trolling, as she doesn’t put herself out there. She is a really good mum, who keeps to herself… plus she is Dec’s childhood sweetheart, and you can see how much he adores her.”
Hence then, the article about harry kane s wife and the power of marrying your childhood sweetheart was published today ( ) and is available on inews ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Harry Kane’s wife and the power of marrying your childhood sweetheart )
Also on site :
- Hot French startup ZML releases free product to speed inference across lots of AI chips
- Watch 'America's Got Talent' Judges Get Blown Away by 'Insane' Tumbling Act That Has Been 67 Years in the Making
- Taylor Swift’s Retro Reebok Sneakers From Her ‘Opalite’ Music Video Are a Rare 53% Off at Amazon Right Now