What came next for Footballers’ Wives – babies, rapper bust-up and major regrets

Footballers' Wives told the riotous tale of the cocaine snorting, bed-hopping, murderous other halves of the Earls Park F.C players.

And back before reality TV was a thing, the ITV series was compulsive viewing.

The plotlines were outrageous - like the time chief WAG Tanya Turner (Zoe Lucker) decided to 'sh*g' the manager of Premier League club Earls Park FC to death.

Or when Chardonnay (Susie Amy) let no good, cheating Jason Turner (Cristian Solimeno) plunge to his death after he rejected his son Paddy for being born an hemaphroite.

Sadly the guts and glamour got wound up after just four series, but what happened to the cult show's stars after the champagne stopped flowing?

As the wicked witch of the WAGs, Tanya lived to sniff cocaine and plot the downfall of others.

Primarily intent getting husband Jason to keep his mini-Jase in his pants, the calculating star plotted, manipulated and connived her way to the top of the pecking order.

Unburdened by remorse, she left manager Frank Laslett for dead before bedding Jason's agent Hazel Bailey (Alison Newman).

But her crowning glory came when she cooked up a plot to bonk Frank to death using a cocktail of cocaine, Viagra and booze.

After leaving Footballer's Wives, Tanya fittingly popped up in jailbird drama Bad Girls, serving hard time after being caught red-handed with her precious narcs.

But in real life, actress Zoe's personality couldn't be further away from that of her alter-ego and to this day she struggles to watch some of the x-rated antics Tanya got up to.

"I can’t believe I did some of those sex scenes – I’d never do that now. I was semi-naked most of the time!" the Waterloo Road star previously told The Mirror.

"Oh my word, there was a plane scene so explicit it was like porn – I was having champagne poured all over my t*ts! I had to snort Lucozade powder as fake cocaine.

"I’m very grateful for the role, but afterwards I took myself out of the limelight for a while. I did some theatre in New Zealand and I did some volunteer work in Zambia. I needed to take a step back. I’m very happy not to have that level of fame now."

Zoe went on to star in EastEnders and Hollyoaks but quit in 2016 to spend more time with her daughter with daughter Lily, 11, and husband James Herbert.

Like his wife Tanya, Jason was constantly furious and looking for a kick-off.

Deeply damaged after being given up for adoption by his birth parents, he enjoyed tormenting those closest to him, including his long-suffering spouse.

His coup de grace came when he unknowingly got teammate Kyle's mum Jackie Pascoe (Gillian Taylforth) pregnant and Kyle and his wife Chardonnay tried to pass the baby off as their own.

Things got messy when Jason found out and decided to claim little Paddy as his own, only to reject the tot when he discovered he'd been born an hemaphrodite.

Marred by his own meddling, Jason plunged to his death at the end of series two as Chardonnay watched on, refusing to help.

Cristian, now 44, later appeared in Wire in the Blood, Spooks and Hollyoaks, and wrote and directed psychological thriller The Glass Man starring Neve Campbell.

And just like Zoe, he had nothing in common with his wayward character and even had to ditch his own clean living in a bid to get on his level.

He said at the time: "I've started drinking again, and puffing on big cigars... that's Jason, he spirals out of control physically.

"Usually I'm an exercise fanatic and I rely on that as a coping mechanism, but I injured myself training for this.

"Jason's always out drinking and I couldn't even remember what it was like to be drunk. I hadn't touched a drop for like, two years."

Glamour model Chardonnay didn't need no man to take care of her and refused to stop stripping just because she was engaged to Kyle Pascoe (Gary Lucy).

But her feminist plan was heartbreakingly foiled when her fake boobs caught fire on her hen do, leaving her scarred for life.

She instead threw her self in to trying to have a baby, and when that failed, she hatched the fateful plan to raise little Paddy.

But unlike Tanya, Chardonnay wasn't cut out for duplicity and after Jason's sticky end, she died from guilt-induced anorexia.

In real life, Susie and Gary reunited on screen to play exes Luke and Scarlett Morgan on Hollyoaks in 2018.

And when she gave birth to daughter Noa last year, he was first on the scene, cracking the jokes.

"F**k! Did we ? No ? S**t ?!!!" Gary cheekily commented on her Instagram picture.

At the end of July, Susie revealed she's 30 weeks pregnant with her second child with boyfriend Raphael Bar.

Gary had already made a name for himself as a teen actor on Hollyoaks, portraying a harrowing rape storyline when his character Luke was attacked.

And so just 21 when he joined the cast of Footballer's Wives, the show came as light relief.

"I was living the dream at the time and I thoroughly enjoyed it," Gary - who has since starred in The Bill and EastEnders - recently told The Sun.

And in exciting news for fans, the actor also hinted at a possible reunion.

"There has been loads of talk about it but would I go back? I'd absolutely love to revisit that at some point but who knows what the future brings."

And while Kyle never managed to fulfil his baby dreams with Chardonnay, Gary is the proud dad of children India Jasmine, Sadie, Elvis and Theodore, who he welcomed with ex-wife Natasha Grey.

She was the ruthless, red-headed football agent and later club chair who bedded Tanya and terrorised everyone in the industry into giving her what she wanted.

Hazel left the show in series four after falling in love with a tennis player, while Alison, 52, went on to star in Call The Midwife, Doctors and Casualty before landing a long-term gig as DI Samantha Keeble in EastEnders.

And back in 2015 she got into an unlikely Twitter clash with rapper Azealia Banks after calling her out for referring to the LGBT community as 'the gay KKK'.

"What an unfathomable idiot," Alison tweeted in response to the outspoken rapper's slur, sparking a bitter exchange between the soap star and Azealia, who told her to "Botox those frown lines. Juvederm those lips. Get a tan. YIKES!"

Alison fired back: "I didn't know who this woman was but on responding to the wonderful @Charliecondou I received this.

"She's charming... And for the record. I'm 47 yrs old. I love my frown lines & my skinny lips. Most of my wrinkles are from laughing. And Botox is poison."

These days Ben is of course better known as slippery Nick Tilsley from Coronation Street.

But almost 20 years ago he was a relative unknown when he joined the cast as the savage captain of Earls Park.

Despite being married to Amber, Conrad quickly embarked on a toxic affair with Tanya and was up the proverbial creek without a paddle when both got pregnant at the same time.

Unbeknown to Conrad though, was that Frank was actually the father of Tanya's baby and in a bid to cover her tricky tracks, she swapped her newborn with Amber's.

Sadly, with Frank freshly bonked to death, her machinating imploded in her face when Amber's 'son' got smothered to death by her pet dog, leaving Tanya distraught.

Post Earls Park, Ben has enjoyed a stellar career, starring in Casualty and The Tudors before joining Coronation Street in 2009.

He has two children - Paloma and Max - with wife Alexandra Wheeler and walked away from Corrie for a brief spell to be a stay at home dad in 2017.

He told the Daily Star: "I only left to go back to my kids, so I took them to school and made packed lunches and became a dad and didn't think about Nick Tilsley or the street."

In a world of vicious barbs and backstabbing, Donna and her husband Ian were the warmth of the show.

Fresh to Earls Park as a promising young player, he desperately wanted to help Donna find the son she'd been forced to give up for adoption as a teenager.

But while Donna was good, her little sister wasn't quite so straight laced and wound up having an affair with Jason.

These days, Katherine, 39, is known for appearing in British crime drama Vera along with BBC dramas 55 Degrees North and Judge John Deed.