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FIRE UP THE QUATTRO, LADIES – THE UNLIKELY HEART-THROB OF HIT BBC DRAMA ASHES TO ASHES REVEALS WHAT HE THINKS WOMEN WANT IN A MAN

I SAW it coming, as the choirboy probably said to the air steward.

Way back in the ’70s, when girlie boy Kevin Keegan started poncing about with a perm, I knew the writing was on the wall for real men. Footballers are to blame. And I hate them.

They earn more money in a week than my dear old dad earned in a lifetime and I wouldn’t let them wipe my a**e with their gold-embossed chequebooks.

When I was a lad if you scored a goal you shook hands with your teammates and had a quick smoke on the way back to the halfway line, followed by 12 pints of Manchester bitter and a vindaloo.

Now you stick your tongue down your teammate’s neck and run round the corner-flag pretending to be a flamingo.

But whatever these ‘new men’ think, women don’t like them. Oh no. They might like the posh cars and the bling and the mock-Tudor house, but they loathe their preening, prancing ways as much as I do.

They want a real man.

Real men do not wear gloves when they play football. Real men do not moisturise. Real men do not give a tinker’s toss where the G spot is – they just want a quickie, then down the pub with their mates for a pint and a pickled egg.

And that’s what women want.

Don’t believe me? Remember all that new man b******s from a few years ago

Women told men they wanted us going to prenatal classes, changing nappies, being sensitive, putting the bins out without being asked, remembering their birthdays and attending parents’ evenings when there’s football on the box.

Then there’s foreplay. Remember that? Pretending you want to lick their toes and recite Indian love poetry when all you really want to do is... I digress.

All I’m saying is, when husbands are out at work and their wives are at home alone, do you think they’re dreaming of some fop smelling of baby cream? No, they are not. Do you know who they’re thinking of? No? Then let me tell you.

They’re thinking of me.

They’ll deny it, of course, but what women want is a real man.

A man with a face that shows experience, pain, strife and strength. A man who can pick them up and flip them over like a pancake.

A man who hasn’t got a clue how to buy underwear but knows how to rip it off. A man who smells of sweat and honest toil and not Eau De Poof.

They once laughed and called me a dinosaur. Well, who’s laughing now? This dinosaur is back. And it doesn’t moisturise.

Ashes To Ashes, Thursdays, 9pm, BBC1