Balding, old but worth fighting for

I consider it right, proper and natural that Ulrika Jonsson and Nancy Dell'Olio should have fought over a grey-haired, balding old man as a hoped-for life partner.

If you add "overweight" the description would apply to me, although I've got more hair than Sven because I use hair restorer.

I've had white hair since I was 40 and I've never found it a disadvantage in dating girls. Nor is the fact that I'm now a bit over 40. Like by a couple of decades. I think girls are rather sensible. They realise that after you've looked at the young Adonis for a few hours, the thought can creep in: "But he's terribly boring!" You can't say: "He's beautiful so he can't be boring." The two are not connected. A relationship will hopefully last for months, even many years. Looks alone are not enough. Nor, in spite of what bitchy people say, does money compensate. I've never found girls eager for presents or baubles. They either like you or they don't. The idea they can all be bought is utterly puerile. No one's going to throw away a life with someone dull and horrid because they're given a diamond.

What ladies (and even non-ladies!) want is to have a fun time. To spend their lives enjoying wit, a sense of well-being and even security. Girls want a friend they can rely on. A man who makes them laugh and understands them as a person. Sven would have been ideal for Ulrika. He's used to showing patience in nurse-maiding stars. I know the routine well. Football stars are no different to movie stars; they're just people with fame grafted on.

They're both nervous of it ending. They're consumed with getting it right and holding their position.

Ulrika is as likeable a girl as I've ever met. She's been through troubled times, bless her. We've been in TV shows together. On our last outing she admitted she hadn't been very successful in choosing the right men. Anyone who looks at her list could deduce that. She needs someone who has a sense of humour, a sense of balance and a wealth of experience to bring to any personal problem. If girls have had a few flings - and good luck to them! - they're looking for a more reliable reality. A partner in the real sense of the word. They want to say: "That was a really amusing, pleasant evening. I'd like more of those." Such evenings are not confined to partners with a 24-inch waist and black hair. In that respect girls are far cleverer and more balanced than men. Men, on the whole, want someone young and attractive in a conventional sense. Doubtless because they're more insecure.

If you're the man phoning up for a date, you can't worry that the girl may be a lot younger than you. It's up to them to deal with that. In many years of asking girls out, only one ever said to me: "But you're older than my father!" I thought: "What's wrong with that?

Don't you like your father?" Most of my girlfriends view me as utterly childish. Although I have a few tiny slices of wisdom stored up - if I can remember where they are - I often behave with a sense of juvenile abandon. There was a time, which only recently ended, when I would run round the house throwing buckets of water over girlfriends. They, of course, took terrible revenge. Or I wait until they're in the bath at night, then suddenly turn the light off and scream very loudly. It's like a horror movie. That makes them jump! I think we should all indulge in private moments of utter silliness. Continual composure is very boring.

But an older man does know the world. He's been around the block a few times. He can advise on most matters. He knows the best places to go, where to eat - all that sort of guff.

I have these photo albums. They're beautifully shot and laid out. They show exactly the same locations over a period of many decades. The only thing that changes is the girl. The girls all look delightful, young and are having a good time. I've had absolutely marvellous years with these young people. And still do. They don't worry about the age difference. So why should anyone else? I have a family of these girls who have shared my life for more than half a century.

Love, that ephemeral emotion, knows no boundaries of hair colour or waistline. So I hope it works out for Ulrika: stranger things have happened. I think most ladies who go with white-haired maturer types do rather well out of it.

Even if, in my case, they got a blithering retard.