Is Dido his new Sol mate?

He is the quiet man of football, the east London boy turned Arsenal star who prefers a good book to a night out clubbing. She is the Islington-born, privately- educated daughter of a poet and the crowned queen of British pop.

But could Sol Campbell and Dido be a match made in heaven? Today the softly-spoken England centre-back reveals for the first time that he and the singer may be a serious item, and tells how marriage and children are high on his agenda.

"I want something proper," he said. "All my life I've gone with my gut feeling in sport. Now I'm using the same formula when it comes to women." Campbell was photographed outside Dido's £2million Islington house in September, sparking rumours they may be dating.

Devoted Arsenal fan Dido has been single since splitting from record company boss Ferdie Unger-Hamilton last year.

Campbell recently split up with interior design guru Kelly Hoppen, 44.

But in an interview with ES magazine he says he has a "new girlfriend". Asked if she is Dido, he says coyly: "I don't know," before admitting: "I know her, yes, of course I know her."

He adds: "Things come into your life for a reason and I want to get to know someone, a good person, have a loving relationship, get married, because there's something magical about marriage; have kids, watch them grow and then get old together. And it would make my mum really happy."

He hints his yearning for children may have been a factor in his break-up with Hoppen - actress Sienna Miller's stepmother - this summer after 10 months. "Kelly is working hard, enjoying her life," he says.

"She's already got a family so I don't think children were on her mind." Campbell, born in Stratford to Jamaican parents, dislikes the stereotypical football lifestyle and would rather read a book than go clubbing-"People think it's weird a footballer wants to develop mentally but there's so much out there," he says.

He recently bought a £ 5.4 million house in Chelsea and says: "There are lots of cosmopolitan people. It's very bohemian."

Dido, then, would seem a perfect match. Born Florian Cloud de Bounevialle Armstrong, she was raised by well-to-do hippy parents in Islington. Her father is a retired publisher; her mother a poet.