Fall and spring bring a breathtaking beauty to New England towns, and I don't mean the foliage. I mean the tall, suntanned British athletes who come to MetroWest public schools, hosting soccer clinics to promote their summer soccer camps.

These Brits are professional soccer players and coaches who come for the summer and teach “football” to our tykes. They pop in and out of school buildings, charming the teachers and the moms dropping off children. The impact they have on those mothers give a new shade of meaning to “soccer mom.”

Now, my thoughts are pure regarding these hotties from across the pond. I'm a happily married woman. I merely observe this phenomenon academically. It's often my difficult task to restrain one of my fellow elementary school moms as she lunges, panting, toward a clutch of youths in silky uniforms and cleats.

Is it the tan? Partly. The trendy European hairdos? A little. The bulging leg muscles? Undoubtedly they play a role. But the real secret to their charms is a never-fail aphrodisiac: a British accent.

I can no more explain the allure of a British accent than I can fathom federal tax codes. All I know is that if a man has a British accent, he seems sexy, smart, and charming. Even if he's not at all handsome, he'll seem cultured and urbane. Smart is very sexy.

I think that to women, on some subconscious level, the accent must sound like money. Ever see a poor Englishman in a movie? Hardly. They wear dinner jackets, employ valets, drive Bentleys, and intercept global crime networks while simultaneously seducing several gorgeous spies.

An English gentleman in our church congregation (who, I'm sure, doesn't do all of those things) is assigned as the narrator (nar-RATE-or) for our Christmas and Easter services. His mellifluous readings of the Gospels leave me suspecting that God has a British accent. This just shows the hypnotic power of the British accent, because, as everyone knows, his accent is actually Southern.

Be that as it may, I succumbed to the soccer marketing campaign and signed up my son for a local “Soccer Tots” camp. Reading through the pamphlet, I saw that the soccer program seeks host families to house the coaches for a week at a time in exchange for a tuition discount.

I told my husband that this would give our boys new social and cultural opportunities, in addition to valuable savings. He was skeptical. On further reflection, I decided that hosting a British soccer coach might be more temptation than even a married frump such as I could handle. If nothing else, I'd make an imbecile of myself, dredging up excuses to make conversation so I could keep hearing our guest talk.

How this must distort the British view of Americans. Does a reverse effect exist? If young American men went to the U.K. would their twanging “r's” sweep unsuspecting housewives off their feet?

Maybe what we need is a gigantic intercontinental gender swap. American men can go to the UK and teach the British kiddies football, the kind where feet rarely touch the ball, which isn't even round. British men can come here and teach American kids “football,” the kind where feet do touch the ball, which is round.

Do we need more proof that British men are smarter?

© 2005, Julianna Berry.