What, do you imagine, does a typical football hooligan look like? If you read the tabloids, you’ll probably figure he’s young, stupid, with a skinhead haircut and boots so big they come up to his knees.

If you believed all those daft TV dramas from the ‘80s, perhaps you think the whole hooliganism caper is run by sinister Mr Bigs with good jobs and nice suits. Then again, if you believe the football "authorities", you’ll almost certainly reckon they no longer exist.

What you probably won’t do, however, is consider that the middle-aged bloke in the corner of your local with a twinkle in his eye and an endless supply of witty anecdotes could ever be involved in something like that. But then you probably wouldn’t believe he could ever be a multi-million selling pop star either.

But he is. In fact, he’s Paul Heaton, he’s the lead singer with The Beautiful South, he’s very pissed and he’s just confessed to being a football hooligan. What on earth is going on?

We - that’s the NME, Paul Heaton, his band mates Jacqueline Abbot, Dave Rotheray and Dave Hemingway, plus various ‘South associates - have gathered here today, in a discreet pub at the heart of London’s "fashionable" West End, to celebrate the return to the pop fray of The Beautiful South. To talk about their excellent new album, "Blue Is The Colour"; the downbeat, depressing, strictly-for-the-aficionados follow-up to the upbeat, triumphalist, for-the-world-and-his-wife "Carry On Up The Charts" greatest hits collection. To probe, once again, the supremely complex psyche of their genius singer/songwriter Paul Heaton. And, naturally, to swill enough booze to sink the England football team.

Talking of whom, our interview is regularly interrupted by whoops and curses from the front of the bar. On the other side of London, England are taking on Poland in a World Cup qualifier.

Furthermore, before the game, the sell-out crowd was treated to the sight of another million-selling pop star, Ian Broudie of The Lightning Seeds, being presented with a platinum disc in the company of his "Three Lions" co-writers Frank Skinner and David Baddiel. This event may plausibly have helped inspire Alan Shearer and the "lads" to their 2-1 victory, but it only served to annoy Paul Heaton. Annoy him immensely, as it happens.

"I know about football", he fumes. "And I know about football hooliganism very well. But these 1990 pieces of shit like Skinner and Baddiel never liked football until Schillaci scored against Ireland. They know fuck all about it. If they did know something, they would at least have paid a nod to how football hooliganism has been the greatest supporter and the greatest scaffold in the fabric of English football. And they’re talking about "Do you remember Gazza?" They’ve got no fucking culture".

There have, of course, been rumours about Paul Heaton and football hooliganism before. A classic NME Beautiful South piece from 1992 found Heato sporting broken knuckles, supposedly from a Sheffield United/Wednesday ruck. And, at the height of this summer’s "football’s coming home" fervour, he somehow managed to sneak a song called "Hooligans Don’t Fall In Love" on to the official tournament album, "The Beautiful Game". Until the Trafalgar Square riot after England’s semi-final exit, it was the only time anyone had even dared mention hooligans in connection with Euro ‘96. But surely he can’t think such rampant thuggery is a good thing?

"All I’m saying", he sighs, "is I know, from being a Sheffield United supporter, that the dedicated fans, the ones who watched us when we were in the third and fourth divisions, were hooligans. They may cause trouble, but they turn up regardless and support the team much more vociferously than a season-ticket holder or a box holder. "But that lot", he continues, gesticulating at the distant TV screen, "I swear they didn’t like football. They’re talking about a very short period of history when England have done quite well. But I know how long I’ve followed my club and I wouldn’t say to people (dons poncey voice), "Oooh, should Le Tissier be in the England squad or should Gazza be in the England squad?" I don’t give a fuck about England’s results, I’d rather batter fuck out of ‘em when they come out of King’s Cross.

"I’m not proud of what I did as a young football hooligan. But I’m not ashamed either. I’ve left all that behind me now, but it’s still important to talk about that part of British culture. Football’s not a lads’ game, it’s always been a hooligan’s game".

But how on earth did a sensible sort like you get involved in that sort of thing in the first place?

"Just through hanging around with the same people I went to school with. I used to go to football with my dad and then after that you go with a few kids from school and it just happens. I still hang around with the same people now. You can’t suddenly start going to football with your auntie, can you?"

Not if you’re a football hooligan, you can’t. Quite how deep Heaton was into all this before he gave it up remains unclear - he’s wary of talking about specific events ("You don’t want to get jumped, do ya?") and much of what he does say is rendered incoherent by his immense alcohol intake. Perhaps it’s just the drink talking, making him up the New Lad ante to a point where Men Behaving Badly lightweights would never dare follow. Perhaps its all a wind-up. But there’s enough slurred talk of "handy crews", "standing your ground" and "being legged all over" for it to ring uncomfortably true.

All of which surely begs the question: what the bloody hell happened to Paul Heaton? In 1986, he was the desperately right-on, deeply-religious, defiantly-repressed lead singer of chirpy boy-next-door popsters The Housemartins. In ten years, he’s transformed himself into the big-boozin’, liberal-baitin’, footie-lovin’ bruiser we know and are rather wary of today. Which surely makes it a bit rich for him to be criticising Johnny-come-latelies like Skinner and Baddiel for jumping on the post-Loaded bandwagon. After all, did you, Paul "Heato" Heaton, not invent the New Lad "concept"?

He looks utterly aghast. "I know I was a bit sad in The Housemartins but we weren’t New Men or anything. But, because you like football, clothes and drinking, you have to be a New Lad?"

"When we’re on tour you get people coming up and saying, "Oh, I really like you a lot, ‘cos you’re real lads". But I’ve never, ever, used the word "bird". And there’s nothing laddish about my drinking. That’s what really annoys me about Loaded, that chart they have of who drinks the most. I don’t want to be Oliver Reed and I don’t want a chart of how much I drink, I’m ashamed of how much I drink".

Right let’s get this straight. Paul Heaton is a man with few qualms about beating up strangers over a game of football, but horrified at the thought of using the word "bird". A man who hates "lads" but acts just like one himself. A man ashamed of his drinking, who gets stratospherically sloshed during interviews. Are you confused yet, readers? Because Paul Heaton sure as hell is.

And yet it’s these contradictions that makes Heato such an enduring character and The Beautiful South, for all their Radio 2 leanings, far more "us" than "them". Usually, the older pop stars get, the easier it is to boil them down to a simple set of characteristics. Ten years on from his first hit single, as his then contemporaries (Morissey, Weller) lapse into caricature and self-parody, Paul Heaton just keeps getting more complicated.

Take The Beautiful South’s new album, for example. Only Paul Heaton would follow a phenomenally-successful album crammed with cheery pop stompers with the most miserable album of his career. Especially as 1995 should surely have been the best year of Paul Heaton’s life. He sold 2.2 million albums, set himself up for life and didn’t even have to leave the house. What the fuck was there to be miserable about?

"It’s just the eternal problems of being a twat," he sighs. "It was a pretty depressing year. And the album is a collection of last year’s thoughts so, inevitably, it’s a load of songs about having the blues and feeling shit. Do you think the blues would have caught on if they’d been called "the shits"? Y’know "Woke up this morning, had the shits".

Er, possibly not. But this isn’t a typical pop star "ooh, it’s so terrible being famous"-type whinge. Heato had other reasons to be depressed.

"When you’re in a band you’re always going away so you delay making a decision about your home life" he announces. "And I’d delayed a decision for a very long time. But because I was at home all year, I actually had to take a decision on whether to stay with a situation or move on to another one. I’m being vague here so as not to pull names in and out of the fire. But for years I hadn’t faced up to anything in my personal life. Then suddenly, not only was I welching on a promise I’d made but I was also having to promise to someone else that I wouldn’t welch on the same deal with them".

Blimey. No wonder he’s confused. The upshot of all this personal turmoil, however, is that Paul Heaton is no longer in lumber. Or in Humber, for that matter. As befitting a man of his standing with a new girlfriend, he’s upped sticks for a more glamorous location. Leeds.

"It’s only temporary", he insists. "I’m still on a bungee rope to Hull".

"Don’t tell us you’re missing the old place.

"Well, Hull’s the most comfortable place I’ve ever lived. I get a bit confused going to new places, if they haven’t got exactly the same sense of humour as I’m used to. I can’t even find a decent backstreet local..."

Oh dear, Paul Heaton doesn’t make a very good pop star, does he? He’s rich, he’s talented, but all he’s worried about is finding a nice, quiet pub. Wouldn’t you rather be down Stringfellow’s with the Spice Girls?

"Well, if you can arrange it..." he grins. "But it’s an age thing, really. I probably would go to Stringfellow’s... if the music wasn’t so loud".

Paul Heaton maintains the phenomenal success of "Carry On Up The Charts" didn’t change his life one little bit. The surprising thing is, he’s not lying. He still owns the same house and has the same friends as he did ten years ago. And although his tastes do run to the expensive (his latest hobby is, apparently, eagle-spotting in northern Spain), he has yet to be seen with either a chocolate-brown Rolls Royce in his garage or a starlet on his arm.

In fact, The Beautiful South remain the most anonymous million-selling pop stars in history. On their last tour of the nation’s arenas, Jacqui -one third of the South’s Rod, Jane & Freddie-style (Rainbow’s house band, to you younger whippersnappers - Ed) vocal strike-force - was unable to attend because she was pregnant. Precisely 20 ticket holders out of over 100 000 asked for their money back. Which was precisely 20 more than wanted refunds when guitarist Dave Rotheray - the man who co-writes all the South’s songs, remember - had to pull out halfway through with a broken elbow, sustained by falling off the stage at Birmingham NEC.

Even Heato, the closest the band has to a public face, is not immune. When he couldn’t be arsed to turn up for the band’s recent TFI Friday appearance, precisely one of the South’s 2.2 million fans rang his record company to ask where he was.

Compare and contrast this with the mayhem surrounding fellow working-class northerner Liam Gallagher’s failure to make it to MTV Unplugged and indeed, the furore surrounding Oasis’ every move. And wonder how on earth Paul Heaton gets away with it.

"Well people never recognise me", he smiles. "They think they do, but then they have another look and think, "Nah, Too old, too pissed".

"But there’s been a couple of times when I’ve seen Noel on the telly and people have said, "Oh, he looks stoned". And I say, "No he’s tired". And he’s tired because the record company keeps asking him to do things and he does it, because he’s so determined to keep everything on the up and up. Whereas we don’t give a fuck. They’re bound to lose a lot of old friends because they’re always away and they’re bound to argue with each other, because they’re always tired. We never argue. We don’t work hard enough!"

Are you saying you don’t like being successful?

"No. With Rotterdam we were like "Fantastic! We’re Number Six! We didn’t think, Shit! Those five records above us must be much better! In fact I thought the Manic Street Preachers should’ve gone in at Number One, not Nine. And if James Dean Bradfield had come up to me and said "Any chance of swapping positions?, I’d have done it. Go on! Take our position! I don’t care!"

And "Blue Is The Colour" is unmistakably a record by a band who don’t care about chart positions. "Rotterdam" (central them: people are rubbish) may have established itself as the band’s third-biggest hit ever, but there’s not much in the way of a follow-up amid the slew of wonderful-but-difficult ballads like "Mirror" (shagging is rubbish), "Liars Bar" (getting pissed is rubbish) or "One God" (life itself is rubbish). Even the one true up--and-at-’em pop chirper, "Don’t Marry Her" has its airplay chances immediately scuppered by lyrical references to "sweaty bollocks" and chorus that goes, "Don’t marry her, fuck me". What ARE you playing at?

"That’s our next single actually", grins Heato. "We’ve got to change the lyrics, obviously. It’s going to be "take me" or "have me", and sweaty bollocks is going to change to "Sandra Bullock".

Then why bother saying "fuck" in the first place?

"I just wanted to see what I could get away with. And convey the desperation of the women in the song". Ah yes. Paul Heaton may refuse to use the word "bird" in polite conversation, but he has no qualms about giving his female singers a tough time of it, lyrically speaking. Briana Corrigan left the band over the lyric to "Mini-Correct" - from Miaow, the South’s last album proper, containing lines such as (Woman) "So it’s me left with the baby and disease". (Man) "You can’t say you didn’t want it on your hands and on your knees" - while this time around her replacement Jacqui, the angel-voiced former supermarket worker "discovered" by Heato at a party in her native St Helens, has to portray a prostitute (Mirror) as well as invest the first ever pop reference to perspiring testicles with the appropriate amount of emotional resonance. Don’t you ever tell him to stick his lyrics?

"No", says Jacqui, as if the thought’s never even occurred. "He’s only telling a story, isn’t he"? Singing things like that just doesn’t bother me".

"In fact", deadpans Heato, "Jacqui wanted it to be, "Don’t marry her, fuck me up the bum while everyone is watching". But I thought that was going to far..."

Which is something he’s bound to do sooner or later. Is there nothing you wouldn’t sing?

"Nah," insists Jacqui. "Paul could write anything and I’d sing it whatever it was".

What if he wrote a song called "Vote Conservative?"

"It wouldn’t bother me".

Your loyalty does you credit, Ms Abbot. But what if you were presented with a little ditty called "Child Abuse Is Great".

A pause.

"Well, I know he wouldn’t write a song about that...." she wobbles.

Gotcha! Fortunately, there’s nothing like that on this album, just some harsh but honest songs about a bloke called Paul Heaton. Oh, and "The Sound Of North America", a touching torch-song about how, like homelessness is weally, weally terrible. Like you’d fucking know about it, you rich bastard.

"I can’t fully identify myself with the homeless", he admits. "But I never could anyway, long before I was a pop star. You could say as a man, I can’t write about woman’s issues, or because I haven’t committed suicide I can’t write about suicide. As long as you’re sensitive about it, I think it’s OK".

No doubt exactly what Phil Collins said when he wrote "Another Day In Paradise", just before he bought another mansion with the royalties.

"Well, the difference between me and Phil Collins is I don’t feel divorced from the homeless. In fact, sometimes, when I’m drinking and I’m drinking hard, I feel as though that’s where I’ll end up. I haven’t saved enough to totally divorce myself from that class. I’m not a millionaire, I spend more than I earn. I don’t have a pension. I refuse to rule out being sucked down that plughole. Plus a lot of my friends are on the dole and most of them have been very close to being homeless. Whereas Phil Collins is so distant from the real world, it’s laughable".

One thing Paul does have in common with Phil, however, is a likelihood to leave the country in disgust should Labour get in at the next election. The difference is, Paul will leave because the government isn’t going to tax him enough.

"Tony Blair is a piece of shit", he states. "He’s just a careerist. At first, I thought he was trying to create a world where everything is reasonable, but now I think he’s trying to create a world where everybody likes him".

But hold on. Isn’t trying to sneak socialist ideals into Downing Street via some fancy packaging ultimately the same as smuggling left-wing messages into the charts under cover of syrupy melodies and MOR arrangements? Isn’t Tony Blair, in fact, the Paul Heaton of politics?

"The George Michael of politics, more like," Heato snorts, inexplicably. "I know people like Billy Bragg hope he’ll get into power and then move to the left but I don’t believe it. I think what he’s trying to do is absolute bullshit".

Bet You’ll still vote for him though.

"No, I’ll be voting for the Socialist Labour Party".

Fat lot of good that will do when it comes to getting the Tories out.

"Well, when you play chess, you don’t have to win, do you? I’ve got time enough to say what I think is right and what I feel is wrong. But now, I really am too pissed..."

Paul Heaton is on the rampage. He lurches down Tottenham Court Road, eyes blazing, arms outstretched. Occasionally he makes a lunge for a passer-by, muttering the words "Kill! Kill!" as he does so.

But don’t worry. He’s not slipped back into his old hooligan ways. He’s simply trying to hail a taxi via the slightly unorthodox method of, er, pretending to be a zombie. As you do.

He is, as you may have gathered, terribly, terribly drunk. But that’s OK. "Being drunk" is after all, second only to "writing fantastic pop songs" on the big list of Things Paul Heaton Does Best.

It’s just that, unlike the Number One activity, his 2.2 million fans aren’t used to seeing him do it in public. Which is why, as this sweet and tender former hooligan stumbles past them on his doomed quest, he remains unbothered by autograph requests. True, a couple of people seem to show an initial flash of recognition as he flails wildly in their general direction. But then you see them look again and think, "Nah. Too old, too pissed".

When he finally shuffles off this mortal coil, they’ll probably put those words on his gravestone. It won’t be much of an epitaph for the greatest British songwriter of the past ten years. But you suspect that’s just the way Sir Paul "Heato" Heaton - pop genius, walking contradiction and least famous famous person on the planet - would like it.