Four Lions

by Colin Shindler

  Spurs offered Beckham a six-year contract, all his training kit and boots and a signing-on fee at the age of seventeen, which he understood to be in the region of £70,000–£80,000. ‘Cor, that’s not bad, is it?’ he is reported to have said to his father. ‘When I’m eighteen I can get a Porsche!’ Again, one can only note with some alarm the possibility of real psychological damage being done to youngsters who have such offers waved in front of them, only to have them removed when they fail to be offered professional terms and are thrown on the scrapheap at the age of seventeen. The same six-year contract – two years on schoolboy forms, two years as a YTS apprentice and two years as a full-time professional – was offered at United but with a signing-on fee of a mere £30,000 and £300 a week in wages after the mandatory £29.50 a week as a YTS apprentice. Times had changed since the days when the signing-on fee was a crisp ten-pound note and Jimmy Greaves had been sent into the secretary’s office at Chelsea to steal luncheon vouchers worth half a crown. Beckham chose to sign with United.

  Beckham was to enjoy good fortune in many respects, not least in being part of an exceptional Manchester United youth side at a time when Liverpool were losing the great players who had won them so many trophies in the 1970s and 1980s and were failing to find adequate replacements. However, while footballing ability, and, indeed, footballing success, comes to many young men, nobody in the English game has had a professional career quite like that of David Beckham. In his case, it was the media, and particularly television, that defined the nature of that success. It was David Beckham’s fortune that his rise to fame coincided with an exponential increase in the reach of television. It was his goal from the halfway line at Wimbledon in August 1996 which distinguished him from the rest of the Class of ’92 and captured the attention of the nation, not just football followers. Yet there have been plenty of such goals since 1996 that do not get endlessly repeated. Xabi Alonso did it for Liverpool against Newcastle in 2006, Rivaldo did it for Barcelona against Atlético Madrid in 1998 and Charlie Adam did it for Stoke City at Chelsea in 2015 but none of them remain in the English consciousness like Beckham’s on the opening day of the 1996–7 season.

  By then he had signed with the agent Tony Stephens who was already representing, among others, David Platt, Alan Shearer and Dwight Yorke. It was through Stephens that Beckham was offered the chance of a free Jaguar which he rejected, much to the amazement of his father, in favour of buying his own Porsche. However, Beckham would prove to be something rather more than just another high-profile footballer with a taste for conspicuous consumption. What would make Beckham genuinely famous and an object of adoration for millions who could not name three players from any of the sides Beckham played for, was the soap-opera nature of the life he was to live.

  That life really began when Beckham was introduced to Victoria Adams – aka ‘Posh Spice’ of the pop group the Spice Girls – by her agent Simon Fuller in the Players’ Lounge after a 1–1 draw against Chelsea in 1997. Initially at least it bore a marked resemblance to that of Vicki Lester (née Esther Blodgett) and Norman Maine in A Star is Born. At first, the established star (Adams) illuminates the newcomer before the lesser figure at the start becomes the established favourite and the fading star is obscured by the shadow cast by the new sun. Adams may have found success in the fashion industry but it is her husband’s image which continues to blaze the brighter. The relationship which caught the public imagination very quickly was to become an unfortunate source of trouble for Beckham during the early games of the 1998–9 season as his new girlfriend became the target of vitriolic, abusive chanting from the terraces.

  Beckham’s time of trouble began when he was sent off in England’s round of sixteen match against Argentina in Saint-Etienne in the 1998 World Cup. The England manager Glenn Hoddle had warned Beckham that he needed to curb his impetuosity, which is why he was so incensed when Beckham contrived to get himself sent off just after half-time for a sly kick at Diego Simeone in retaliation for a foul by the Argentinian midfielder. Simeone needed no further prompting to roll around on the floor like Laurence Olivier in his death throes at the end of Richard III. On another day, another referee might well have pulled out a yellow card instead of a red. Even then it perhaps wouldn’t have assumed the proportions of a national tragedy if David Batty and Paul Ince had not missed their kicks in the inevitable penalty shootout to send England out of the tournament after a heroic display with ten men. The cheating Argie, such a beloved national stereotype, interestingly attracted less condemnation than the inept Cockney lad. After the match the England manager simply said, ‘He cost us the match.’

  David Beckham is sent off for kicking out at Argentina’s Diego Simeone during the 1998 World Cup finals, 30 June 1998 (Bob Thomas / Getty Images).

  It wasn’t just Glenn Hoddle who excoriated Beckham. The Daily Mirror’s headline the following morning was TEN HEROIC LIONS AND ONE STUPID BOY. He was vilified in a way that Lord Haw-Haw might have recognised. Back in east London, reporters were banging on the door of his parents’ home at 7.30 the following morning. When the Beckhams looked outside there were thirty photographers and three television camera crews in a road that was barely wide enough for two cars to pass. Nobody could leave the house. The Beckhams discovered that their phones had been tapped and their friends and relatives had been contacted by the ravening hordes of press desperate for their reaction to the disaster in Saint-Etienne. The reporters stayed there for a week. Beckham himself was hung in effigy outside the Pleasant Pheasant pub in South Norwood. It might have been a joke but it wasn’t a particularly funny one.

  The phone-ins hummed with discussions of what could be considered a suitable punishment for such treason now that public disembowelling was sadly frowned upon. A poster outside the Mansfield Road Baptist Church in Nottingham proclaimed that ‘God Forgives Even David Beckham’ but it only emphasised how out of touch the Anglican church was with its potential congregation. In one phone-in a West Ham supporter suggested that everyone in the crowd, wherever Beckham played, be issued with a red card to wave at him when he ran on to the pitch. ‘He lost us that game, there’s no doubt about it,’ the fan complained bitterly. ‘That’s what ordinary football supporters think, and they are entitled to show how they feel about it.’ The female presenter demurred. What if, she asked with some horror, such antics ultimately forced David Beckham to leave the country? ‘If only we could get rid of him that easily,’ the man replied. So it was in July 1998.

  The tabloid press and the phone-ins were by no means the only places where Beckham was condemned. At Leeds, where Manchester United and their supporters had never been very popular, he needed a police escort just to get into the ground. At every away ground where Manchester United played at the start of the 1998–9 season, the abusive chants could be heard but Beckham did not crumble and, indeed, responded outstandingly well. In the first game against Leicester City he equalised direct from a free-kick in the ninety-fourth minute. Although it would be a few months before the boos died down, what was remarkable was not just the quality of Beckham’s football but his refusal to complain. He kept his head down and became an integral part of the team that won a famous Treble for Manchester United. Beckham had his limitations as a player, but the dignity and composure he displayed in the 1998–9 season meant that nobody could doubt his temperament thereafter. Whether he was acting on instructions from his manager or his agent, or whether his good behaviour simply had its roots in the instinctive good manners that are so characteristic of Beckham’s personality, it was a signally successful tactic. Soon the boos turned to cheers. It helped that he was associated with a winning team and that 1998–9 turned out to be Manchester United’s annus mirabilis. Again he had displayed immaculate timing. The rise of Beckham was coincidental with the long-delayed return to prosperity of his club and the ever-widening appeal of football as a game to be consumed rather than one to be played. Every strand of the media was hungry for football and for footballers. By the start of the
new millennium the search was on for an iconic national footballing figure to replace the now forlorn Paul Gascoigne. Beckham and the new age were made for each other.

  He was helped coincidentally by the dawn of the new culture that followed the start of the Blair government and its obsession with spin and public relations. Cool Britannia, the Brit Art and Brit Pop movements were tailor-made for new media stars like Beckham. He made an impact on the art world when he featured in Sam Taylor Wood’s twenty-four-hour-long video stark naked and asleep in a glass box. It is hard to imagine any other footballer who might have been asked to feature in similar fashion – except possibly Emmanuel Adebayor who can manage to give the impression of being fast asleep on the field of play in the middle of a Premier League match. Or any player in a side managed by Louis van Gaal.

  If Beckham had played for Southampton would he have become the David Beckham the world knows? Matt Le Tissier was just as talented a player, arguably more so, but Le Tissier never played for United and Southampton were never in danger of winning anything. In addition, he never possessed Beckham’s good looks, which were such a significant element in his rise through the ranks of celebrity, but even mention of Beckham’s attractiveness came at a price. The comedian Jo Brand memorably said that he had the body of Hercules, the face of Adonis and the voice of Tinky Winky.

  Beckham was clearly a fine footballer if not a great one, though opinion is divided. George Best, who might have been less than objective as Beckham threatened to take his place in the hearts of United fans, was clearly unimpressed. One Saturday afternoon on Sky Sports he unburdened himself of the opinion that Beckham had no pace, no left foot, he couldn’t beat people, he couldn’t head the ball and he didn’t score enough. ‘Apart from that he’s not bad, I suppose,’ concluded Best with a wry smile. The Northern Irishman left out the fact that Beckham was a superb passer of the ball over forty yards. He also ignored Beckham’s outstanding ability to cross the ball into the danger areas and to find the net from free-kicks. If Gary Lineker gave his name to a West End play Beckham raised the stakes when in 2002 the feature film Bend It Like Beckham was released.

  Gary Lineker, more secure in the respect of his peers, takes the opposite point of view from Best:

  Beckham was a great footballer, and possibly underestimated. He had different abilities from, say, someone like Best. He had a great work ethic, wonderful technique and he was the sort of player I would have dreamed of playing with because of his crossing and the vision and awareness of his passing. He was almost unique in his ability to cross a ball. He’s also a very likeable person. I’ve met him many, many times. He’s nice to everyone. He’s transcended football in many ways. He’s now an international celebrity superstar, a global superstar not just because of his football but because he’s this fashion icon and the good-looking face of many products. It’s a great brand that works. Good luck to him. He’s doing something different. He’s not gone into management and he’s not gone into the media. He’s found a different vehicle and he’s done it very well. He’s always presentable, he always looks smart. He says the right thing and he doesn’t make mistakes.

  Beckham did once refer to the now disgraced FIFA vice-president Jack Warner as the uncle he never had, but at the time he said it he was presumably acting under instructions from the fawning FA who were desperate to acquire Warner’s vote for England’s ultimately doomed 2018 World Cup bid.

  Lineker is not alone in his admiration for Beckham as a professional on and off the field. Trevor East thinks similarly:

  I don’t know Beckham but on the few occasions I’ve met him he’s been nothing but charming. I’m pretty good at spotting fakes but I think he’s genuine. I’ve seen him morose but we all get like that at times. Maybe at a party he is looking over your shoulder to see if there’s anyone more interesting in the room but that’s how he’s been coached and trained since he was nineteen. He gets away with it well. He’s got some good advisers round him.

  Many of these advisers came into Beckham’s life via the woman who became his wife. No such PR retinue had accompanied the childhood sweethearts whom Bobby Moore and Gary Lineker had married. Billy Wright may have married a well-known popular singer, but when he did so he was already the most famous footballer in the land, and, anyway, the concomitant media interest in his marriage was limited by the social niceties of the late 1950s. By 1999 there were no significant social niceties and when David Beckham married Victoria Adams the media interest was global. Unlike Billy and Joy, who were flattered but slightly disconcerted by the interest shown outside Poole Register Office, and Michelle Lineker who was positively upset by the arrival of unannounced members of the general public at her wedding, the Beckhams actively encouraged the attention and effectively invited the rest of the world to share in it. They staged their wedding, at Luttrellstown Castle in Ireland on 4 July 1999, as if it were a royal occasion and in a manner calculated to ensure maximum exposure for the Beckham brand. It appeared immaterial to them that the tackiness of the whole thing – with its golden thrones, diamond coronet for Victoria, an alleged cost of £500,000 and a reputed seven-figure exclusive deal with OK! magazine for the photographic rights – became a predictable and widespread object of scorn.

  OK! Magazine features David Beckham and Victoria Adams on their wedding day on the front cover of the 14 July 1999 issue (Topfoto).

  Beckham’s fame and the attention it attracted was starting to unbalance the teams he played for. His manager at Manchester United clearly resented it. When, in February 2000, Beckham telephoned to inform the club he couldn’t make it to training because his baby wasn’t well and he had to stay home and look after him, the news was not received well by a manager with more old-fashioned values who clearly believed that if a child was poorly it was the duty of the mother to give up her work in order to look after it. Ferguson, however, not for the first time misjudged the mood of the country. It is arguable that he was expressing views that were thirty years out of date.

  To the surprise no doubt of traditional footballers, Beckham by now was attracting a coterie of gay fans who liked the idea of a handsome footballer wearing a sarong and – according to unsubstantiated legend – his wife’s underwear. There wouldn’t be too many footballers who would welcome support from such a quarter but Beckham’s metrosexual image was all-inclusive. His apparent softness, tolerance and vulnerability were entirely at odds with the traditional image of the macho, heterosexual footballer, but Beckham’s celebrity value continued to increase nonetheless.

  When Peter Taylor took over as caretaker manager of England in November 2000 for the game against Italy in Turin, his first announcement was to appoint David Beckham as captain. It was to be no repeat showing of The Italian Job, however, as Italy won 1–0. Beckham had made it to the top of his profession and, with his gentle charm and warm smile, was regarded as a worthy successor to Moore and Wright. He certainly wasn’t naturally articulate like Lineker but, like the latter, he made sure he had the benefit of good media training and he could follow a script when one was presented to him. Inevitably, though, he was more comfortable letting his feet do the talking and they were never more eloquent than in England’s vital World Cup qualifying game against Greece on 6 October 2001.

  It was somehow appropriate that the game should have been played at Old Trafford in front of his adoring home supporters. As he was to do a few months later at the start of the Commonwealth Games in Manchester, Beckham walked out at the head of his national side, holding the hand of Kirsty Howard, a very sick little girl from the Francis House Children’s Hospice. She had to have her oxygen bottle wheeled out alongside her, and Beckham made sure that all the England players walked at a pace that was comfortable for her. The game should have been a relatively straightforward one for England who needed either to win or at least get the same result as Germany to qualify for the finals and avoid a tricky-looking play-off match against Ukraine.

  In the unexpectedly warm October sunshine, the crowd
had been in carnival mood before the kick-off, but good humour gave way to anxiety as Greece scored first. Sheringham equalised in the second half, but Greece retook the lead a few minutes later. The news that Germany were drawing against Finland clearly affected the nervous crowd and the players became increasingly anxious. In the ninety-fourth minute England were awarded a free-kick just outside the Greek penalty area. Sheringham wanted to take it but Beckham overruled him. It was his team, it was his game, it was his time and it was his free-kick. He curled the ball superbly into the net to finish what had been for him the most outstanding game he was ever to play for his country. This was Beckham as Roy of the Rovers, seemingly one of the two prerequisites for a successful captain of England, the other being the less interesting and infinitely more predictable clenched-fist hero as exemplified by Butcher, Robson, Adams and Terry.

  The soap opera that is Beckham’s primary appeal to those of his followers who do not care greatly about his football had many more twists still to come. Having dragged England to the World Cup finals in Japan and South Korea apparently single-handed, he proceeded to break a metatarsal bone in his foot during a Champions League quarter-final two months before the tournament started. One tabloid newspaper printed a photograph of a foot on its front page and asked the nation to pray for its recovery. In a nation that palpably preferred to read that newspaper rather than the Book of Common Prayer it seemed an odd thing to do and the result, which owed little to prayer and more to medical science, was that Beckham went into the World Cup finals only half fit. It was to have unfortunate consequences as he pulled out of a tackle in the quarter-final against Brazil which led directly to Rivaldo’s equaliser. A mistake by Seaman in goal, lobbed by a speculative Ronaldinho free-kick, finally crushed Beckham’s dreams for 2002.