Brooklyn was only two months old and Victoria hadn’t planned to come to Barcelona. She doesn’t come to many United away games anyway: she’s wary and so am I. In the end, though, this was the European Cup Final; this was, just maybe, the Treble. Tony and Jackie babysat and Victoria came out with a couple of people to look after her. She may not know all that much about football but she supports me and enjoys the sense of occasion and the excitement of the big games. I was really pleased she made the trip although, before kick-off, I got nervous. If Victoria comes to a game, I can’t relax until I’ve spotted her in the crowd and I know she’s all right. At the Nou Camp, she did have a bit of trouble getting settled. I was looking up to where I thought she should be and it wasn’t until we came back out, just before kick-off, that I saw her and had my mind put at rest. I think Victoria was pleased she made it. I remember what she said to me after the game:
‘That was unbelievable. I’ve never experienced anything like that in my whole life.’
Which just about took the words out of my mouth. Unbelievable is exactly what it was. Because of the injuries and suspensions, I played central midfield against Bayern. I know, whatever I might say or other people might think, the manager always preferred me to play wide on the right. But with Scholesy and Keano missing through suspension that night, he put faith in me playing in the centre and it meant a lot to me that, afterwards, he praised my performance in that position when he talked to the press. And I loved it in there, alongside Nicky Butt. I was right in the thick of things, involved all game long.
It was hard, though. Unbelievably hard. And, to be honest, not the best of games. Bayern scored early on. They were a strong side, very well organised, like all German teams. We knew them and they knew us: we’d drawn twice in those group games earlier in the season. It felt like they were sure they were in control of it all. And, especially in the middle of the second half, they looked more likely to score another goal than we did to equalise. Peter Schmeichel made a couple of great saves; they missed a couple of chances. That twenty-minute spell, though, instead of taking the heart out of us, lifted us. They had a shot that came back off the crossbar and into Peter’s hands. All these chances, why haven’t they scored again? Keepgoing and you never know. This could still happen for us.
All of a sudden – none of us knew how close we were to full-time – we got a break. I turned on the ball, beat my man and played it out to our left. Ole had come on as a sub just a few minutes before and he won a corner. I sprinted over to take it. I remember that, even though the pitch at the Nou Camp is so big, you hardly have any room down by the flags to take corners. I saw Peter come charging up into the Bayern area and tried to steady myself. Don’t mess this up. Just float it in and try to put it in a dangerous area.
I sent it over. The ball bounced out to Giggsy. He mis-hit it and it bounced through to Teddy Sheringham, the other sub, who knocked it in. Teddy was so close to being offside. But he wasn’t. And we were level, 1–1. Everybody went up. I just went mad. I swear I felt like crying. At that moment, it felt like the whole season caught up with us. I was shattered. I looked over and saw Gary, celebrating on his own. He was happy but he couldn’t get his legs to carry him over to the rest of us. People came running over from our bench. Every single person on the pitch, every single person in the crowd must have been thinking the same thing. Here we go. Extra-time.
The thought of another thirty minutes of football barely had time to sink in. Maybe the gaffer was the only person inside the Nou Camp that night who wasn’t already looking ahead to the final whistle. I glanced over towards our bench. Steve McClaren was trying to say something to the boss, trying to reorganise the team. The boss was ignoring him, just waving him away. Was it my imagination or was he acting like he knew we were going to score again? He was screaming to us to get back to halfway and kick off as fast as we could.
Almost at once, we won another corner. It was all happening so quickly that, when I went over to take it, I could see United supporters still jumping around, shouting into their mobile phones, and celebrating Teddy’s goal. I think the Bayern players were still trying to get to grips with what had just happened, too. In the blink of an eye, I’d whipped the ball over and Ole had got to it and we’d scored again. Even after the celebrations, even though the second goal was already well into injury time, Bayern did get the ball forward one more time. My legs had gone. Everybody’s legs had gone. Oh, no. Please don’t score now.
Someone just booted the ball away from our penalty area and the whistle went. I don’t know where it came from: the sound of that whistle was like an electric shock and I got this last burst of energy. I ran – sprinted – with my arms stretched out beside me, almost the length of the pitch and down to our fans. Most of the lads had just fallen on the floor: collapsed with exhaustion. Which was probably the best thing to do, but I couldn’t help myself. The roar that broke out from the United supporters when the game finished was deafening and I felt like I was being shot out of a gun towards them. I don’t know if I’ll experience moments, or see celebrations, quite like those ever again.
We were out on the pitch for what seemed like hours afterwards, having a private party in the warm Spanish evening air: the lads who’d played and those who hadn’t been able to, and the thousands of United fans who’d taken over the Nou Camp for the night. These were the supporters who’d welcomed me back to Old Trafford at the start of the season; who’d stuck by me after France 98, no matter what flak I was getting from anybody else. You could see on people’s faces how much what had just happened meant to them and they could see how much the United players were enjoying being out there celebrating with them. It felt even more special for me: if it hadn’t been for the supporters at that first Premiership game of 1998/99 at Old Trafford, I’m not sure I’d have been there at the Nou Camp on the season’s final night. I’ll never forget what they did for me. I know they’ll never forget what we did for them in the dying minutes of the biggest game of them all.
It was pretty mad in the dressing room, too, once we finally found our way back there. Champagne was flying everywhere. Albert, the kit man, got thrown into the Jacuzzi. Everybody seemed to be singing, screaming and laughing. We’d played a lot of football together, and now was the right time to go a bit crazy together. Eventually, people started getting dressed. We were looking forward to meeting up with our families. I remember just sitting in my place in the dressing room, watching it all go on around me, and trying to take in what we’d done. I looked over to the far corner and that huge trophy, the European Cup, was just standing there, on top of a bench, all on its own.
This is my chance. I found the United club photographer:
‘Will you take some pictures of me holding this?
I walked back up the tunnel, past the little chapel and out onto the pitch again. Half the floodlights were still on. Half of them were off. There were strange shadows being cast across that huge stretch of turf, and the empty stands just sort of loomed in the darkness. You could still imagine an echo of the crowd shouting and cheering during the game. It was an amazing feeling. Forty minutes, an hour ago, this place was full of people. We were playing out there. We were getting beaten out there.
And then I looked down at the trophy, which I’d set on the grass in front of me. It made me shiver. For a moment, I felt like the thirteen-year-old boy who’d jogged out onto this same pitch for the first time, nervous about meeting FC Barcelona’s star players and trying to imagine what it would be like to play at their ground. I picked up the European Cup and the photographer snapped away. One of the proudest moments any player could ever experience in his career and I found myself standing there, in the half light with a winners’ medal hanging round my neck, feeling humble in the face of what had just taken place. I got the same sensation later that evening, when the players walked into the hotel room for dinner. Victoria was there, my mum and dad too, along with all the families and closest friends. Everyone stood up at their tables a
nd clapped. My wife – soon to be – called it unbelievable. She got it just right.
I hung onto that trophy. I thought I could make it my job to get it safely out of the ground. I walked out into the car park to look for the coach. Everyone else seemed to have drifted away and there was this eerie quiet in the air. The one or two voices you could hear sounded like they were coming from miles away. I looked up and saw Dad walking towards me. He just appeared out of the gloom, from nowhere, walking along with Mum and some other people. It wasn’t as if we’d arranged to meet straight after the game: I’d been expecting to see them back at the hotel. Ninety thousand people inside the Nou Camp that night and your mum and dad are the ones you bump into by chance. We were the only people there.
Dad didn’t need to say a word. He hugged me. It felt like he was crying or, at least, trying hard not to. And my eyes were pricking too. The two of us knew what it had been like when we’d met less than a year before, in another car park, after the Argentina game in Saint-Etienne. My parents knew better than anybody what had happened to me since that night. It had happened to them, too, in a way. That’s how it is with your children. Their lives become the most important part of your own. I knew what it felt like to be a father now, of course. So I put down the cup and just hugged my dad back.
8
I Do
‘Beckham. Here. I want a word.’
‘Victoria hates it up north…’
‘David is joining Arsenal…’
‘…or, if he isn’t, he’s going to buy a helicopter to fly up to Manchester three times a week.’
There was plenty of speculation when we bought our house just outside London. The truth was a lot simpler, but also a lot less controversial. The story needed to shift newspapers, I suppose, which meant that the boring and the obvious had to make way for something people could talk about. Actually, Victoria didn’t have a problem with Manchester at all or with me playing there. And as for me, I had absolutely no intention of ever leaving United. I think even the gaffer read more significance into us buying a new place than there was. He was aware of the gossip and pulled me to one side:
‘Why have you bought that?’
His main concern was probably that I might end up trying to commute from Essex for training. In fact, even after we talked, I think he spent a year or more believing that, secretly, that’s what I was doing. He didn’t realise the place was a building site. I did my best to explain:
‘London is where I’m from and that’s why I’ve bought a house there. When I finish playing, I’ll move back: my family’s in London and so are lots of our friends. That’s all it is. We’re a family now, boss: Mr and Mrs Beckham. We’ve got our first baby boy. And when I retire London will be the natural place for us to call home.’
Once Brooklyn arrived and we knew we were getting married, I think instinct kicked in. We knew we wanted somewhere to bring up a family, somewhere we could always call home. We had a pretty good idea where we wanted the Beckhams to be based: north and east of London, near our parents, and not too far from the motorways. We knew we wanted space for Brooklyn to run around, safely and in privacy. We knew we wanted room to have friends and family over without having to squeeze anyone in. We wanted to be able to throw a decent party. Me? I had to make sure I had enough space for a snooker table and a long enough wall for my collection of signed shirts. It was time to stretch out a little after a year and a half of living out of suitcases, stopping at Tony and Jackie’s or at the apartment in Cheshire.
The place we found was in Hertfordshire, on the edge of a little village called Sawbridgeworth. The first place we looked at belonged to the boxing promoter Frank Warren. I liked it but Victoria wasn’t sure: perhaps it would have been too big for us. The house in Sawbridgeworth hardly needed a second look: Victoria fell in love with it straight away. The buildings and the grounds were the right sort of scale. I know people call it Beckingham Palace but it’s a family home when all’s said and done. It’s manageable without needing an army of helpers. There was plenty of work to be done to it, and maybe that was what got Victoria so excited about it. I’m like her in that I’ve got very particular tastes in things: you could say we’ve got a liking for ‘subtle over-the-top’, the pair of us. What Victoria had, though, was the imagination to see how she could turn the place into somewhere we’d love. She also had a dad who had the knowledge and found the time to organise the details. Tony was the unpaid project manager for Sawbridgeworth when he wasn’t running his own building business. I bet he had no idea what he’d be taking on when we said: please, we need someone we trust. It took the best part of four years to make all the changes that Victoria had imagined the moment we first drove through the gates.
Sawbridgeworth was about putting down roots. Until I pack in playing, though, I’m the same as any other footballer. It’s something you take on as part of being a professional: your life revolves around training and games. It has to. Even one of the biggest days of my life, my wedding day, had to get squeezed into its place in the middle of the United calendar. At least there wasn’t a World Cup or a European Championship to rush off to over the summer of 1999. Once I’d come down from the incredible high of the Nou Camp that May, and once I’d been convinced I should take off the European Cup winners’ medal I had slung round my neck for days afterwards, we were able to concentrate on the planning, and all the excitement, of the Beckhams’ own cup final: David and Victoria getting married on the fourth of July.
It’s fair to say the Big Day took some organising. It’s also fair to say I didn’t have that much to do with it. We knew what we wanted: the general idea. Life had turned into a fairy tale since the Prince met his Princess and that’s how we wanted it to feel. But when it came to the details, Victoria did most of the hard work. Together, we imagined something special, not just for us but for our families and friends too. Then, the day-to-day inspiration came from the bride. We talked. I didn’t have anything sprung on me at the last moment. And, in the middle of all the bustle and arrangement-making, I was allowed to have my say. But it was Victoria, and her mum and sister Louise, who took on the responsibility for getting things right.
Through the 1998/99 season, and after what had happened in the World Cup, we’d had to get used to the idea of thinking about security in relation to almost everything we did. But we weren’t going to compromise on the day for our family and friends. We didn’t want to slip away and get married in secret. We wanted a wedding to remember, both for ourselves and for the people we care most about. A big day would mean big security, though, and that pushed us towards two big decisions. One was to do a photo deal with a magazine: we realised that OK!’s desire to protect their exclusive would go a long way towards protecting our privacy at the same time. The other was to find someone who could take some of the pressure off the bride. So we hired a wedding co-ordinator, Peregrine Armstrong-Jones. I can’t say I’d ever met anyone named Peregrine before. He was pretty upper-upper but a really lovely bloke who did a fantastic job for us: he understood what we were hoping for and made sure that was exactly what we got.
Between them, Victoria and Peregrine found our castle in Ireland at Luttrellstown. It had everything we needed and, best of all, something we might never have thought of if it hadn’t been there already. The local church was a little drive away but, in the castle grounds, there was a little folly: ancient, tumbledown and a bit magical. The kind of setting in which you could dream about saying: I do. Once the bride and her sidekick saw it, ramshackle as it was, the decision was made and Peregrine got to work. There was a stream running underneath the folly and he created this setting straight out of a picture book of times past, with branches reaching overhead, fairy lights and flowers everywhere. Just enough room for about thirty members of our families and very closest friends before the big bash for everyone up at the castle later on. It was fantastic.
I loved every minute of the build-up: tasting the food, trying the wines and choosing the music. Everything went
really smoothly – amazing, really, considering how complicated the arrangements were – until it came to getting the bride’s frock across the Irish Sea. Now, bear in mind I wasn’t supposed to see Victoria’s wedding dress until the day. The people at OK! were so nervous about things that they chartered a small private plane to take us to Ireland. Brooklyn, me, Victoria, her mum and dad, sister Louise – with her baby, Liberty – and brother Christian had all squeezed in before the crew told us that the big box with the Big Secret wouldn’t fit in the hold. Which meant the dress had to come out of the box to get it in through the passenger door. So I was sent off to stand on the runway with my eyes shut for twenty minutes. I had to sit with my back to the thing all the way to Dublin and, of course, once we touched down, we had to go through the entire routine all over again. I wasn’t supposed to see it and, of course, we had to make sure that any cameras couldn’t either. Pity: the afternoon would have made quite a good silent movie.
We got to the castle two days before our wedding day. Mum and Dad flew out and other guests started arriving the following evening. We had a big dinner for everyone the night before. After the meal, Victoria and I went out in the castle grounds for a walk together. We headed down to the marquee where the reception was going to take place. There was a little grove that had been made out of branches, and holly and flowers, which people would have to walk underneath to get inside. I’d brought along a couple of glasses and a bottle of champagne. I was telling Victoria, again, how much I loved her and, all of a sudden, this soft rain started falling. On a warm summer’s evening, it felt perfect. I couldn’t have imagined anything more romantic.
Eventually, bride and groom had to go their separate ways for the night. Back at the castle, Victoria, of course, had the best room in the place: our wedding suite. I had to make do with another guest room downstairs. Before I went to bed, the United players and some of my mates got together: it wasn’t very wild as stag evenings go. Everyone was pretty tired and we just went through and had a couple of drinks and a frame or two on the snooker table. Two o’clock and sober, that was me. I wanted to look half-decent the following morning and I wanted to be sure I’d remember every second of it.
David Beckham: My Side Page 17