I enjoy the Far East, even though it can get a bit overwhelming at times. As far as vacations go, if I have the choice and a couple of days available, it’s a quick jaunt to the South of France. We’ll often stay at Elton and David’s house. And soon, once it’s in shape, they’ll be able to stay at ours: we bought a villa down there in 2002. With the family, though, I’ll always be ready for a trip to the States. America is such a big country—and so hooked into other sports like basketball and American football—that I don’t have the same kind of profile there as in other parts of the world. The press like to make out that I’ve got this dream about ‘breaking’ the US market. The real reason I like going to America is actually that I do sometimes daydream about what it would be like to live there. And that’s not just because the Big Macs are so much better than they are in England. With not being so widely recognized in America, when I go out, I’m not in the position where I’m thinking about people looking at me. I can spend some time looking at them instead. And what I see is a passion for their own country that I really admire. The Stars and Stripes are everywhere. The way we get excited about England when it comes to big soccer tournaments is how Americans seem to feel about their country all year round. I get the impression that everybody there, whatever background they come from, feels like America is their country and they’re proud of it. I think that makes a big difference to the way of life: people in the States seem to have a very positive attitude about themselves because of it.
We had a great time in America in the summer of 2003, even though we ended up staying in the middle of the desert just to get a bit of private family time to ourselves. Because of all the talk about a move to Real Madrid, I understood why there were so many journalists and photographers following us around in New York and Los Angeles. There were a couple of public appearances in the diary too: the MTV awards and a day training with the American women’s national soccer team. I appreciate that you can’t turn the attention on and off like a tap. That’s why, when it comes to myself, I wouldn’t ever complain about the media putting me in the spotlight. There have been times in my life when it’s helped me, no question, especially when I was starting out as a young pro at United. And, in recent years, definitely once France 98 was behind me, I think I’ve had a pretty good deal from the press: they’ve been positive and generous towards me more often than not. The soccer writers really helped me settle into the job of England captain.
Mostly, though, it’s men who run the papers and perhaps that explains some of the snide stuff that gets written and said about Victoria. It gets under our skin. But then my wife’s a grown up and can look after herself. The one area where I really do think the media should have a long look at what they do is getting in the faces of children who happen to have famous mums and dads. Brooklyn and Romeo haven’t asked for Posh and Becks as parents. It makes me angry—more than that, it makes me sad—that I can’t take the boys to a park or to the beach without the cameras coming out. It spoils it for me but that’s not the point. I remember Southend with Mum and Dad, evenings after school in Chase Lane Park. Even though my sons aren’t aware of it—not yet, anyway—they’re being cheated out of some of the best bits of their childhoods because the press can’t leave them alone.
I appreciate the role the media’s had to play in bringing me the rewards I enjoy. Right now, I’m really pleased that most people seem to like me and respect what I do, as a soccer player, a husband and a father. In the back of my mind though, because of what happened after the World Cup in 1998, I’m aware that everything could change. It might be something of my own doing; it might be nothing to do with me, just people’s moods changing. When you’re talking about fame and what comes your way with that, you know you can’t be in control all the time. If the tide turns, I can’t expect to be able to stop that. All I can do is be ready for it—if it ever happens—and be comfortable enough with myself to deal with it in my life. That’s another reason why it’s so important to me that I look after what I feel surest about: my family. I want my wife and my children to be there for me. I want Victoria and Brooklyn and Romeo to know that I’m going to be there for them. If I have the love of my family wrapped up inside me, I’m absolutely sure that I’ll be able to face whatever comes.
I grew up in the love of a family. Without Mum and Dad, none of my story would be here for the telling. Like any son, I wouldn’t have grown up into the person I am if they hadn’t passed on their values to me.
Marriage and parenthood, I think, are the two most important things any of us ever take on in our lives. They bring the greatest pleasure and the greatest responsibility. I learned so much about both from my parents and from going through childhood in the home they made for me, Lynne and Joanne. That explains why my parents’ splitting up has been probably the most difficult episode I’ve ever had to face up to in my whole life. To be honest, I’m still trying to face up to it now.
It’s not for me to tell the story of how Mum and Dad’s marriage ended in divorce. I can’t tell my story, though, without talking about how my parents’ splitting up has made me feel and still makes me feel. I’ve been through some difficult stuff in the course of my career and I think I’ve always been able to handle it. My life is my responsibility now and I’ve always reacted to challenges by taking them on. There’s always a sense of needing to be in control and of trying to take charge of situations in a positive way. My parents’ divorce, though, I haven’t been able to deal with in that way at all. I was involved but what was happening was something completely outside my control. And that scared me, the first and only time I’d felt that way about what was going on around me. Over the couple of years when things were falling apart, I couldn’t bring myself to talk about it. And talking to Mum and Dad was the thing I found hardest of all.
It may be that anyone who’s been through the experience of parents’ separating will recognize my emotions as the same ones they’ve had to struggle with. In a family like ours, your mum and dad and them being together is like the sun coming up in the morning. It’s something for always. You can’t ever imagine them apart, not even when you leave home and start life on your own. Probably the hardest thing to deal with has been thinking—or being made to think—that the split was somehow my fault. I remember the time and the energy they both put into me as a son and as a promising soccer player. Should they have given some of the attention they gave to me to each other instead?
Then, I’d never have thought about it. Did they? Now, when I think back, it’s already too late to do anything about it.
However old you are when it happens, children in a divorce always find themselves feeling guilty. Or find themselves being made to feel guilty. I believe that what happens between husband and wife, deep down, is between husband and wife and nobody else; not even their sons and daughters can change the outcome. My dad’s actually said to me that having my own family and not spending as much time with my parents was part of the problem for them. I did find myself wondering: would me going out with Dad, us talking, have changed anything? Should I have been there, trying to be the glue keeping them together? I couldn’t help but question myself. It would have been pretty impossible to be with them more often: I was in Manchester most of the week and the odd day or two off I needed to be with Victoria and the boys. Even if there had been more time, would me being around have made the difference? Looking back, I don’t think so.
Even after it’s happened, now Mum and Dad are divorced, it’s still hard for me. Hard for Lynne and Joanne, too. It’s not necessarily said in as many words but there’s always, in these situations, a question: whose side are you on? For me and my sisters, that isn’t even something we think about: they’re our mum and dad and ‘sides’ doesn’t come into it. But I can see that, for parents, there’d be insecurity. They’re having a painful time, feeling guilty themselves and they don’t want to lose a family at the same time as they lose a husband or wife. I see Mum a lot because she helps us with looking after the boys. I c
an see that Dad might feel that there’s more to it than that. The only way we’ll ever get round ‘whose side are you on’, I think, is if Mum and Dad can find a way to talk to one another again, find a new kind of relationship where there’s a bit of trust between them. I really hope that will happen.
I really don’t believe I could have stopped them splitting up but I did want to do what I could to make it easier for each of them after it happened. I helped buy our family home—the house I grew up in—so Dad could make his new start there. I needed to be sure my mum felt settled and I know my Nan and Grandad were worried about her too. I bought Mum a new place out in Loughton, nearer to the house in Sawbridgeworth, where she could live with Joanne. I’d always imagined that, somewhere down the line, I’d have bought them a big house somewhere to live in together. My parents were married nearly thirty years; I still can’t come to terms with the idea that they’re set up now for living apart. For us—me, Lynne and Joanne—and for them, I hope that, somewhere down the line they’ll become friendly enough, at least, for us all to sit down together to remember some of the great times we had.
How could it all not have made me think about my own family? The story of my parents’ marriage makes me feel sad, empty inside. What was home isn’t any more. Who can tell what lies down the road for you in your own life? At home with Victoria and the boys is where I feel I’m fulfilled. My marriage and my family are precious to me. So precious I don’t know what life would be about without them. I want to see our children grow up. I want me and Victoria to grow old in each other’s company, the two of us together always. I married just this once and I want it to mean what it does now, forever. Mum and Dad separating has made me even more aware of that. Growing up, I learned from my parents how to live, how to make decisions and how to treat other people. They also taught me that, if you really want something, you have to work hard for it. I think they had my soccer career in mind. But I’ve realized for myself now: that’s true for a marriage as well.
13
About Loyalty
‘Have you got a problem with me?’
I’ve never felt a disappointment like it. I really believed we were going to win the 2002 World Cup in Japan. I don’t know what had made me so sure. Being captain? My foot healing in time? The little coincidences, like being allocated seat number 7 on flights, just by chance? It had definitely felt like they were the right omens pointing towards this being England’s time. What I do know is that being knocked out when we were—and how we were—left me with a real hangover into the new season back home. Victoria and I went away for a week soon after the England squad got back to the UK, but even that did nothing to brighten my mood. In fact, by the end of the week, Victoria had had about enough:
‘I don’t know how much more of that I could have taken’, she said, ‘being with someone who didn’t smile or show any emotion from one day to the next, who could hardly bring himself to say two words to me or to anyone else’.
She didn’t need to tell me it was unfair on her. In the past I’d always tried to make sure that I didn’t take work home with me, didn’t get moody with my family when things weren’t going well for me, for whatever reason, at United. But this was different. And when it came time to start pre-season training, I was still feeling the same, like I hadn’t had a break at all: tired, heavy legs, no spark. It was all wrong. My job isn’t a job at all. It’s not nine to five, is it? It’s not going down a mine or driving a truck all day long. Playing soccer, training, is what I love doing and I knew I shouldn’t have been feeling like I did: as if I didn’t really want to be there, back at United already and with a new season about to get underway.
You can’t just wish that kind of depression away. You get your head down and get on with what you know you’ve got to do. United players are lucky that the manager understands his players well enough to recognize how they’re feeling and that they’re not faking it. Maybe because of that, pre-season wasn’t as hard as it’s sometimes been in the past. Even so, when we kicked off 2002/03 I still felt a long way off ready for a new season which, after the previous May had come and gone without a trophy at Old Trafford, had plenty riding on it. When you don’t feel right, sometimes you need to work that much harder, to train and play your way through it, and I was ready for that. What I didn’t realize was that some of the worst of what lay ahead had nothing to do with soccer at all.
Victoria and I do what we can to keep our lives organized; not just to keep our own heads straight but because our schedules mean life’s already complicated enough for Brooklyn and Romeo. Sometimes, though, things come out of nowhere, things you could never lay plans for. And, even if you could, you wouldn’t want to because just thinking about them would have you wanting to lock your front door and never come out.
The first game in November at Old Trafford was against Southampton. Not a game that, usually, would have stuck in my mind. We weren’t at our best and it was one of those afternoons when you’re glad to have done enough to take all three points. For all that every home game is a big occasion, especially when you’re wearing the captain’s armband like I was with Roy Keane out injured, I came off at the end of our 2–1 win with a bit of a ‘that’s another Saturday afternoon’ feeling. I was looking forward to seeing Victoria and heading home for a night in with the boys. Which meant that what was waiting for me came as all the more of a shock.
As soon as I got to the dressing room, the manager said we needed to talk in his office. Not after I’d changed. Not as soon as I could. Now. So I clattered through, still in my boots and my uniform. We went inside. I don’t know what I was expecting but it wasn’t that Victoria would be there waiting for us. She looked pale and nervous. I’m handling this but only just. I looked at her, as if I expected her to tell me what was going on: it’s such a strange feeling, knowing something’s terribly wrong, just from the tension in the room, but not having any idea what it was. I looked at the manager, too. He looked drawn. It was only then, really, that I took in the other people who were present: four of them. One I half-recognized as a Manchester-based police officer and he introduced me to the other three. They were from SO7, the Serious and Organized Crime Command unit, and had driven up from Scotland Yard.
So four men standing there in their suits, with me still dripping sweat in my United uniform: it felt like we were all waiting to find out what was going to happen next. The manager said I should sit down and listen. What I heard I had trouble believing. I was trying to make some sense of what was being said. This can’t be happening. This shouldn’t be happening.
I looked across at Victoria and I could see in her eyes she already had the same question in her mind as I did. What are we going to do?
After a tip-off from the News of the World, four men and a woman had been arrested in London. They were part of a gang of art thieves—four more people were picked up that night and the following morning—believed to be planning to kidnap Victoria, Brooklyn and Romeo and hold them for a £5 million ransom.
Victoria had already heard all this and she was doing her best to be strong about it. She’d jokingly said if they were going to kidnap her, they’d have to kidnap her hairdresser as well. Now, she was listening to the details again, and watching me take it all in. And I was really upset. I felt my stomach turn over: it’s anybody’s worst kind of nightmare, although not many people will have to listen to policemen talking them through a threat that’s very real indeed. Right at the start, the guys from Scotland Yard were telling us that they took this thing seriously. They’d already made those arrests and, as of right now, they were putting officers outside the houses at Alderley Edge and Sawbridgeworth.
Sure enough, by the time we got home, there was a police car at the end of the lane and a couple of policemen were on duty at the gate. We went in and there was another car in the drive, right outside our front door. I think Victoria and I were trying hard not to panic and, I’ve got to say, it helped that the police seemed so in control of things so quickl
y. That evening and the next morning, as we read the papers and watched the television coverage of it all, the truth of what might have happened started to hit home. We might have been used to seeing and hearing stories about ourselves, often to do with things we’ve had no idea about beforehand, but this was different. There were the pictures of the gang at the gates of the house down south and details of the threats they’d made about what might happen to Victoria if I didn’t pay up: that kind of wickedness and on my own doorstep made my blood run cold. I think it was overnight that the shock really sank in for both of us.
We were upset and scared, but you can’t just hide and hope it will all go away. My family’s safety is the most important thing in the world; it’s the same for any dad. So in the days after, it was a case of trying to workout what we could do. I lost count of the number of experts that we took advice from. Some of the time, it felt like we were just getting more and more confused: everybody had different ideas and I even had the feeling that a certain amount of politics was behind some of it, people staking claims for their own reputations at the same time as offering to help. It came down to not being sure exactly who we could trust.
In the end, the person we turned to was Tony, Victoria’s dad. He’d always taken an interest in security equipment in connection with his own work and, when we bought the house in Sawbridgeworth, he’d put in alarm systems without us, until now, ever having to know the details. These security measures were sophisticated enough to impress the officers from Scotland Yard when they began looking at what improvements they thought we could make to our arrangements.
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