The Boy Done Good (David Beckham)

Member Name: thequy

Product:	David Beckham
Date:	07/03/02 (561 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Wins you matches, isn't that enough?

Disadvantages: Not very good goalkeeper

Not that long ago in the mid-Nineties, I was making the tentative crossing from education to application in my chosen career. Less than twenty miles across the city, another young man was doing much the same although in a slightly different vein. With the end of my studies, I was given the chance to get one foot on the corporate ladder. With the departure of Andrei Kanchelskis to Premiership rivals Everton, the Russian winger’s relatively unknown understudy was given the chance to make his mark in the Manchester United (MU) first team.

Fast forward to the present day and I lead a comfortable life. Prospects are reasonable though I don’t quite have that Ferrari in the drive yet. I’d like to think I’m valued by my employers but don’t kid myself I’m indispensable.

Meanwhile, David Robert Joseph Beckham has become a permanent (except when there’s shopping to be done) fixture on the A-list of the biggest football club in the world. When he’s not imposing his hair style on the nation’s yoof, he is England captain, idol of the nation, part-time model - and has been valued at £50 million. Do you sense the disparity? To say I’m a tad envious is to say Van Nistelrooy likes to score goals. Mind you, Beckham did have a 5 month head start in life – makes all the difference I reckon. Love him or loathe him, whether you support this United or another (or couldn’t give a flying prawn sandwich who lifts the Premiership trophy) there’s no denying the boy’s done good. This is his story.

(Bit melodramatic, ennit? What I meant was “What follows are the bits of his story that I know about and interest me and I reckon might interest some of you”, but to put that in would have broken up the flow of the text and... oh.)


Although born and raised in London, David Beckham’s affinity for MU took root at an early age. Not only was his fath
er a devoted United fan, the 11 year old Beckham won the Bobby Charlton's Soccer Skills Tournament at no less a venue than Old Trafford, with no less a score than the highest ever in the history of the competition. That kind of thing tends to get you noticed and at the age of 14, the MU talent scouts came knocking. Two years later - as I was beginning my A-Levels - he moved to the North-West to join the MU youth team. Within 10 months, in a significant portent of what was to come, they had won the Youth FA Cup. Naturally, it helps if Scholes, Butt and the Neville brothers are on your side but equally it says something when, amongst all that precocious talent, Alex Ferguson singles you out as the outstanding prospect. Old Fergie might not have been a Knight in those days but he knew a thing or two about ‘kids’.

Despite that early success, MU’s careful youth policy and the strength of its first team meant that Beckham would serve out another 2 years in the reserves, including a spell with Preston North End. When the opportunity arose in the first team though, he exploded onto the consciousness of the Old Trafford faithful with the proverbial impact of one of his trademark free kicks. As if marking his Champion’s League debut (vs Galataseray at Old Trafford) with a veteran’s performance and a goal wasn’t enough, he made the sporting headlines in only his second full season, with an unbelievable 60 yard lob over a bewildered Wimbledon keeper (not one of the Wombles either). Believable now that the goal has been replayed a thousand times on television, it was hard to comprehend at the time. Kids with curtains should be playing with skateboards, not pulling off something that Pelé never managed to do.

The Beckham wonder-goal archive doesn’t stop there. Other gems include:

*) 1998 World Cup free kick vs Columbia
*) A 70mph rocket vs Barcelona during MU’s treble winning season (h
is personal favourite)
*) The oh-so-important-words-can’t-describe-it last gasp ‘winner’ vs Greece in this year’s World Cup qualifying match (whilst not winning the match, it ensured England won the group).

When you’ve finished counting the goals, there are also the countless times, less appreciated by most, when a moment of Beckham brilliance shapes the destiny of a game. Besides his free-kicks, there are also his corners (two of which set up both of United’s goals in the European Cup final), his crosses (two of which left the Inter Milan defence floundering like a Sunday pub team, en route to the final), and his pin-point accurate 40 yard passes. As with Michael Owen’s surging runs, Beckham’s trademark moves are no longer a surprise to opposing defenders but even when they know exactly what’s coming, the execution is such that doing something to stop them is another matter entirely.

So, you have physical skills and endurance that are one in a million. Add vision and awareness, claimed by some to be unseen in an English footballer since Glen Hoddle hung his boots up. Infuse throughout with dogged determination and an unflinching desire to win - arguably only bettered by Roy Keane in the current MU side - and you start to understand why Manchester United are willing to pay him £70,000 a week, give or take a few bob. Whether it’s ‘right’ that anyone should earn that much for booting a bit of leather over a patch of grass is another debate, but think of it as yet another endorsement that this particular booter of leather is a cut above the ordinary.

However, his gift for the Beautiful Game is only half of what I admire about him. From a footballing perspective, it could be argued Paul Gascoigne was the more exciting player of a similar era, that Beckham has yet to equal the impact of Best or Charlton on United’s heritage. But whereas Best and Gascoigne
struggled to cope with the trappings of fame and the temptations of life, Beckham has taken it all in his stride, triumphing over adversity to become an exemplary sportsman, a family man and one of the most prominent role models of the modern game.


Only four days after scoring against Columbia in the 1998 World Cup, Beckham’s fall from hero to zero was as spectacular as it was unjustified. In a moment of petulance in the match against the old foes Argentina, he lashed out at Diego Simeone and was sent off. Although Simeone made a meal of it, I personally think the referee made the right decision – make contact and you’re off, regardless of the force used, regardless of provocation. However, the aftermath of that fateful match was to highlight the ugly side of English football and, to the extent that this is the most popular sport in the country, the small-mindedness of a regrettably large part of our nation.

Despite being the first red card of his professional career, that moment of madness was further exposed by England’s subsequent heroic performance as the remaining 10 men desperately hung on through extra time before losing the match on penalties. In the build-up to the World Cup, Beckham had already been the focus of less than flattering attention from the media, especially as his relationship with Posh Spice (Victoria Adams) came under the spotlight. Following his sending-off, the tabloids further inflamed the situation with headlines such as ‘10 Heroic Lions, 1 Stupid Boy’, inciting ridiculous levels of hatred and animosity. Even casting aside my natural bias as a United fan, you cannot convince me that any act on the playing field justifies hate-mail wishing that his baby son would die of cancer.

Beckham’s response also came on the pitch as he bounced back from the lowest point of his career to become the MU fans’ Player of the Year and played a key part in United bec
oming the first team ever to win the Treble (the Premiership, the FA cup and the European Cup).

His England rehabilitation complete in the eyes of his peers, if not some of the more moronic followers of the game, Beckham was eventually handed the captain’s armband by Peter Taylor who was caretaker manager before the arrival of Sven Goran Eriksson. In a master stroke of man management, Eriksson decided to leave the captaincy with him. Whereas many felt that his character was too withdrawn to be given such responsibility, the pride of captaining his country raised Beckham’s game to new heights, culminating in that famous match against Greece. Never mind the vital equaliser or the oft quoted statistic that he ran a total of 10 miles during that game, enduring images include Beckham hounding the ball from Greek player to player when England kept losing possession, and a close-up shot of him berating someone for not staying alert. Roy Keane, eat your heart out.


In this day of spin and PR consultants, it can be hard to decipher what lies beneath the gloss. At the same time, you can be sure that the slightest hint of scandal with someone of Beckham’s status would be picked up by the tabloids at least (it wouldn’t surprise me if some of them had full time investigators assigned to certain celebrities). Beckham must irritate them no end. So the man dressed in a sarong once. So he gets his hair cut differently from time to time. Hardly saucy gossip is it? The fact of the matter is that you won’t find him out drinking the night before a game. You won’t find his fingerprints on empty fire extinguishers. You might see his wife out shopping but that’s about the extent of his ‘wrongdoings’ – hardly a cause for concern as influential role models go, especially as it implies he stayed in to look after their son. Funnily enough, the fact that he spends hours practising those free-kicks,
when the rest of the squad have gone home, is given little coverage. This is the man who has it all, yet hasn’t lost sight of why he is there.

When David and Victoria Beckham agreed to be interviewed by Ali G for Red Nose Day, it was never going to be a classic meeting of the minds but something the one-sided conversation also revealed was that for all his wealth and success, the boy from Leytonstone was still a likable, down to earth character. Throughout the interview, he laughed nervously, almost shyly and let his more show-biz inclined wife do the talking as the sharp tongued comedian ripped into various aspects of their private life. It spoke volumes to me that the one time he sprang into life, his sentences carrying a composed assurance, was when Ali G mocked the poor recent history of the England team.

Beckham responded that it was time for a change, that the new manager had instilled belief and confidence in the squad, that much was possible with the young talent available. The optimist in me also believes England is on the verge of a golden era in football. The realist in me knows that David Beckham will be instrumental in getting us there.

Oh, and he scored with his left foot last night. Bless.

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