Beckham (14 page)

Victoria's mum came down and introduced herself. When you first meet Jackie, she can seem a little prickly. Or, at least, that's what it felt like that evening. It was probably as much to do with me, jumping to a new boyfriend's conclusion and imagining that the mother was being a bit sharp with me even though she wasn't meaning to be:

‘You're the soccer player then, are you?'

Victoria's mum and dad weren't interested in soccer, but living in
Goff's Oak, an area where many players live too, meant they knew some socially. After the opener from Jackie, it was Tony's turn:

‘What team do you play for?'

For whatever reason, I don't think they liked the idea of their daughter going out with a soccer player. Maybe I got stuck with someone else's reputation at first, at least until we met and they could judge for themselves. I don't know if they thought soccer players were all loud and cocky but I just sat there on their sofa and was too nervous to say more than a couple of words. At least they didn't kick me out of the house and, after a while, they said goodnight and disappeared upstairs. I'm sure every mum and dad feels that no boyfriend is ever good enough for their little girl. That, as well as me being a soccer player, might have had something to do with Tony and Jackie being wary of me at first. They knew Victoria, though, and that meant they were willing to get to know me. I'm glad they were. When you marry a woman, you become part of her family too. However frosty I might have imagined they were that first night, Tony and Jackie have welcomed me in ever since.

I think Victoria and I were so happy to have found each other that we wouldn't have minded telling complete strangers about it. That's how it is, being in love: you want the rest of the world to know about it. But our relationship was this big secret. Simon Fuller wanted it that way and I think Victoria understood why, early on at least. Who was I to argue? To be honest, all the ducking and diving, sneaking around and keeping ourselves out of sight, was exciting in a way as well. There was one night when Victoria was in Manchester for a Spice Girls concert. United had a party that same evening to celebrate winning the Premiership. Victoria had traveled up the night before and come to stay with me at the house in Worsley. We arranged that I would try and get to the hotel where she was staying after the club function wound down. All the Girls were around. She couldn't really have disappeared off to North Manchester after her gig.

I left our party around one in the morning, so it was already late.
Victoria was staying at the Midland Hotel and I took a cab across town, and rang on the way to let her know I was coming. I was wearing this trenchcoat, probably looking like a character in a detective movie, and, sticking to the part, I sneaked into the hotel and up the back stairs to the leading lady's room. Victoria answered the door, half asleep, and then I kept her up half the night talking. At one point, very early the next morning, someone knocked at the door. I dashed into the bathroom to hide: well, I'd seen that particular move in plenty of movies too. I crept out of the Midland the same way I'd crept in, and hailed a cab to take me back to Worsley. It wasn't until we were on our way that I realized all I had on me was a pocket full of loose change. I had to watch the meter and got out about 200 yards from my front door, which was as far as my money would take me.

I'd never felt this way about anyone before. As soon as I met Victoria, I knew I wanted to marry her, to have children, to be together always. I could have said it to her on that first date, as we drove round the M25 in her MG. I was that sure that quickly. After we first met, Victoria and I spent a lot of time apart: she was on tour, I was in the middle of an amazing season with United. We got used to each other, found out about one another and learned to trust each other during those four-hour telephone conversations. I'm not the world's best talker, not at least until I know someone well. Maybe being on opposite sides of the world wasn't the worst thing for us in those early days. When we had our chances to be together, it seemed like we'd already grown close very quickly. And for all that I was shy and would sometimes get a bit embarrassed in company, when it came to telling Victoria how I was feeling, I couldn't let nerves stop me saying what I needed to. I remember us lying side by side at her mum and dad's house one evening. It was the simplest, most beautiful conversation two people can ever have with each other:

‘I think I'm in love with you, Victoria.'

‘I think I'm in love with you, too.'

Keeping it all to ourselves wasn't exactly my choice but I respected the way things had to be for Victoria. I'd stepped into Spiceworld and understood how important the Girls and their management team felt it was to keep everything under control. I didn't talk to anyone about what was happening between us. My parents were aware something was going on but, at United, I wasn't going to be a lad who came into the dressing room one morning boasting that he was going out with a pop star. That wasn't me. I remember turning up for training one Monday after a lovely weekend with Victoria and Ben Thornley asking me why I was in such a good mood.

‘I've met this lovely girl.'

‘Who?'

‘Oh, just this lovely girl who lives down in London.'

Rumors started anyway. I suppose that was bound to happen. And rumors are something we've lived with ever since. It wasn't long after our relationship became public that Victoria was getting phone calls to say the papers had pictures of me kissing another girl in my car. Those kinds of stories—completely untrue—still turn up now and again. Of course, proving something's not true is a lot harder than proving it is. We've got used to rumors, though, and how and why they happen. We had to almost from the start. Victoria and I trusted each other then, just as we do now. If you're with someone you love, you know anyway, deep down, what's real and what isn't.

With all the gossip doing the rounds, it got to the point where I had half a dozen photographers camped outside my house in Worsley every day, just waiting for Victoria to turn up. I'd never experienced anything like this before, whereas Victoria had, of course. I think she made the decision, really. She phoned to say she was coming up to see me and that she was happy enough to stop all the secrecy. We knew what we meant to each other, didn't we? It was better that we decided where and when the public found out for sure that we were together. People imagine ours has been a glitzy, showbiz romance. Just remember: the
first photos of us together were taken when we were walking down my road to go to the newsstand on the corner.

Once the story was out officially, I couldn't believe the fuss: flashbulbs popping everywhere we went, stories all over the papers almost every day and everyone having an opinion on us and our lives. I think the attention was as intense as it was because of Victoria; after all, the Spice Girls were making headlines every time they blinked in those days. If I'm honest, all that side of it made being with Victoria even more exciting. It was a daily reminder of just how good she was at what she did. I loved the whole package: her looks, her personality, her energy. Those legs. But I was really turned on, too, by her talent and the recognition in the public eye that came her way because of it. I knew I wasn't the only person out there who thought she was a star.

I realized what was going to happen. I think Victoria did, too. Before long, we'd started talking about getting engaged. I'd even asked her what sort of ring she might like and, being a woman with a pretty clear idea about her taste in things, Victoria had talked straight away about a particular shape of diamond, the stone longer and thinner at one end than the other, almost like the sail on a boat. She was busy with the Spice Girls, and so we didn't settle anything at first, but about six months after we'd begun seeing each other, I arranged a weekend away at a lovely old hotel in Cheshire. It was just down the M6 from Manchester and we checked in early one evening after a United home game.

Somehow I knew this was the right time. A week later, Victoria and the Girls would be off on tour; it would be a year before they were back in England for more than a few days at a time. We had a bedroom overlooking a lake and the fields beyond. It was August, so we had dinner in the room while the sun set in the distance. We were both wearing terrycloth robes, which wasn't exactly the obvious costume for the drama but, after we'd eaten, Victoria sat on the bed and I got down on one knee in front of her and asked her to marry me. I'd always wanted to marry and to have children and now I'd found the woman I
wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Lucky for me, that night in Cheshire, the woman said yes. For all that I'd hoped she would, it's difficult to describe the thrill for me when she said that word. It was like an electric charge running up my spine.

I really believe in the traditional way of doing these things, which meant that proposing to Victoria was the easy bit. I had a pretty good idea that she felt the same way as I did. The really hard part was asking Victoria's dad for his daughter's hand in marriage. I was nervous before I took the penalty against Argentina at the 2002 World Cup but, for tension, building myself up to ask Tony the big question wasn't too far off. I knew I had to do it. I just didn't know how or where or when. We were at their house in Goff's Oak and no-one was giving me an inch. When I asked Jackie if she'd get Tony to come and talk to me, she wasn't having any of it:

‘No, David. You have to do it yourself.'

I eventually cornered the prospective father-in-law in the prospective brother-in-law's old room. I'd asked Tony if we could have a quick word in private and we trudged up the stairs together, me feeling like I was off to an execution. I walked into Christian's old bedroom and tripped on the leg of the bed and stubbed my toe. At least Tony was behind me and so he didn't see it happen. I looked at him. He looked at me. I wasn't doing too well on breathing, never mind getting the words out and the pain in my foot didn't help.

‘Tony. I'm asking Victoria to marry me. Is that okay?'

Not the best speech a would-be son-in-law ever made. He answered as if I'd just asked him if egg and chips would be all right for tea:

‘Yeah. No problem.'

I suppose I'd been getting wound up about it enough for both of us. I know how much Tony and Jackie love Victoria, so I realized his relaxed attitude about us getting engaged meant they'd decided I wasn't the worst sort in the world. In fact, they'd already made me feel part of the family: this was just the next step for us all. Maybe I could have saved
myself from a potential heart attack by not posing the big question, but asking Tony—like going down on one knee to Victoria—wasn't just for show. I was only going to do these things once in my life, which meant they were incredibly important to me: I wanted to make sure I went about them the right way.

I'd like to say that it was because those were the months when I fell in love with Victoria and proposed to her that I don't remember much of United's season in 1997/98. The truth is, I've probably done my best to forget reaching that May and not having any kind of winners' medal to show for it. It was new to all of us, the generation who had grown up together during the 1990s. We'd won Youth Cups and Reserve leagues and then, when we stepped up to the United first team, we'd just carried on where we'd left off as kids. The season ended up being a painful one, learning what it felt like to lose. Suddenly, here were Arsenal, doing what we expected to do ourselves: winning the Double. Without wanting to be disrespectful about that Arsenal team, the disappointment didn't ever undermine our belief in ourselves. They won their games but at United we felt we lost the Premiership by not winning ours. Confidence was still high but maybe our standards had slipped along the way.

We badly missed Roy Keane, who had ruptured his cruciate ligaments in October, and was out for almost the whole season. No team is quite the same without its best players but, when Roy's not in the United side, there's something more than just his ability as a player that the rest have to do without. He was and still is a huge influence. For leadership and drive there's absolutely no one to touch him: he's a great soccer player, of course, but he also brings out the best in the lads around him. Whoever he's screaming at during games, his passion and determination always get that player, and the rest of the team, going. People can come in and cover for him but nobody replaces that strength United get from Roy. We didn't talk about it during the season. The supporters did, the papers did, but we just got on with our games.
Maybe it's only looking back now that I realize how much we missed Keano.

I was lucky, though. So were Nicky Butt, Paul Scholes and the Nevilles. We were finding out what it was like to miss out with United, but we were getting the chance to be part of an England team together. And a successful England team at that. When it came to the end of the season in May 1998, we were hurting from losing out to Arsenal, of course, but there wasn't the time to sit down and feel sorry for ourselves. Almost as soon as the last League game had been played, I was packing my bags for La Manga in Spain, and joining up with the other United lads and the rest of a 27-man England squad to prepare for the biggest summer any of us had ever known. I might have felt a little weary after a long English season, and maybe we all did, but that wasn't important. I was about to experience a World Cup for the first time. France 98 meant new dreams and new expectations: as if being a husband-to-be didn't already have me buzzing every day. I couldn't wait for the tournament—and another chapter—to start.

There are plenty of soccer supporters in England who would rather see their club win the League than see the national team win the World Cup. I can understand that. You follow your club 365 days of every year; you're thinking and talking about it far more than the England side. Everybody gets involved when England are playing in the major tournaments and big games, but your passion for the team you support is there all the time. When I was younger, maybe I was a bit like that. Even though I thought about representing my country, all my focus was on making it at United. Playing for England didn't really begin to matter to me, and didn't begin to seem like a realistic ambition, until after I'd found my feet at Old Trafford.

When I was a boy, Dad used to take me to watch schoolboy internationals involving players who were my age or just a little older, but I don't think we ever went to see the full England side. In my early teens, I played soccer for my District and my County but I never got a sniff of a chance beyond that. Once I'd started at United, I did get invited for trials at the FA National School, which was based at Lilleshall in Shropshire in those days. I went along knowing full well that, even if I'd been offered a place, I wouldn't have taken it up. As it turned out, I never had to think twice about the decision: the coaches at Lilleshall thought I was too small for a sixteen-year-old. I do know players—current England team-mates like Michael Owen and Sol Campbell—who went there and had a really good time. But it wasn't for me. There
was only one school where I wanted to be learning my game: Old Trafford. Who could be better teachers for me than the likes of Nobby Stiles, Eric Harrison and Alex Ferguson?

It's an honor for any player to represent his country. But you can't make it happen for yourself. All you can do is concentrate on playing for your club and hope that you catch the eye of the right person. As a teenager, I had enough on my plate trying to establish myself at United. That first Double-winning season, though, brought all of us into the limelight—and into the reckoning as far as England was concerned. When it happened for me, it all came quicker than I could have imagined, and was a bigger thrill than I'd ever let myself dream it might be. Almost overnight, it seemed I went from being a promising player at my club to being a regular part of the England team challenging for a place in the 1998 World Cup finals in France.

Terry Venables had left the England coaching job straight after Euro 96. I'd already met his replacement, Glenn Hoddle, during the Under-21 Toulon Tournament at the end of the 1995/96 season. We knew Glenn was going to be the next England manager, so it was quite exciting that he came out to France to watch a couple of games and introduce himself to us. As a player, Glenn had been a hero of mine. I'd always admired not just his technical ability—he really was a man who could hit a Hollywood pass—but also his whole approach to the game. I even got him to sign my England shirt after one of the matches. I'm not sure if the Toulon tournament was the first time he'd watched me, but I had a good game the night he showed up. He didn't say anything to me but, going into the new season, the possibility of playing for the full England side was in the back of my mind for the first time.

There aren't many players who get an England call-up completely out of the blue. New caps very rarely come as a complete surprise. I was lucky: I was playing in a successful United team and, against Wimbledon, had scored the kind of goal that brings you to people's attention. Obviously, an England coach knows all about you anyway,
but my start to the season meant there was a lot of speculation in the press, talking about me as a future England player who might be ready for his chance. There was a World Cup qualifier, away to Moldova, in September. I should have spoken to Gary Neville about it, but I think there was a bit of rivalry there: he was already in the England team and I wasn't. Most players have a story about a dramatic phone call or their club manager pulling them aside at the training ground to tell them the news. I found out I'd made the England squad while sitting on the sofa at my mum and dad's. Mum and I had been watching the television, when the details came up. As soon as I saw the name Beckham on the list of players Glenn Hoddle had chosen for his first game in charge, I jumped off the sofa. I surprised myself how excited I was. Mum and I hugged, laughing out loud, and then I was on the phone to my dad who was at work. For once, I think he was completely lost for words. He was proud, though. As proud as I was to be given my chance.

Whenever a new challenge has come along during my career, my first instinctive reaction is to suddenly find myself feeling like a schoolboy again. That was definitely true as I prepared to join up with a full England squad for the first time. I was going to be working alongside big-name senior players like Paul Gascoigne, David Seaman and Alan Shearer. I was just twenty, but at that moment I felt even younger, like a kid who'd been given the chance to meet his heroes. These were the players I'd grown up watching on television and, all of a sudden, I had to get ready to train with them ahead of a World Cup qualifier.

At United, Alex Ferguson was great. He was genuinely pleased for me, and told me just to go down and enjoy myself:

‘If you get the chance, play well. Just play like you have been doing for us at United.'

I took him at his word. I met up with the rest of the squad at Bisham Abbey and my first session with Glenn and with England was the best I'd ever trained in my life. I was beating players, getting my crosses in, every single pass reached its man. I even stuck a couple of shots away
past David Seaman into the top corner. It was the kind of training session you'd have in a dream; it was a little bit weird just how perfect it was.

I don't know how much it had to do with impressing him in training but for his first game in charge as England manager, Glenn Hoddle put me in the starting line-up. Of course, it helped that there were players around me who I knew well, like Gary Neville, Gary Pallister and Paul Ince. And we made a great start: Gary Nev and I were both involved in the build-up to the first goal, which was scored by Nicky Barmby. A few minutes later, Gazza had got a second and we weren't going to lose it from there. In the second half, Alan Shearer got a third. As debuts go, it wasn't spectacular but I felt as if I belonged straight away. I'd helped set up that third goal for the captain as well. Perhaps because I hadn't had years of looking forward to international soccer, nerves weren't a problem and I'd just got on with playing my game, like Mr Ferguson had told me to. On September 1 1996, on a Sunday afternoon in a city called Kishinev, on a bumpy field in front of about 10,000 people, I became an international soccer player.

Glenn Hoddle must have been pretty pleased, too. I played in every game of the qualifying campaign for France 98 that, thirteen months later, found us needing a draw in Rome against Italy to go through as group winners. After we'd lost 1–0 to Italy at Wembley, everybody had assumed we would have to win a two-legged play-off to qualify. And before the return game most people still thought that was what would happen. Italy had won their last fifteen fixtures at the Stadio Olimpico and we had our captain, Alan Shearer, out injured, with Ian Wright coming in for him on the night. Even the England fans who made the trip, believing we could do it, had a surprise coming: nobody expected us to play as well as we did. It turned into a fantastic night for England.

There were over 80,000 inside the stadium and there was quite a lot of trouble in the crowd before the game but, by the time we came out, the atmosphere was just amazing. We had a team full of young players
but we gave a really professional performance. I thought we beat the Italians at their own game: we were disciplined, everybody knew what they were supposed to be doing and we passed and kept the ball brilliantly all game. Everybody played well but, early on especially, Paul Gascoigne set the tone for the whole team. Every time he got the ball—and he went looking for it all over the field—he kept possession and refused to be hurried. He was doing step-overs, flicking the ball through an opponent's legs for a pass, as if he was challenging them:
We're as good as you are with the ball, you know.
It was just what the rest of us needed.

We kept our heads, even though the Italians were flying into their tackles, wanting the win just as much as we did. Then they had Angelo Di Livio sent off late in the second half. In the stands and watching at home on television, people must have thought we'd done it. In fact, it was only in the time left between then and the end of the match that I started getting nervous. Ian Wright was clean through, went round the goalkeeper, but then hit the post with his shot.
Is it going to be one of those nights? We're that close. Are they going to run up the other end now and score?

The Italians broke upfield and Christian Vieri had a free header in the last minute and put it over the bar. Seconds later, the whistle went. Everybody charged off the bench and we were celebrating together out on the field. Glenn and his number two, John Gorman, were jumping up and down: they'd done a fantastic job preparing us for that game. Paul Ince looked like the hero of the hour, with his head all bandaged up after he'd caught an elbow during the game. Wrighty was dancing around, hugging everybody he could lay his hands on. The supporters up in the stand behind the dugouts were dancing, too, singing the tune from
The Great Escape
. I looked around me, trying to take all this in. I'd been an England player for just over a year and here we were, going mad, on our way to France for the World Cup the following summer. I was so proud to be part of it all.

It must have been an amazing night for Paul Gascoigne. He was back at Lazio's home ground with England and he was the one celebrating. People back home had been wondering if he was past his best and here he'd turned in the kind of performance you'd never forget. The way Gazza played that night—his ability, his nerve and the passion—I still wonder if that wasn't what we were missing at France 98. I know Glenn Hoddle had his reasons for not including Paul in the squad, but I think we'd have been better with Gazza there. Even if it was just him coming off the bench for twenty minutes, Paul could bring something to the team nobody else could. He could change a game on his own. And I know we'd all have liked him to be around as part of the squad.

What made it worse was the way Paul and the others found out they weren't going to be in the final 22 for the tournament. It was a bit like a meat market: ‘You're in. You're out.' It was the wrong way to go about doing it. We were in La Manga in southern Spain, 27 of us in all, to prepare for the World Cup together before the manager made his decision about the final squad. Everybody was nervous, thinking about who wouldn't be going to France.
It could be someone from my club, a mate. It could be me
. One afternoon, after training, we were given timed appointments at the hotel: five-minute slots to go in and see Glenn, to find out what was going to happen to us. Almost from the start, the schedule wasn't working. I remember, at one point, sitting on the floor in a corridor with five other lads while we waited our turn. It was a ridiculous way to treat the players.

When eventually it came to my turn, the meeting didn't last long. Looking back, it makes it seem even more unlikely that things turned out for me the way they did once the World Cup began. I walked into the room and Glenn's first words were:

‘Well, David, it goes without saying that you're in the squad.'

And that was it. At least I didn't hold up the next appointment. I was in the 22; but what about everyone else? Rumors had been flying
around all day, not surprising when everybody was just waiting to find out what would happen to them. There was a leak somewhere in the camp, too: stories kept on turning up in the papers that could only have come from inside the England set-up. People were saying there was going to be one big story coming out of all this, that one high-profile name would be left out of the squad. The suggestion seemed to be that it would be Gazza. But nobody knew for sure, neither the press nor the players.

We were down by the pool earlier in the day and I sat next to Paul. Suddenly, he turned over on his sun bed.

‘Do you know something, David? I love you. You're a great young player and you're a great lad. I love playing soccer with you.'

I looked at him. This was me, listening to one of England's greatest-ever players.

‘I really want to go to this World Cup, David. I want to play in this World Cup with you.'

He said that more than once. He must have heard the rumor that he might be left out. It wasn't until later that we all found out what had happened, that the manager had told him he wasn't in the 22 and that Paul had gone mad. Gary Neville was in the room next door to Gazza's and heard the shouting and the furniture flying. I must admit that by the time that news came through I was more concerned about a couple of my United team-mates.

The fact that Gary and Phil Neville, Paul Scholes, Nicky Butt and I were so close made it even worse when Phil and Butty missed out. A couple of days before, one of the staff had even given Phil a wink, as if to say he was going to be in the squad. That only made his disappointment harder to take. I went up to see them as soon as I found out. Their flight home was in an hour's time and they were standing in their room, bags packed. I gave Phil a big hug. The five of us had grown up together and now two of them were on their way home. It must have hurt Gary even more, saying goodbye to his brother. Thinking about it
now, of course, Butty and Phil had plenty of time ahead of them in international soccer. Paul Gascoigne had just missed out on his last chance of representing his country.

I wasn't the only one upset about the boys who'd been left out and the way they'd had to find out about it. We had a training session the next morning that was just about as bad as any I can remember. The atmosphere was eerie. We were just expected to get straight on with it. I realized the World Cup was only days away, but I felt there needed to be a time to relax, to take stock of things as a group. With Glenn, the intensity never dropped. Even when we had an evening off, we'd find ourselves all in a room with a bar, downstairs at the hotel, with the doors shut and the curtains drawn, so nobody could get near us. What we really needed was something different occasionally: perhaps just to sit in reception for an hour or two, sign some autographs for the kids and chat with England supporters. Everybody felt really low but nothing was said about the situation. The other lads had gone and Glenn just expected us to forget about the emotional side of it and act as if nothing had happened. It all felt very strange and, as far as the training went, it seemed to me that most of the players' minds were on other things that day.