Beckham Page 15

  ‘Whatever’s happened here, I think you’re a great young lad and an excellent young player. I’m proud to have played for England with you. You can be stronger for this. You can be a better player after it.’

  We left the ground and my mum and dad were waiting by the coach. I fell into Dad’s arms and started sobbing. I couldn’t stop. I’m a bit embarrassed thinking about it now but, at the time, I just couldn’t help myself. Eventually, I calmed down and Dad pushed me onto the coach. I sat down and leaned my head against the cool of the window. Gary Neville got on and sat next to me. He could see I’d been crying. He could see I might be about to start again.

  ‘Don’t let anyone see you like this. You shouldn’t be like this. You haven’t done anything wrong. What’s happened has happened.’

  I looked at him.

  ‘Victoria’s pregnant.’

  Gary’s eyes opened that bit wider.

  ‘Well, there you are. Just get out there and be with her. That’s the best news anybody could ever have. Just think about that. It was a soccer match. This is a new life.’

  When Seba Veron joined United, I remember we talked about the reaction of the Argentinian players, or at least some of them, when they saw me with my dad that night. As their coach pulled away out of the parking lot, we could see them looking back, bare-chested, laughing and swinging their shirts above their heads.

  We went straight to the airport and then flew back to La Baule for our last night at France 98. Some of the players went right to their rooms; others went for a drink. I found myself in the games room with Terry and Slatts and Steve McManaman. Usually, we’d have hot chocolates and get off to bed a little after midnight. That last night, though, Terry told me I had to have something to drink. I had a couple of beers. I don’t usually drink but, that evening, the alcohol helped numb the pain a little. We hung around, the four of us, not saying all that much—there wasn’t much to say by now—and I don’t think I turned in until about four in the morning, even though we had to be up at nine for our Concorde flight back to England.

  I made arrangements to travel to the States that same night. England were out of the World Cup. I wanted as much time with Victoria as possible before training for a new season started. My parents flew straight back to England from Saint-Etienne and were there to meet me at Heathrow the following day. By the time Concorde touched down, someone at the airport had been kind enough to offer us use of her office for the couple of hours before I got my connecting flight to the States. I found Mum and Dad, gave them my belongings and got changed for the onward flight. I knew I wouldn’t see them for the best part of a fortnight and I had news that I wanted to give them face to face rather than over a phone. I told them Victoria was pregnant.

  They seemed very surprised. And worried, too. Maybe it was because they’d already got an idea of the reaction I was going to get back home after my sending off. Joanne was with them and she hugged and kissed me, but Mum was quite quiet and I remember Dad just said:

  ‘Are you sure it’s not too soon?’

  We had to say our goodbyes. I headed off to the departure lounge and checked in my luggage without any fuss at all. I’d been warned that there would be press around looking for me but it seemed like everything was quiet. Once I was through security, I thought I’d be fine, that nobody would be able to get to that side of immigration and passport control. I was wrong. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a group of photographers and a couple of camera crews heading towards me, together with this little guy who I recognized from previous times; he’d always be running alongside you, whispering things to you and trying to provoke a reaction.

  ‘Do you think you’ve let the team down, David? Have you let the country down? Do you realize what you’ve done, David? Should you be leaving the country right now?’

  I had about two hundred yards to walk to the lounge. I slung my bag over one shoulder, just stared in front of me and marched on, not saying a word. It must have looked mad, with all these people trailing after me. Maybe it looked bad in the newspapers or on television, like I was running away. But I knew I just had to keep going. I couldn’t afford to react in the wrong way now. I didn’t need people telling me how bad I should be feeling. I already felt all that and worse. I wanted to be able to shut my eyes and be with Victoria. What could I do but try and blank the cameras out?

  I made it to that finishing line and, a few minutes later, I was on the Concorde again. The flurry of snappers at Heathrow had given me an idea of what I could have expected had I stayed at home. As the plane took off, I assumed I was leaving all that behind: not my own disappointment about what had happened in Saint-Etienne, but having it stuck in my face by the media.

  It was a little bit scary arriving at New York’s JFK. I’d been to America before but this was the first time on my own. I walked up to the security checkpoint. There were these guards, with guns and dark sunglasses, looking really serious, wanting to know what was in this bag and that one. I’d arranged for a driver to meet me. As I walked out through the doors into the arrivals hall, there was a crowd of photographers, camera crews, and press waiting for me. This is New York. This shouldn’t be happening.

  I jumped into the car and went to close the door but there were people holding it open so I couldn’t. It was ridiculous. I was having a tug of war with whoever was on the other side of the door. Then, when I got that one shut, the door on the other side of the car was pulled open, and a female photographer started snapping away at me in the back seat. I couldn’t believe what was going on. I thought that, once I’d reached America, I’d be all right. Instead, I was in the middle of a scene from a movie: I’d never experienced anything like this back at home.

  When we finally got the doors shut and locked, we headed straight to Madison Square Garden and a Spice Girls concert. I hadn’t really organized things properly, so I didn’t even know how to get in to the place. We arrived outside and I was wandering around, looking for a stage door, until I spotted one of the tour managers. He took me inside and we set off down this corridor towards the Girls’ dressing rooms.

  Then the strangest thing happened: we were walking along and Victoria came the other way and walked straight past. She didn’t recognize me: I had this big jacket on and a hat pulled low down on my head after the craziness at the airport. She hadn’t been expecting me to get there so early and it was one of those moments when it takes a couple of beats to realize what has just happened. I turned round and she came running back. I just held onto her and didn’t want to let go. We went through to the dressing room and I said hello to the other girls. Then Victoria and I crept into this tiny shower room and she showed me the scan of our new baby. It was just amazing. It was like a little pea on the picture: the scan was taken much earlier than the ones you’re allowed to see in England. I was tingling with excitement. Any father will tell you, you can’t imagine that feeling until it happens.

  We went back to see the Girls and suddenly they were hugging and kissing me. I could hardly take it all in.

  ‘Oh, I meant to say. Someone’s coming in to meet us all in a minute,’ said Victoria.

  And in walked Madonna. She sat down and started chatting to Victoria and the other girls, while I just kept quiet and tried to make sure my mouth wasn’t hanging open. Then she turned to me:

  ‘Oh, you’re the soccer player, aren’t you?’

  How did Madonna know who I was? I can’t say I wasn’t a bit pleased about that. As far as replying was concerned, I was dumbstruck. Madonna’s just spoken to me, like she knows me. It was one of those situations where you’re sure that, whatever you say, it’s going to come out sounding stupid.

  ‘Yes.’

  It was time for the Girls to go on stage. The concert was absolutely fantastic. The Spice Girls were always great on stage: the energy, the color, the talent and the hard work, all of it shone through. Over the next twelve days, I turned into the Spice Girls’ number one groupie. It wasn’t the most relaxing vacation I’ve ev
er had but I loved every minute of it: traveling around on the tour bus, hanging out with Victoria in luxurious hotel rooms and then, every night, going to watch one of those amazing concerts.

  On that first night at Madison Square Garden, I remember watching Victoria up there on stage, in front of a packed audience at one of the world’s great venues, looking and sounding so good and, at the same time—in the middle of all the lights and noise and thousands of people jumping up and down—there was a little quiet place, all mine, where I knew Victoria had our baby inside her. I had that first picture of Brooklyn in my mind all evening long.

  Maybe I’d been leading a charmed life until that summer in 1998. What disappointments had I really had to face until then? I’d grown up dreaming about playing for Manchester United and the dream had come true. No sooner had I got to Old Trafford, I was in the first team with this inspired group of boys my own age and we were winning championships and cups. And then, almost overnight, I’d had the call to play for England and been part of getting my country through to the finals of the most important tournament of all. In hindsight, perhaps luck had run for me. I hadn’t had much practice dealing with the big knocks, the kind of blows I had to take that June. I know how disappointed the England players and fans were that night in Saint-Etienne. At the eye of the storm, I was crushed by what had happened too. What I wasn’t ready for, at 23 years of age, was for all the blame for defeat against Argentina to be laid just on me.

  My life, like anybody else’s, has been full of lessons to be learned. The difference that comes with a career as a high-profile soccer player, with every move fixed in the public eye, is that I’ve had less margin for error and less time in which to come to terms with my mistakes. That isn’t something I can complain about, because the same whirlwind that blew through my life as a result of me being sent off against Argentina, could also blow me across the Atlantic into the arms of the woman—the Girl—that I loved. Twenty-four hours after the worst moment I could ever have imagined, I was at Madison Square Garden, with a grainy hospital Polaroid in my pocket, as excited and as happy as any lad could ever be. One night, my life was falling to pieces on a soccer field in France. The next, despite that hurt, I was just letting the best feeling of all sink in: I was going to be a dad. I couldn’t have known what was waiting for me back home in England, or how I’d have to deal with it all. But if I was going to be a father for that little speck of a new life in Victoria’s scan, now had to be the time for me to learn to be a man.

  7

  Thanks for Standing By Me

  ‘When we disembark, there’ll be police waiting for you at the gate.’

  Alex Ferguson has all sorts of great qualities as a manager. Just remembering France 98, one stands out in particular: the boss sticks by his players and backs them, even through the very worst of times.

  ‘Just get yourself back to Manchester,’ he said to me. ‘Don’t worry about what anyone says. Get yourself back here, where people love you and support you. You can have your say back to the rest of them after the season begins.’

  Some people have an idea that it’s something to criticize, but I can tell you that the boss’s loyalty to his players means they have cast iron respect for him as a man and absolute faith in him as a manager. One of the reasons I went to United in the first place was his attitude to young hopefuls: the boss made you feel like you were joining a family, not just a soccer club. And through thick and thin, beyond any disagreement or confrontation between us, it always felt like that at Old Trafford. The manager is the reason why. Knowing he was behind me really helped me get through that summer in 1998, and the early part of the season that followed.

  While I was in America with Victoria, I had the chance to look at some of the English press coverage in the wake of what had happened in Saint-Etienne. Maybe I’d have been better off listening to the people who told me I shouldn’t. Even thousands of miles away, some of the headlines like ‘TEN HEROIC LIONS, ONE STUPID BOY’ hit me hard. I realized what I’d done but, at the same time, it seemed to me that the media reaction was way over the top: it was a soccer match that had brought all this on, after all. A big soccer match, yes. But did that justify the way the papers seemed to be treating me? I’d expected a backlash but I was shocked by the intensity of it. I understood the disappointment of England being knocked out of the World Cup, but some of the stuff that was written—particularly that first morning after the Argentina game—lit a fuse with some people. For them, hatred seemed contagious.

  Of course, I was away on the other side of the Atlantic but that didn’t stop other people getting put under pressure instead of me. I talked to Mum and Dad: by the time they got back to London from Saint-Etienne, there were already more than thirty people camped outside the house. The phone was being bugged, they had camera crews in their faces every time they opened the front door. The press even set up a little table and chairs with coffee and tea for themselves on the pavement. They were there all the time I was with Victoria in the States. I’d already started to get used to that kind of attention from my life with Victoria. For my parents, it was something completely new and it wasn’t as if it had been them who had been sent off at a World Cup. It was a real test for both of them but, because they were there for each other, they had the strength to see it through. Even now they haven’t told me the half of what went on during those first few days after the Argentina game. Maybe they don’t want me to know. Maybe they don’t want to think about it themselves ever again. For all that I’ve put that time behind me now, some of it still haunts me: my face as a dart board, the effigy hanging from a lamp-post, the staged interviews with supporters.

  ‘Beckham’s a disgrace to his country. He should never play for England again.’

  A lot of what was said and written about me appeared on the front pages, the news pages, and didn’t come from soccer writers, although one or two of them were pretty vindictive too. I’ve got all of it filed away. It’s not a black book or anything but, if you’re saving stuff, you need to save it all. My parents’ house was always full of clippings waiting to go into scrapbooks. We’ve collected them all since I was a boy. One or two people have come out since 1998 and said they regretted their part in what happened. The Editor of the Mirror, Piers Morgan, whose paper ran the dart board thing, has been honest enough to admit they went too far. I remember the other things that really hurt at the time, and just hope the journalists who wrote them do as well. It’s strange now, as England captain, when I’m up front at press conferences. I think I’ve got a decent relationship with the guys who cover the national side and I’m proud to be talking to them on behalf of my team-mates. A lot of those same journalists were around during that summer five years ago, and I’m sure they remember, as I do, what it was like between the media and me back then. After I arrived back in England, I made a point of avoiding talking to the press completely for the best part of a year. That wasn’t just a way of getting my own back for what was being said and written about me. I knew I was being watched like never before, and I didn’t want to get into a situation where I might say something I’d later regret.

  Even before I got off the plane after my time in the States, I got my own sense of what my family had been put through while I was away. The Chief Steward on the flight back to London came over to my seat an hour ahead of us landing at Heathrow.

  ‘When we disembark, there’ll be police waiting for you at the gate.’

  I thought he was joking. What were the police there for? To arrest me? To protect me? Either way, this was going a bit far, wasn’t it? Sure enough, there were half a dozen uniformed officers waiting to meet me. We walked through the terminal in a little cluster: me in the middle, them all around me. It was all I could do not to laugh out loud. What was all this about? I got my answer soon enough. When we came out through the arrivals area, a wave of camera crews, photographers and journalists broke towards us, shouting out for pictures, for me to say something, for any kind of reaction at all. Th
e policemen just bundled me across the hall and into the back of the car that was waiting to pick me up. It was terrifying. And it was just the start.

  A couple of days later, I was back at Old Trafford for pre-season training. For a few hours every day, at least, I could just concentrate on soccer and shut everything else out of my mind. There was a bit of light-hearted banter in the dressing room but my team-mates knew I was struggling with what was happening and, in that situation, players will always support each other. And I was happy being back with them and playing again. The distraction helped me put on a brave face for Mum and Dad, who were being put through it enough without having to see me really upset about things as well. They’d been advised by the police to come up to Manchester because it wasn’t safe for me to be on my own in the house in Worsley. Dad used to drive me into training at the Cliff and then pick me up again after work. I wouldn’t have asked them. In fact I offered to send them off on vacation for a break from it all. But I think my parents felt easier being there with me.

  I think it might be hard for people to understand what it was like living my life in those first months after the World Cup. It was difficult enough for my friends to imagine it until they experienced it first hand. A couple of days after I got back from America, Dave Gardner and I met up after training to go and have some lunch in Manchester city center. We went to a place we knew called The Living Room. Usually, it was friendly enough, and was somewhere we went regularly because people knew us but left us to get on with our meal. That afternoon, though, Dave and I strolled in and it was like that scene in the Western where the guy walks into the wrong saloon in Deadwood Gulch. People turned round and stared daggers. It was pretty unnerving. We slunk over into a corner and just buried our heads in the menu.