Beckham Page 16

  ‘I’m not coming out with you again, mate,’ Dave whispered. ‘It’s more than my life’s worth.’

  For the next few months, we used to joke about getting fitted up in bullet-proof undershirts and crash helmets before we left the house. You had to find a way of laughing about it just to keep the tension at arms’ length.

  On the soccer side, the manager didn’t need to say much. We knew what we had to do: make up for the underachievement of the year before. That hadn’t been good enough for us, for the club or for the supporters. We knew 1998/99 was going to have to be a big season. Even more so for me personally: I went into it with the feeling that, in the aftermath of the World Cup, this was make or break for me, at least as far as playing in England was concerned.

  For the first Premiership game of the new season, we were at home to Leicester City. I don’t think I’ve ever been as nervous before a soccer match as I was that afternoon. I’d always had a good relationship with the crowd at Old Trafford, but what reaction would I get now? I wasn’t sure how I was going to respond either. The last time I’d played a really competitive game had been in Saint-Etienne. There was this little nagging uncertainty in the back of my mind that morning: how did I know that what had happened against Argentina wouldn’t happen again? It wasn’t as if I understood exactly why I’d reacted to Simeone’s antics: I didn’t know now, for sure, if I’d be able stop myself getting into the same situation again. I didn’t have the experience back then to realize that I was a relatively immature person who, as a player, was just burning up with the desire to win games. I was desperate to kick off against Leicester but I was dreading those ninety minutes too.

  There were more than the ninety to play, as it turned out. The home fans were fantastic to me that afternoon. Every time I went to take a corner, thousands of them stood up to cheer for me. They wanted me to know they were behind me. And that meant so much. It was an amazing feeling. With 60,000 United fans on your side, you’re ready to take on the rest of the world. The game, though, had a twist: we were 2–0 down at half time. Teddy Sheringham made it 2–1 and then, in injury time at the end, we were awarded a free-kick just outside the Leicester penalty area. I stepped up and there was this hush around the ground: it was eerie, the silence. Anybody who was there, I’m sure, will remember it. The only voice I could hear was the one in my head. Please go in. Please, please go in.

  Once I’d struck it with the inside of my right foot, the ball spun up over the wall and down into the corner of the goal, almost in slow motion, it seemed. The time it took for the shot to go past the goalkeeper was enough for me to realize what a perfect moment this was. I ran to the corner flag with my arms stretched out and spun round in a sort of clumsy pirouette. I knew exactly what I wanted to say to the United supporters above the roar. I didn’t know what to expect. Thank you for standing by me. That goal’s for you.

  I’ve always felt in control when I was out on the field. However difficult it was with away crowds, I could get on with playing. If I was kicking a ball, there was never a chance of anything else distracting me. Away from soccer, though, it got stranger and stranger. Victoria was on tour most of the time and Mum and Dad had gone back to London to work. I was on my own in the evenings at home. I remember one night in particular. The house in Worsley had an alarm system, so I wasn’t worried about anybody breaking in. But, that night, a bang—sounding like it was coming from out in the garden—woke me up. I got a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, not knowing what was going on but fearing the worst. The police had given me an emergency number to ring in case anything happened but I decided to check for myself. I didn’t want to call them out if it was just a cat trying to get into my garbage bin.

  I got out of bed and crept down the stairs. I leaned down and looked out of the landing window. Standing at the back fence was this bloke, arms crossed, looking back up at me. First thing I remembered was that I didn’t have any clothes on. He just stared at me. It was like some weird kind of hypnotism. He wasn’t moving and I couldn’t either. Eventually, I pulled the window open and shouted at him.

  ‘What do you want?’

  He didn’t move a muscle. He didn’t reply. He just stood there, staring up at me, not caring at all that I’d seen him. I think those moments were the scariest of the lot. I don’t know how long the pair of us were there, looking at one another. I didn’t know what was going on, never mind knowing what I could do about it. I rang the police but, by the time they arrived, the man had disappeared. It gives me a shiver even now to think about it.

  I’d been shaky before that Leicester game, even though it was at Old Trafford, in the heart of the United family. The first away match of the season was the one everybody had been looking ahead to: West Ham at Upton Park. That was where people were expecting me to really feel the pressure. In a strange way, though, I found myself looking forward to it. I had this sense that I needed to experience how bad the abuse could be if I was going to get past it and put it behind me for the rest of the season. I knew it was going to be a challenge and I just wanted to get on with facing up to it.

  I’ll never forget arriving at Upton Park for the game. As I got off the team bus, trying to catch a glimpse of what was going on outside, there was this policeman standing at the door waiting for me. I thought he was standing on the steps at first. He was so huge he seemed to be blocking out the sun. It was almost as if the size of him was a warning about the scale of the hostility. They were waiting for me out in the parking lot: hundreds of people, anger all over their faces. It amazed me then. It amazes me even more, now that I’m a father myself: dads screaming at me, calling me every name under the sun, with their sons—six-or seven-year-olds—standing beside them, looking up at that kind of example.

  It was only some time later, when I saw pictures of the crowd, that I perhaps appreciated how intense it was at Upton Park that day. I’ve got one particular photo at home that still spooks me: I’m taking a corner and you can see the expressions on people’s faces in the crowd behind me. You can almost feel the aggression; it’s caught there in the picture. And it’s not: you’re a crap player who cost us the World Cup and who should never play for England again. It’s way past that, way past anything to do with soccer. The looks on those faces said it all:

  ‘If we could, we’d have you, Beckham.’

  That hatred makes you wonder what soccer’s worth, if it provokes those sorts of emotions. If you snapped out of your concentration on the game and became aware of moments like that, what would you do? Walk off the field? I just don’t understand it at all. Lucky for me, I felt whatever was coming my way I could take on the chin. When we came off at the end of the match, after a 0–0 draw, I felt a shudder of relief. I’d probably imagined far worse leading up to the day and it seemed the reality of it hadn’t been that difficult to get through after all. The abuse from the fans, in the wake of France 98, didn’t stop after that afternoon at West Ham; but it being a problem for me as a Manchester United player probably did.

  It started with me not sure about whether I’d make it through to the following May in one piece. It ended up being the most incredible season any of us—maybe any soccer player in this country—will ever experience. I don’t know if United will ever win the Treble again, or whether anybody else will. But, either way, it’ll never be done the way we did it: whichever team comes after will have to write their own script because only that group of United players could have made the story unfold the way it did. And, for me, the adventures that season had their own personal twist, which took the events of the spring and summer of 1999 out there into make believe. Just when people were starting to imagine what might be possible for the team, Brooklyn arrived in Victoria’s life and mine. And just a couple of months after United’s unbelievable night at the Nou Camp—the night the impossible happened—I, David Robert Joseph Beckham, took my vows and married the girl of my dreams.

  Down the years, there are certain teams that Man United have learned to measur
e themselves against in European competition. We were in the same Champions League Group as two of them in 1998, and they were amazing games: we drew 3–3 twice with Barcelona and 1–1 and 2–2 with Bayern Munich before Christmas. Although we didn’t win any of those games, it showed we could compete against the best around at the time. Outside Old Trafford, people started getting the idea that this might be United’s year. We never thought about it, not that early on anyway. But self-belief isn’t something that you need to be talking about for it to happen.

  We played some great soccer in the Premiership that season. Dwight Yorke and Andy Cole couldn’t stop scoring goals: they had an understanding between them right from the start. I remember beating Everton 4–1 at Goodison and Leicester 6–2 at Filbert Street. Then we went to the City Ground and hammered Nottingham Forest 8–1; it was Steve McClaren’s first game as team coach after Brian Kidd had moved on to take over as manager at Blackburn. That was some afternoon: Ole Gunnar Solskjaer came on as a sub and scored four goals in about ten minutes. Steve looked round the dressing room at us afterwards, new man in the job and not quite sure what to say. He got it about right:

  ‘Not bad, lads. Is it like this every week?’

  Obviously, things were going really well already when Steve came in to replace Kiddo. And in that first season with United, he did well not to disrupt what the boss and Brian already had in place. He just concentrated on keeping the momentum going.

  When you’ve had as much help with your game as I have, ever since the earliest days with Ridgeway Rovers, it’s not right to talk about ‘better coaching’ or ‘the best coach’. What I’d say for sure, though, is that Steve McClaren brought very different—and very much his own— qualities to the job. His technical ability, his organization, his communication on the training field, were all absolutely outstanding. He had a really open mind, too. If Steve heard about something new, he’d try it. If it worked, we’d use it. If not, nothing had been lost by having a go. When he arrived at Old Trafford in February 1999, he won the players’ respect very quickly indeed.

  United are a competitive team, even in training. Now and again, the manager will have to cut short a session because things are getting too heated. That’s how it’s always been at the club, from the youth team up. It’s an edge: that desperation to win, never mind that it’s only five-a-side games at training on a Friday morning. Steve took that on and he understood, as well, that our style was all about possession of the ball and made sure that was what training focused on. He made us laugh, too. In his fantasy moments, Steve McClaren is a very stylish player indeed: back then, he thought he was Glenn Hoddle, spraying his passes around the training fields at Carrington. We were already on a roll when Steve arrived but he kept the lads going all the way to the Champions League Final, even if it wasn’t until the following season that he really made his own mark.

  United have taken some criticism over the club’s attitude to the FA Cup in recent seasons, particularly for not defending it in 2001 when we were asked to compete in FIFA’s new World Club Championship out in Brazil. All I can say is that the manager along with every United player loves the competition, not least because it was so important the season we won the Treble. The third round match against Liverpool was one of the biggest games of that 1998/99 season. Liverpool scored through Michael Owen almost from the kick-off and then we battered them for the next eighty minutes without making a really good goal-scoring chance. The atmosphere was as good as I ever played in at Old Trafford. Maybe the fact that it was a cup game and Liverpool had more supporters there than they would for a Premiership match had something to do with it. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer came on as a sub. He always seemed to come on as a sub that season. And we equalized almost at once. Then Ole got the winner at the end and the place went berserk: for once the drama had been as intense as the rivalry.

  Cup soccer has an edge. The Champions League starts to get much more exciting, for the supporters and for the players, at the knockout stage. In 1999, we were drawn against Inter Milan in the quarter-finals. It would have been a big game anyway but, beforehand, all the hype was about the fact that it would be the first meeting between David Beckham and Diego Simeone, who played his club soccer for Inter, since the World Cup and Saint-Etienne. Never mind who was going to win, half the pre-match build-up seemed to be about who would and who wouldn’t be shaking a particular opponent’s hand before kick-off at Old Trafford.

  As far as I was concerned, all that really mattered was the game. The only thing I made up my mind about in advance was that I’d try to get Simeone’s shirt afterwards. It’s framed at home now, along with all the others from great players I’ve competed against during my career. I had something else on my mind, too, that evening: the one thing in the world that might have seemed more important than the soccer match I was getting ready to play. Victoria was due to give birth to our baby any day. I was sitting in the players’ lounge at Old Trafford, waiting to go into our team meeting, when the cell phone rang. Victoria’s number came up on the screen. This is it. It’s happening. It turned out Victoria had called to tell me she’d had a twinge but that things were okay. She was fine and wished me good luck and I went into the meeting with a clear head.

  Before Champions League games, you go along the line of opposition players before kick-off, shaking hands. I still remember the explosion of flashbulbs that went off at the moment Simeone and I came face to face. During the match itself, we didn’t see all that much of each other, save for a moment when we almost collided and he caught my ankle. I’ll never know whether he meant it or not. The important thing was I didn’t react. It turned into a great night for us. In the first half, I sent in two crosses that Dwight Yorke put away and the final score was 2–0. Inter were a really difficult team to play against and that result was just right. I was a happy man by the time I spoke to Victoria on the phone again. She laughed when I told her I’d got Simeone’s shirt and that he’d given me a peck on the cheek as we came off the field at the end. We agreed I’d head down to London after training the following day.

  That win, a good night’s sleep and a stretch in the morning—it suddenly felt like I was starting to move on from the sending off and everything that had come with it. Whether anybody else would, of course, wasn’t up to me. It wouldn’t be until the summer of 2002 that I’d be able, finally, to put what happened in Saint-Etienne behind me forever. But having played well against Inter—and with Simeone’s shirt on the back seat of the car—I headed down the M6 at lunchtime without a care in the world. I’d be with the mum-to-be in a couple of hours.

  I remember I was munching on a Lion bar when the phone call came. I nearly choked on the thing.

  ‘David? It’s Victoria. The doctor says he wants me to go into hospital and have the baby tonight.’

  I’ve had a lot of things happen during my soccer career that not many other people have had the chance to experience. Every father, though, knows what I felt like the moment Victoria told me what was about to happen. The excitement, fear and happiness—this was the biggest thing that was ever going to take place in my life—left me feeling like I was going to be sick. I threw away the chocolate bar and held onto the steering wheel hard until I stopped shaking. I couldn’t get down to London fast enough.

  When I got to her parents’ house in Goff’s Oak, Victoria was in the bath. The pains had turned into something else. She knew what it meant. She looked up at me:

  ‘David, I’m really nervous.’

  You’re not the only one. I didn’t know what to say. We got everything ready and headed for the hospital, the Portland, in London. Victoria was going to have an elective caesarean: the doctor had decided it was the safest thing for her and for the baby. Everything happened so quickly. We barely had time to put Victoria’s bag down before we were taken up to this small room beside the operating theatre where she got fitted up with a drip and had her epidural. I think those were the tensest few minutes of all. There was a little panic about getting me g
owned up: I ended up wearing a pair of those blue hospital pants that were at least five sizes too big. Maybe it was better to be worrying and giggling about that than thinking too hard about what was waiting on the other side of those double doors.

  Victoria was rolled through on a trolley and then transferred to the bed in the operating room. I followed her through. I squeezed her hand and told her I loved her.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she asked me. ‘I can’t feel anything, you know.’

  Which was good because, by then, they’d already made the incision. I’d never been in an environment as weird and alien as that room: I just tried to concentrate on Victoria and put where I was out of my mind. She looked up:

  ‘I’m really hungry. Do you think you’ll be able to get me some smoked salmon?’

  She’d been wolfing down the stuff all through the pregnancy—and I’m sure that’s why Brooklyn has always preferred fish to red meat—but I hadn’t expected her to get that kind of craving just then. I was waiting, watching. I could feel my heart beating away in my chest. And, all of a sudden, the mum was feeling peckish. The very next moment, our baby was there, held by a nurse in the air. I could see him; Victoria couldn’t at first. Because it was a caesarean, they had to put Brooklyn on a table and run a little tube into his mouth and nose to clear his airways. The nurse bundled him up in a terrycloth, as tight as you like, and passed him over to me. Because Victoria was still being stitched up at that point, I got to hold him first. I know it sounds selfish but it was such a privilege, such an amazing feeling. I’ve experienced it twice now, and nothing in my life, on a soccer field or anywhere else, comes close to the intensity of that moment: the thrill and the awe, holding your son in your arms for the very first time. I carried Brooklyn the few steps over to his mum and laid his head on the pillow next to hers: the two most precious people in the whole world, looking so much alike and so beautiful, too. That picture will be in my mind’s eye forever.