Beckham (17 page)

‘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 ever 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.

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. The 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.

‘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.'