David Beckham
British soccer player David Beckham (born 1975) emerged as one of the game's standouts in the late 1990s, winning fans both inside and outside the game with his spectacular play and with charisma that attracted enormous amounts of publicity.
On the field, Beckham was a star among others of equal brightness, a crowd-pleasing player with a dramatic style marked by a talent for scoring goals with long kicks that might, to the consternation of defenders, either scream forward at blinding speed or veer off in freakish curves. Off the field, Beckham was an international celebrity that few other athletes—and indeed few others in any field of endeavor—could match for the ability to command sheer public fascination. With a flair for fashion and a pop-star wife, Beckham bounced back from career disappointments and emerged more successful than ever. In the United States, the one place where household-name status eluded him, his reputation was helped along by the success of "Bend It Like Beckham," a gentle British film comedy that dealt with his career only indirectly.
Born to Soccer Fans
David Robert Joseph Beckham grew up in modest circumstances, and his transition to member of the jet set involved a period of adjustment. He was born in the Leytonstone area of London's East End on May 2, 1975 to David (known as "Ted") Beckham, a gas appliance installer, and his wife Sandra, a hair stylist. Both parents, and Ted Beckham's father as well, were passionate soccer fans, although father and grandfather disagreed over the relative merits of the rival Manchester United and Arsenal clubs. The family was pleased to encourage young David Beck-ham when he began to show unusual talent with a soccer ball, and he became a child star with the Ridgeway Rovers youth team when he was eight. Beckham's parents exhorted him to practice hard, and he had a natural work ethic that never flagged even during rough spots in his professional career. He tried out various sports in school, including rugby and distance racing, but soccer always came first. "I had no other career choices," he told Sports Illustrated for Kids. "The buzz I get from playing football [soccer] remains the same as it was when I was a kid growing up in the East End of London."
Beckham's grandfather came to the rescue as the family struggled to scrape together $230 so that the 11-year-old Beckham could attend a soccer camp run by former Manchester United star Bobby Charlton. Though he was too small for most of England's youth leagues, his abilities were obvious, and he won a national soccer skills tournament organized by Charlton, an event similar to Punt, Pass & Kick in the U.S. Manchester United scouts kept an eye on the standout youngster, grooming Beckham with summer training programs in between jobs he took—including one cleaning up drink containers at a dog track—to supplement the family income. When he was 14, Beckham signed a statement of intention to join the Manchester United organization, and in 1991 he joined the team's official training program.
Though he was only 16, and Manchester was several hours away from London, Beckham adapted confidently to life in the world of big-time sports. He led Manchester United's junior team to a Football Association (FA) championship, a nationwide crown, in 1992. Moving up to the "Man U" first team, a step below its top Premier League squad, the following year, he officially turned professional. Beckham was loaned to the lower-level Preston North End team in 1994 and 1995—a demotion that might have bitterly disappointed many players, but one that Beckham saw as an opportunity to gain large amounts of playing time, build toughness, and work on weak points in his game. Manchester's decision and Beckham's determination paid off, and he took the field for Manchester United in a scoreless game against Leeds on April 2, 1995.
Thought to be looking at a rebuilding year, Manchester United was energized by the presence of its new talent in the 1995–96 season. Beckham scored seven goals in 33 Premier League games, and the team won both the FA Cup and the Premier League title. A prime example of Beckham's ability to make headlines came at the beginning of the next season in a match against the Wimbledon team: he noticed that the opposing team's goalie had paused several steps away from the net and let fly a 60-yard curving kick from the other end of field. He scored, and television commentators began to talk about him more often. He was voted Young Player of the Year for the 1996–97 season as Manchester United won its second league title in a row.
Dated Posh Spice
Off the field, things were likewise going well for Beckham. In the spring of 1997 he began dating Victoria Adams, better known as Posh Spice. She was one of the Spice Girls, a pop group then at the height of its fame among British female teens, and tabloid newspapers went wild with breathless news of the latest doings of "Posh and Becks." The attraction was instant and mutual if reports at the time are to be believed. When she was shown Beckham's picture, Adams said in a Sun interview quoted by Joanna Blonska and Alex Tresniowski of People, "I had no idea who he was, but I remember thinking one word: gorgeous." Beckham noticed Adams in a Spice Girls video on television. "That's the girl for me, and I'm going to get her," he told a teammate (as quoted by People 's Michelle Tauber). "She's my idea of perfection."
Whether naturally or by calculation, Beckham maximized the exposure that came from the romance. On an Asian vacation with Adams, he was photographed in a sarong, and from then on he showed a knack for grabbing newspaper space with a new look. He signed the first of numerous endorsement deals, a seven-year, multimillion-dollar pact with the Adidas athletic-shoe firm. Threats from a stalker worried Beckham, but he dealt well with the rising pressures of top-level fame. Beckham and Adams stayed in touch by phone as each trotted the globe, and Adams seemed to be genuinely supportive of her sports-star boyfriend as he suffered through his first brush with fan disillusionment.
The occasion was the 1998 World Cup, in the run-up to which Beckham had played well but had been accused by coach Glenn Hoddle of not focusing on the tournament. After he was benched in two matches against Colombia's team, his temper flared in a second-round match against Britain's archrival Argentina, a nation with which Britain had gone to war in the Falkland Islands not long before. Given a red card penalty and sent out of the game following a kicking foul against Argentine player Diego Simeone, who had smashed into Beckham's back, Beckham left the British team short-manned. Britain lost the game on a penalty kick and was eliminated from the tournament, with the blame, as he himself admitted, resting mostly at Beckham's feet. One particularly merciless tabloid newspaper termed him an idiot in its headline.
Though he endured boos at the beginning of the 1998–99 season, he persevered and worked his way back into fans' favor with hard work on the field. Voted the team's most valuable player that year, he was a key contributor to Manchester United's triple Premier League, FA Cup, and European Cup championships. News of Victoria's pregnancy had brightened Beckham's mood, and their son Brooklyn was born on March 4, 1999. They were married on July 4, 1999, in an $800,000 ceremony held at an Irish castle and featuring a wedding cake topped with sculptures of an almost-nude bride-and-groom pair. They moved into a $4 million estate in England's Hertfordshire region that was dubbed Beckingham Palace; it had its own recording studio, and the walls of one of its bathrooms were covered entirely with pictures of Audrey Hepburn, Victoria Beckham's favorite actress.
Avenged Argentina Disaster
For the next several years, Beckham went through cycles of public adulation and disillusionment. He shaved off all his hair, then wore it in cornrows, and he anticipated the "metrosexual" look by wearing nail polish at times. On the field he had hot streaks and was becoming more and more consistently recognized as one of the best players in the world. In 2000 he was edged out by boxer Lennox Lewis for the title of BBC Sports Personality of the Year, but he won the award in 2001. In June of 2002 Beckham demanded and received a payment of $32,000 a week from Manchester for his image rights, over and above his salary as a player, which was already enough to make him the best-compensated player in the world. Despite a series of injuries that attracted get-well wishes from Britons from Prime Minister Tony Blair on down, he delivered on the field; in a 2002 World Cup match against Argentina, Beckham avenged the 1998 fiasco by netting a penalty kick after shrugging off a conciliatory handshake from a player who had earlier goaded him into losing his temper.
Beckham's second son, Romeo, was born in September of 2002 (a third son, Cruz, was born February 20, 2005). In 2003 Queen Elizabeth II bestowed upon Beckham the title of Officer of the Order of the British Empire. He continued his involvement in British sports, playing for British national teams and working behind the scenes to promote London's ultimately successful bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics. In June of 2003, however, after clashes with Manchester United coach Alex Ferguson, Beckham signed with a team in Spain. The Real Madrid (Royal Madrid) club was something of a dream team, stocked with international superstars such as France's Zinedine Zidane and the single-named Brazilian striker Ronaldo. Beckham, entering his prime playing years, was trying to take his game to yet a higher level.
The four-year contract netted Beckham an estimated $41 million. Real Madrid shirts with Beckham's name sold out in one day, and his move to Spain topped international headlines. Despite all the hoopla, Spanish fans were cool to Beckham as Real Madrid floundered in 2003 and 2004. His claim that he had no time to learn Spanish, and Victoria's allegation that Madrid smelled like garlic, did not help his image. But Beckham's work ethic once again carried the day; after he agreed to play in the unfamiliar and highly physical position of defensive midfielder, things improved.
Beckham's personal life suffered in the crucible of superstardom. The Beckham family had a scare when an intruder wielding a gasoline can climbed the wall of their English estate while Beckham was at a team practice in Spain; the intruder was stopped by guards. Allegations of extramarital affairs, most notably by his former personal assistant Rebecca Loos, dogged Beckham and drove tabloids into high gear. But the marriage endured, and Beckham became even more of a true British icon when an unusual video portrait of him was installed at London's venerable National Portrait Gallery.
Slated as captain of Britain's World Cup team in 2006, Beckham continued to play for Real Madrid and had few mountains left to climb on the soccer field. One major challenge facing him in the mid-2000s was to extend his popularity in the comparatively soccer-deprived United States. He was aided in that quest by the makers of the 2003 British film "Bend It Like Beckham," which depicted an Indo-British girl who hopes, against her family's wishes to become a soccer player. Beckham was shown only once, walking through an airport. But the film, an unexpected hit in America, introduced his name and his fame to Britain's former colonies, and Beckham began to snare American endorsement deals. His knack for putting himself in the middle of fashion tastemaking was undiminished, and he began to form friendships with hip-hop mogul P. Diddy and R&B star Usher. With several years of playing still ahead of him, David Beckham seemed well on the way to becoming an athlete like very few others—Michael Jordan and Muhammad Ali were named as comparisons—whose names were instantly known all over the world.
Books
Beckham, David, with Tom Watt, Beckham: Both Feet on the Ground, HarperCollins, 2003.
Periodicals
Economist (U.S. ed.), September 17, 2005.
People, May 4, 1998, p. 71; June 9, 2003.
Sports Illustrated for Kids, March 1, 2005.
Time International, May 10, 2004.
Vanity Fair, July 2004.
Online
"Beckham Joins Real Madrid," BBC Sports, http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/1998868.stm (November 4, 2005).
"David Beckham," JockBio.com, http://www.jockbio.com/Bios/Beckham/Beckham_bio.html (November 4, 2005).
"David Beckham," Real Madrid soccer club, http://www.realmadrid.com (November 4, 2005).
