your respect. You can sense he’s proud of where he’s been and of
what he achieved at Real. He seemed to be proud to be here now,
as well: part of the present as much as part of the past. Alfredo di
Stefano represents for Real Madrid what Bobby Charlton always has
for United.
A hand reached forward and drew back the curtain. I hadn’t even
realized there were speakers near us but now music – an operatic aria
– was all I or anyone else could hear, the singers’ voices echoing
around
the arena. Some entrance. We took a couple of steps up, then walked
onto the stage. The floor of the arena in front of us was crowded with
photographers, flash guns firing off as we emerged. I could just glimpse
people in the seats along the two sides of the hall. At first, I was doing
my best to keep a smile on my face, frozen as it was. I took a deep
breath and glanced down to my left where Victoria was sitting with the
senior Real Madrid staff in a cordoned off area. She was looking back
up at me, as if to say:
‘Go on, then. This is it, you know. We’re all watching you.’
I really was smiling now. Behind me was a cinema screen, huge
enough to make me feel about a foot tall down here on the stage. Just
for an instant, it felt like Saturday morning at the movies, except the
film had me in it. Against a burnt yellow background: my head, the club
badge, the words Real Madrid. Senor Perez stepped forward. They
were going to translate me into Spanish. But there was no one
translating
him into English for me. They’d never have kept up anyway. It was only
later that I got the President’s drift.
‘David is a great player, a player who’s been educated in the tradition
of sacrificing himself to the team. He comes to the best and most
competitive league in the world. We are sure he is technically good
enough and a strong enough character to succeed.’
Now, Alfredo di Stefano stepped forward with a Madrid team shirt
in his hands. We shook hands, photographers calling out:
‘Over here, David. Aqui, aqui – por favor – Senors.’
We held the shirt out in front of us.
‘Turn it round, turn it round.’
On the back: 23 with ‘Beckham’ over the numerals. Nobody knew,
outside the club, what my squad number was going to be. I’d thought
long and hard about which number to choose from the ones that
weren’t
already being worn by the other players. Even Real hadn’t found out
until late the previous night, when I’d phoned them from the hotel with
my final decision.
There was a sudden burst of shutters clicking on a couple of hundred
cameras. I could hear voices out in the hall:
‘Veinte y tres.’
Twenty-three. Then, a moment later:
‘Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan.’
He wasn’t just a hero for me, then. It was my turn now. I stepped
forward to the microphone. I’d gone over the few words I wanted to
say again and again. I didn’t want to be holding a piece of paper. I
didn’t want to be wondering what to say next. More first impressions
were at stake here. I cleared my throat.
‘Gracias. Senor Perez, Senor di Stefano, ladies and gentlemen...’
I left a split second for the translator to do his stuff. At first his
microphone didn’t seem to be working properly. I waited. And while I
waited my mind went blank. Suddenly I was aware of the forest of
cameras out in front of me, people around the hall craning heads in my
direction. I’m glad I’ve learned to trust myself. I opened my mouth and
the rest of it came.
‘I have always loved soccer. Of course, I love my family...’
I looked down towards Victoria again: too right I love them.
‘. . . and I have a wonderful life. But soccer is everything to me. To
play for Real is a dream come true. Thank you to everyone for being
here to share my arrival. Gracias.’
I held the shirt – my new shirt – up in front of me:
‘Hala Madrid!’
The other directors of the club came over for the team photos and
then Senor Perez led us offstage and back through the corridors to a
room at the far end of the building, where there was a table laid out
with tapas and biscuits and soft drinks. There’s a room like this at every
soccer club: a sloping ceiling and bench seats around the walls. They’d
tidied this one up a bit, though. Then, I was taken through a door at
the far end that led off into the dressing rooms: not quite as imposing
as the ones at the Bernabeu the day before.
I took my time pulling on the Real Madrid uniform for the very first
time. Then a couple of security guards and Simon and Jamie, from SFX,
came through the dressing room and we walked across to Numero 2,
a training field with low stands on one side and at one end, both
crammed with supporters. It took a moment for my eyes to adapt,
stepping outside into bright sunshine again. I ran through the gap in
the fence and a couple of soccer balls were thrown towards me. I know
I play for a living. Controlling a ball, keeping it up in the air, the odd
trick: it’s all second nature. But out on a patch of grass, in front of a
couple of thousand supporters who are thinking: show us? It felt a bit
lonely out there, to be honest, even though the reception I got from
the madridistas was all I could have hoped for: families everywhere,
cheering and waving. I waved back. The photographers got their shots
of David Beckham in a Real uniform for the very first time.
How long was I going to be out here? What else did we need to do?
I kicked a ball up into the crowd behind the goal. I peered up into the
stand in front of me, trying to see who’d caught it, trying to get a clue
as to how these same fans would take to me when I ran out at the
Bernabeu, alongside the galacticos, for a game. I knew I’d be back in
Madrid to start work on July 24. The whirl of the last 24 hours suddenly
rushed to a full stop. The significance of what had happened today and
the previous day swept over me, filled my chest like a blast of pure
oxygen. It felt fantastic.
Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, while the security guards
followed my line of sight up into the crowd, I saw a figure away to my
left, darting out from behind the metal frame of a floodlight pylon. A
lad – eleven, twelve – tanned, black hair stood on end, bare chested
and wearing a pair of jean shorts and some battered trainers. And he
was racing towards me. I think I saw him before anybody else did.
There were shouts of surprise from the crowd. The security people
swiveled and looked towards me. Too late: the boy – named Alfonso,
I found out later – was standing a couple of feet away from me. It was
a shock but there wasn’t anything about him to make me step back.
His eyes were wide open, pleading, like he wanted something from me
without knowing what. My instinct was to just hold my arms out towards
him. He didn’t need a second invitation: he jumped at me, laughing. I
caught him and held on, almost as tightly as he did. I waved away the
security guys: this was just a boy who’d taken his chance. I managed
to prise him off for long enough to motion over to Simon who was in
front of the other stand:
‘A shirt. I need another shirt.’
We walked across and met them halfway. I tried to give the shirt to
him but Alfonso just stood in front of me, tears in his eyes now. He
raised his arms at either side. I dropped the shirt over his head. This
was like some weird kind of ceremony going on here. I was half-aware
that people around the ground were cheering and whistling. He pushed
his arms through and the shirt settled on him, almost down to his knees.
He looked up at me. His eyes were like a mirror: happiness, fear, awe,
the wonder of the impossible just having happened. In a couple of
hours’ time, I would be on a plane back to England with my family.
Time to start packing our bags. Where would Alfonso be then? I looked
down into this boy’s expectant, passionate face. I could see how hard
he’d dreamed, how determined he’d been to be where he was
now, standing there facing me. I felt like asking him; it felt like he was
asking me:
‘Who are you, son? Where have you come from? How did you come
to be here?’
1
Murdering the
Flowerbeds
‘Mrs Beckham? Can David come and have a
game in the park?’
I’m sure Mum could dig it out of the pile: that first video of me in action.
There I am, David Robert Joseph Beckham, aged three, wearing the
new Manchester United uniform Dad had bought me for Christmas,
playing soccer in the front room of our house in Chingford. Twenty-five
years on, and Victoria could have filmed me having a kickabout this
morning with Brooklyn before I left for training. For all that so much has
happened during my life – and the shirt I’m wearing now is a different
color – some things haven’t really changed at all.
As a father watching my own sons growing up, I get an idea of what
I must have been like as a boy; and reminders, as well, of what Dad
was like with me. As soon as I could walk, he made sure I had a ball
to kick. Maybe I didn’t even wait for a ball. I remember when Brooklyn
had only just got the hang of standing up. We were messing around
together one afternoon after training. For some reason there was a tin
of baked beans on the floor of the kitchen and, before I realized it, he’d
taken a couple of unsteady steps towards it and kicked the thing as
hard as you like. Frightening really: you could fracture a metatarsal doing
that. Even as I was hugging him, I couldn’t help laughing. That must
have been me.
It’s just there, wired into the genes. Look at Brooklyn: he always wants
