His eventual break with Manchester United was about one basic point of difference between him and Alex Ferguson. Beckham thought that a celebrity lifestyle, being drawn increasingly into the showbiz world of his wife Victoria, was compatible with the regime of a professional footballer. His manager did not.
Towards the end of his time at Old Trafford I found it increasingly difficult to pass comment on his situation. Whatever I said seemed to be magnified hugely, and there was maybe also the problem that I found it impossible to relate to the culture in which the player had grown so huge. ‘Well, of course,’ someone told me, ‘apart from being a great footballer, David is also a fashion icon.’ I just wished I knew what that was.
There was never much question that, apart from his wonderful ball skills, he also had another extremely well-developed talent: understanding the way publicity works, how it is that an image is made. This was a skill David Beckham had no doubt honed as he travelled through his wife’s celebrity world.
There were two occasions when this knack of his came to my attention. On the first it was pointed out to me; on the second I saw it for myself. Around the time it seemed to me that his lifestyle was beginning to take over from his football, someone leaned over during a game at Old Trafford and whispered in my ear, ‘Have you ever noticed what David Beckham does when he scores? He runs to the corner flag all on his own. If someone else scores, he’s usually the first one hanging on him. I suppose it means he is always in the picture.’
Maybe he was simply following one of the laws of celebrity, but certainly his awareness of the relationship between action and media response was underlined for me when we were in Singapore for the final campaigning in the London bid for the Olympics of 2012. We were sitting together when Jacques Rogge, the president of the International Olympic Committee, came to the stage to announce the winning candidate. As Rogge was making his announcement, David turned to me and said, ‘Paris have got it, look how the press photographers are all going over to the French delegation.’ As I waited for the news, I thought, ‘I would never have noticed that.’ Of course, London won the vote, to general astonishment, not least mine after the emphatic statement of a companion who seemed to know so much about the world of communications.
The growth of the Beckham image meant that United came under immense pressure when he moved to Real Madrid. It is true that when it happened he wasn’t playing his best football, either for United or England, but his talent for public relations meant that there could be only one loser in the huge controversy which enveloped not just the club but all of English football when it was clear he was on his way to Spain.
Even at this late stage I do feel the need to make a basic point about David’s departure from Old Trafford. While, as I have said, it is true that the manager had serious problems with the Beckhams’ lifestyle, finding it unhelpful, to say the least, to his idea of the proper atmosphere for the smooth running of a football club, there was never any question of the player being driven out of United. This was the impression given by Beckham and his people – and it was quite wrong. Yes, maybe there were issues to be dealt with, but they had not reached the point where the hero of United and so many England fans had been shown the door.
I can say this with great conviction because I saw the contract he rejected when he decided to leave for Madrid. It would be an invasion of privacy if I gave the precise details of the deal, but I can say that it was an excellent, generous offer. Certainly it did not resemble in the slightest a goodbye note. In reporting this I hope there is no impression that I am discounting David Beckham’s great contribution to United, or his place in the history of the club. His was a spectacular talent and there was no question he enhanced hugely the confidence and the aura of a club Alex Ferguson brought back to huge prominence.
However, if am perfectly honest, I have to say we must look elsewhere for the hierarchy of players who did most to shape the years of revival and achievement in the course of Sir Alex Ferguson’s building of three quite separate teams. I have already given Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs their high places in the Ferguson regime. Now it is time for the men who, in their vastly different natures, shared between them all those qualities which make the difference between good, winning teams and great ones. They are the kind of players who have something inside them which announces, from the first moment you see them on the field, that they are subject to special forces.
In the case of Eric Cantona, his spirit and his instinct were rarely less than quirkish; his aura was peculiar to his own rather eccentric view of both himself and the game he played. In the case of Roy Keane and Peter Schmeichel there were no shadows, no mysteries. What you saw was what they were. They were as ferocious as Cantona, in his moods and his inspiration, was unchartable. But in one sense all three were inseparable: they had an extraordinary will to dominate every situation in which they found themselves. It meant that they were the players who underpinned everything Alex Ferguson achieved, as he made good his promise to build again on the foundations laid down by Sir Matt Busby.
I have to start with Keane because his influence was so