David Beckham: My Side

by David Beckham (with Tom Watt)

  Victoria breastfed for about a month. I’m really protective about my family anyway but, during those first days, watching my wife-to-be and our boy together – her feeding him milk and love – made those feelings more intense than I’ve ever known. But, fantastic as that was, after a couple of weeks I found myself starting to wonder. You know what? I want to be able to help feed him too.

  Breastfeeding was really tiring for Victoria, just like it is for every mum, and so she let me go and raid the baby shelves at the chemists. I came back with the lot: bottles, warmers, pumps, sterilizers. I must have looked like some kind of mad scientist, setting it all up. I’m glad I did it, though. All the fiddling about to get a bit of Mum’s milk into a bottle was worth it: I’ll never forget Brooklyn with me on the bed that afternoon: there was my boy, cradled in my arms and glugging away like his life depended on it.

  It was an amazing time. Things were so exciting at United and then, every time I could, I’d get down to London to see Victoria and Brooklyn. It was a while before they moved up to be with me at the new flat we’d bought in Alderley Edge. I didn’t overdo the driving, although I’ve always found being behind the wheel more relaxing than tiring. It’s time on my own, after all, and I don’t get much of that. Even so, I never made the trip in the couple of days before we had a game. I think some people might have thought it would all be too much, but every time I saw the two most precious people in my life it gave me this amazing lift, like I’d been plugged in to recharge, and I’d go back to Old Trafford ready for more. If anything, what might have dragged me down would have been not being able to spend some time with them both.

  Brooklyn’s first few months were tough on Victoria. She’d worked so hard for so long with the Spice Girls and had put so much into a successful career, and then, all of a sudden, she had to stop and focus all her energy and attention instead on this tiny new baby who was completely dependent on her. I’m sure any mum must recognise those feelings. It’s not like it wasn’t what Victoria wanted to be doing but it was a giant shock to the system. Her life, and everything about it, changed almost overnight and in ways that nothing could ever have prepared her for. If anything, it was even worse when she moved up to Manchester, away from her family and friends.

  Tony and Jackie’s house is like the set of Neighbours: people are always dropping by, and there’s always something going on. It was completely different in Alderley Edge. We hardly went out anywhere; hardly ever had people round unless it had been arranged in advance. I’d go off to training and Victoria would be left on her own, feeling trapped in the apartment. Even the gardens weren’t private. Photographers would suddenly turn up with their lenses pointed in over the back gate. I think Victoria got pretty down. She stuck it out, though, and I’m grateful and proud of her that she did: we’d both decided that what was best for Brooklyn would be for the three of us – our little family – to be together as much as we could.

  From April 1999 onwards, I was playing two games a week, which made trips to London pretty difficult to squeeze in. That was part of the reason Victoria decided to bring Brooklyn north when she did. It meant so much to me, having them there while the season flew by, getting more and more intense as each match came and went. I’d rush home afterwards and there would be my boy and his mum, waiting for me.

  There were so many big games that Spring but one stands out above the rest: the one that made everything else possible. Ask any United player, any United fan, and they’ll tell you which one I mean: the Wednesday night, 14 April 1999, at Villa Park. The FA Cup semi-final replay against Arsenal. We’d been disappointed not to win the first time, on the Sunday afternoon, when it finished 0–0, but as soon as we got to the ground on the evening of the replay, you could tell it was going to turn out to be something special.

  Semi-finals are always exciting to play in; an evening kick-off, under floodlights, just made it seem even more dramatic. Arsenal were the closest team to United in the Premiership and here we were, extra-time and penalties if necessary, to decide who’d be going to Wembley for the Cup Final. It felt like we were playing for the Double, that there was that much at stake; the game meant that much to both clubs. I remember sitting in the dressing room forty minutes ahead of kick-off. I’ve never scored against them. What would it feel like to get a goal against Arsenal tonight?

  Villa Park has always been a lucky ground for me: I’d scored the winner in our last semi-final there against Chelsea. And now, against Arsenal, I only had to wait a quarter of an hour for my chance. The ball rolled to me just outside the penalty area and I whipped it, first time, past David Seaman. The feeling wasn’t what I’d been expecting at all. I jumped up to celebrate but, at the same time, it seemed like I should be going over and having a laugh about it with Dave. We’ve joked our way through shooting practice at so many England training sessions together. If he reads my intention, he’ll just catch the ball as if to say: Is that the best you can do? If he doesn’t, and I score, then he gets the stick. Half of me that night at Villa Park wanted to run over, jump on Dave’s back, and give him a shake. I was really pleased with the goal but because of everything that came later in the game, it’s only me that seems to remember it now.

  When you score in a big game, you always hope your goal will be the winner. But Arsenal came back strong, and in the second half things seemed to be going their way. Dennis Bergkamp scuffed an equaliser and, five minutes after that, Roy Keane was sent off for a second yellow card. You could tell they thought they had us. All we could do was dig in and hope for the best. Whatever happens, they’re not going to score.

  Then, right on full-time, Arsenal got a penalty, down at the end where I’d scored my goal, which seemed so long ago now it might have been in a different game. Oh, no. Bergkamp’s taking it. He never misses.

  Lucky for us, Peter Schmeichel knew better and he dived to his left to save it. I ran up to congratulate him and put my arms around him.

  ‘We’re going to get a goal now!’ he bellowed at me.

  Then he pushed me away. I mean, really pushed me. I went flying. We had to defend the corner and I think everybody was too busy concentrating on marking up to notice me stumbling away.

  The ninety minutes ended 1–1 and we went into extra-time. To be honest, it was a bit like a training game: attackers vs defenders, with Arsenal camped around our penalty area. But then, with about ten minutes left before penalties, Patrick Vieira – of all people, one of the best midfielders in the world – misplaced a pass on halfway. Ryan Giggs got onto the ball and just started running. Giggsy was one of the few of us who had any legs left because he’d come on as a sub after about an hour. He kept going and going, beat a couple of defenders, and when the ball bobbled off his shin it took him past Martin Keown, who was standing off him. Ryan was on an angle, to the left of the Arsenal goal. He’s got to square it across the six-yard box now.

  Instead, he just smashed the ball in at the near post, into the roof of the net. All the United side of the ground erupted. Giggsy was running along in front of them, waving his shirt in the air. Loads of the supporters were spilling onto the pitch. I got to him, too, and I can still remember the smell of the fans around us: one bloke, in particular, must have been chain-smoking the whole game and he grabbed hold of me. I couldn’t get the smell of his cigarette smoke off my shirt and out of my nostrils for the rest of the game.

  When the final whistle went, United supporters came pouring onto the pitch again and it got a bit scary for a while. I got lifted up onto some people’s shoulders. Someone was trying to pull one of my boots off as a souvenir; someone else had hold of my shirt. I leaned over in all the din and tried to say to one of the fans who was carrying me: ‘While you’ve got me up here on your shoulders, could we try and head over towards where the dressing rooms are?’

  Like I say, it was a little frightening; and I was out on the pitch for what seemed like ages. I think I was the last person off. I was enjoying the moment, though. Times like that don’t come a
long too often, even if you’re playing for United, and I just wanted to experience it all. Finally, I managed to find my way back to the changing rooms. The atmosphere was fantastic but completely different to the madness outside. No jumping around, no shouting the odds: everybody, the gaffer included, was just sitting there, glowing. Something special had just happened. It was about as good a game of football as I’d ever played in. Right up there, as it turned out, with our next semi-final which came along the following Wednesday night.

  We hadn’t played well in the first leg of the Champions League semi against Juventus. They’d come to Old Trafford and got a 1–1 draw, which was almost as good as a victory because of the away goal. We had to win in Turin now. Nobody was ever supposed to win in Turin. Five minutes into the game, Juventus were 1–0 up and battering us. After ten, they were 2–0 up and still battering us. I found myself thinking back to those semi-finals against Dortmund and the chances we’d not taken. Was this going to turn out to be another year when we missed out on the final?

  Sometimes in a game, when you’re struggling, someone produces a moment of brilliance, like Ryan Giggs had at Villa Park, to turn everything on its head. Other times, it’s the team as a whole that finds something, which was what happened at the Stadio Delle Alpi. Maybe Juventus relaxed a little, I don’t know, but we put a few passes together for the first time in the game. About twenty minutes had gone and we were still 2–0 down; but it didn’t feel like we were out of it. I remember us going close and me turning to Gary Neville:

  ‘They’re not that good, Gaz. We can win this, you know.’

  Just a couple of minutes after that, I took a corner on the left and Roy Keane came in with a fantastic header to get it back to 2–1. You lose count of how many great games Keano has played for us. That night, though, was special even by his standards. He scored the goal and, soon afterwards, got booked: he knew, and we all knew, that meant he was going to miss the final if we got there. But his head didn’t go down for an instant. All he cared about was winning that game for United. Who were we to argue? Who were Juventus to argue? As soon as we pulled one back, you could sense it turning. They started panicking all over the field. Yorkie equalised before half-time and then Andy Cole scored the winner about five minutes from the end.

  It’s an ambition for any player to be involved in the biggest games for your club and your country. The European Cup Final, though: that was a mission at United. Every one of us knew that winning it was what the boss wanted more than anything else in football. When we came off at the end of the game in Turin 3–2 winners, we knew we were almost there. We had good enough players; it felt like luck, perhaps, was starting to run our way when we needed it to; and there was a spirit in that team, that season more than ever, which made us all feel like we couldn’t be beaten. Every game we played during the last couple of months of 1998/ 99 was a cup final in its way: if we’d lost any game, in the League, in the FA Cup or in Europe, it would have meant the Treble had gone. No-one knew if we’d ever be in the same kind of situation again and, so, none of us wanted to miss a single game of it, even though the gaffer kept coming up to us and saying he could rest us if we were feeling tired. We were on the kind of roll where you’d finish one game and the adrenalin kidded you into believing that you could play another one the following day, however heavy your legs were.

  The Premiership title was between us and Arsenal, as close as the FA Cup semi-final had been, and they had their noses in front almost to the end. We had two games each left to play and, the night before we visited Blackburn, Arsenal were away to Leeds. For weeks we’d been waiting for them to slip up. I watched that game at Elland Road on television. The tension’s terrible: you can’t do anything about it, can you? Right at the end, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink scored and it felt like I had. We went up to Ewood Park the next night and drew 0–0, which meant as long as we beat Spurs on the last day of the season, we’d be champions again. The Treble came down to ten days in May, starting at Old Trafford: our final Premiership game.

  All the press had been saying it would be easy: that Tottenham wouldn’t want Arsenal winning the League. On the day, especially in the first half, it didn’t seem easy at all. How could we have come this far and be playing this badly? I missed a really good headed chance. Dwight Yorke hit the post and, then, Tottenham ran up the other end and Les Ferdinand scored. It wasn’t what was meant to be happening. Just before half-time, though, the ball got played into me and I whipped a shot into the top corner and ran off to celebrate. I watched the video of the game later and the look on my face after I scored that equaliser gave me a bit of a shock. I’ve seen that expression on other players’ faces: at Preston after I scored from the free-kick, up at Blackburn the night I made the mistake of arguing with Roy Keane. I’ve seen it on the faces of United fans crammed in at Old Trafford. I don’t think I’d ever seen it on mine: that desire, wanting to win so badly; it looked like fury. Smile, mate. You’ve just scored. But, at the time, all the frustration of that first half came out, along with the tension that came with knowing what was at stake. I just ran off towards the supporters, screaming.

  The gaffer was a bit calmer than I was and he changed things around at half-time. We were surprised, and so was the crowd, that he took Yorkie off and brought on Andy Cole. It took all of a couple of minutes to prove his point: right at the start of the second half, Andy went round the keeper and scored what turned out to be the winner. There were a few nervous moments at the end but the job had been done. In the dressing room afterwards, nobody mentioned Newcastle at Wembley or Bayern at the Nou Camp. Nobody mentioned the Treble. Nobody had to. It seemed like it was ringing round the dressing room, inside my head and, I’d guess, everybody else’s. This is it. We’re going to do this now.

  Two cup finals in a week: I was happy, of course. It meant two new suits. I think Gary Neville organised things with Prada – blue suits, white shirts, blue ties, not bad at all – for Wembley on the Saturday. I volunteered for Europe. For the Champions League I wanted us to have something really special. My only instruction came from the manager: whatever I got, it had to have a United club badge on the jacket pocket. Earlier in the year, Donatella Versace, who was quite friendly with Victoria, had invited me out to Italy for the Spring Fashion Show. When I rang up to say we were in the European Cup Final, they said they’d design our outfits: a light grey suit, a white shirt, a charcoal tie with a little United badge on it and then a much bigger badge on the jacket. Maybe I’m biased but I thought they were the business. All my footballing life I’d had the importance of looking the part drummed into me. I couldn’t let Stuart Underwood or Eric Harrison or the lads and the gaffer down when it came to the Nou Camp, could I?

  The final against Newcastle was more straightforward than any of us had been expecting. We were flying and played really well. Once Teddy scored the first goal, everybody in the ground knew we were going to finish off the Double. During the week before the game, the boss had told me that he was thinking of resting me. Because of injuries and Keano’s suspension we were going to be short of numbers in midfield the following Wednesday. Obviously it was his decision, in the end, that I started on the Saturday, too, but I can still remember pleading with him: it was the Cup Final, after all. I didn’t want to miss a single moment of this.

  One strange thing happened during the course of beating Newcastle 2–0 that Saturday afternoon. I went in for a challenge with Gary Speed and his elbow caught me on the mouth. I’d cut my lip. It really stung – killed me – for the rest of the game and, when we were climbing the steps in front of the Royal Box to pick up the FA Cup, it bled quite a lot. Gary Neville pulled his shirt down over his fist and went to wipe some of it away: I didn’t know how bad it looked. What I did know, though, was that it was sore enough not to want anyone near it. Back at the hotel we were staying at that evening, I met Victoria who’d come for the dinner. We were in our room and I took a sip from a glass of mineral water and suddenly realised that it was dribbling
out through my lip. I couldn’t understand it at first. The cut had gone right through. I closed my mouth and blew, and water came spurting out through the hole: it was a weird party trick to celebrate winning the Cup.

  Thinking back, it feels like we had a couple of weeks after that to get ready for the European Cup Final against Bayern Munich. Actually, the game at the Nou Camp was the following Wednesday. Time just seemed to move really slowly: it was a new experience for all of us and I think we were just taking in every moment of the build-up. This was something absolutely massive, after all. Having won the Premiership and the FA Cup already, it felt like we weren’t under any kind of pressure. I remember everybody being really relaxed, just looking forward to it. And I’ll never forget, either, what the gaffer said to us in the dressing room just before we went up the tunnel to play in the biggest game of our lives.

  ‘Trust me: you don’t want to have to walk past the European Cup at the end of the game tonight. Not being able to pick it up would be the most painful thing you’ll ever feel in football. Make sure you don’t end up having to just look at that trophy, not able to touch it, knowing you had the chance to win the thing but then let that chance pass you by.’

  I don’t know how much the boss’s warning helped focus us on what we had to do. The fact that it stuck in my mind so clearly says a lot, I think. What I know for sure is that every word he said about the pain and disappointment was true. We didn’t have to endure it but you just have to watch the video of the game. Look at the Bayern Munich players as they go up to get their losers’ medals. Some of them glance at the trophy – sitting there, waiting for United – and you can see, in their eyes, that they’re devastated. Most of them can’t even bring themselves to lift their heads and look.