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There
was a time when it was the fashion in this country to boo David
Beckham, to give him a hard time, to see if he could be knocked
off his stride by mere words.
Thankfully, it’s a fad that is slowly ebbing away as even the
more neanderthal elements of the national game’s followers
stopping to admire and enjoy a man whose gifts have illuminated
English football in a way that few others have managed to do in
the last 30 or 40 years. Who else deserves mention in the same breath
as Beckham over that period?
Best. Dalglish. Gascoigne. Cantona.
Interesting that only one of them is an Englishman, because there
can be no doubt that, Gazza apart, English football has not enjoyed
such a jewel of a footballer since the distant days when Bobby Charlton
pulled on the three lions. And Beckham is not just gifted, but committed
too, committed to the nth degree, desperate to make a difference
in games, even games that are running away from his side.
Could any other player of recent memory have put on a performance
like Beckham’s against the Greeks in the final World Cup qualifier
as a distinctly below par England were doing their utmost to discard
the glories of that 5-1 win in Munich and somehow toss away qualification
by losing at home to Greece.
Twice England went behind, but Beckham would not be denied. He took
on themantle of genuine greatness that day because if ever a man
played a team on his own, it was Beckham.
Even then, the game seemed lost until the last kick of the game,
when Beckham had the chance to take a final free-kick in front of
the Stretford End. With a space no bigger than a ball’s width
to aim into, he stepped up and slotted the ball into that tiny window
to take England to Japorea.
And people still want to knock him?
Ever since that day against Wimbledon when the youthful Beckham
had the temerity to shoot, and score, from the halfway line, he
has lived in a goldfish bowl. No other players, with the possible
exception of George Best and Paul Gascoigne have ever had to live
with the kind of scrutiny, of pressure that Beckham has had to live
with. And we all know just how well Bestie and Gazza managed to
live with that added burden, don’t we?
Of course Beckham and his pop star wife have courted publicity,
but that’s part of the appeal of "Posh’n’Becks".
Mohicans and sarongs are all part of the Beckham effect that has
made his picture as ubiquitous as any pop star, and a great deal
more enduring as he has willingly embarced, even invited, status
as an icon.
But unlike Best and Gascoigne, Beckham has never allowed matters
outside football to take away from what he does on the field. If
anything, he simply gets better and better with age and experience
and there’s a very strong possibility that he hasn’t even
hit his peak and that Becks’ best years are still ahead of
him.
Currently one of the breed of super fit athletes that are gracing
the Premier League, as time goes by, it’s probable that Beckham
will do more than simply wear Cantona’s number seven but will
actually take on Eric’s mantle in the middle, a role he is
said to covet as opposed to his right sided role where his bursts
of pace and wonderful crossing ability can be so devastating. The
future will surely see him become even more of a fulcrum, roaming
the middle of the park a la Cantona and another great Frenchman,
Beckham’s biggest rival as Europe’s finest player of the
age, Zinedine Zidane.
Like those two, Beckham reads the game as well as anyone and his
ability to spot the right pass amid the chaos of the midfield battle
is a supreme, match winning gift.
As are his leadership qualities, because, to many people’s
surprise, he will surely go down in history as one of England’s
greatest ever captains. He came through the fire of his sending
off in France ’98, lived through the appalling hate campaign
that saw hanging and crucified effigies of him burning on the front
pages of the tabloids, bouncing back by posing, messiah like, for
the glossy magazines. Beckham has a sense of humour, if nothing
else.
He’s needed it to get through what has been a life less than
ordinary, but that sense of humour, that imagination, is what fires
him as a player. Caricatured as, to put it kindly, something less
than University Challenge material, once he puts on his latest pair
of Adidas boots, Beckham is brighter than any quantum physicist,
has better spatial awareness than any designer and greater invention
than any scientist.
His wit, his drive, his nerve to try the apparently impossible mark
him as a player apart, a breathtaking artist at one with his craft.
They don’t put Beckham’s art in a museum, but if the Tate
Modern wants a real post-modern exhibition, they could do worse
than figure out a way of doing just that, because David Beckham
is the greatest working artist in the country today.
Besides, how can you argue with a player so good that they even
named a bottled beer after him?
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