Summary

In England, where he spent ten seasons leading his storied club Manchester United and his nation to soccer glory, he is so wildly popular that his countrymen voted him the face they'd most want to see imprinted on their money. (Winston Churchill finished second.) In Japan, where he is worshiped as much for his headline-making fashion trends as for his ability to bend a ball around a wall of defenders, women styled their bikini waxes after the blond mohawk he sported during the 2002 World Cup. And in Spain, within days of his $41 million trade to Real Madrid, his new team received two million requests to buy his number 23 jersey. The legend of David Beckham -- soccer god, global sex symbol, style icon -- has been celebrated around the world, arguably more than Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan combined. Now, with the publication of his long-awaited autobiography, the man who inspired the surprise hit movie Bend It Like Beckham is set to conquer the last remaining outpost where soccer is not a national religion: the United States.Beckham is a classic rags-to-riches saga: a boy, David, is born to a poor East End London family. He develops prodigious soccer skills, and his parents nurture him until he becomes one of the most gifted athletes of his generation. He grows up to marry Victoria -- a Spice Girl, "Posh" -- and enters a celebrity whirlwind of Princess Diana -- esque proportions. Together, the Beckhams are Britain's new royal couple -- their 240-acre estate outside of London is known as Beckingham Palace -- and their presence at parties or charity events guarantees endless tabloid stories and photos as well as adoring mobs that must be restrained by police barricades. Their life is as much a study in managing fame as it is in sports and pop phenomena.In Beckham he talks candidly about the pressures of celebrity -- his wife and sons were the targets of a 2002 kidnapping plot; how he balances his roles as a devoted husband and besotted father with his globetrotting existence as an international soccer player; the behind-the-scenes stories of his most memorable career moments, such as the penalty kick against archrival Argentina in the World Cup that redeemed him to a nation who blamed him for their failure in the previous World Cup; the controversy surrounding his move to Real Madrid and the falling out with the man who shaped his career, Manchester United's famously combative manager Sir Alex Ferguson; and, finally, his love of America -- his first son was conceived in and named Brooklyn -- where, like the great Pelé, David can imagine playing out his final seasons.So much has been written about David Beckham that it's easy to think we know everything about the world's most famous athlete, but only Beckham himself can set the record straight on his beliefs, his dreams, his loves, his fears, and, above all, his sense of who he is. Beckham is an intimate account of an extraordinary life, a life in which, against all odds, he has managed to keep both feet on the ground.

Acknowledgments	ix
Foreword	xi
Introduction: For Real	1	(16)
1 Murdering the Flowerbeds	17	(18)
2 The Man in the Brown Sierra	35	(10)
3 Home from Home	45	(28)
4 DB on the Tarmac	73	(24)
5 The One with the Legs	97	(22)
6 Don't Cry for Me	119	(24)
7 Thanks for Standing By Me	143	(30)
8 I Do	173	(28)
9 The Germans	201	(28)
10 My Foot in It	229	(32)
11 Beckham (pen)	261	(32)
12 Bubble Beckham	293	(22)
13 About Loyalty	315	(20)
14 United Born and Bred	335	(32)
Career Record	367

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Excerpts

Beckham
Both Feet on the Ground: An Autobiography

Chapter One

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 thenew Manchester United uniform Dad had bought me for Christmas, playing soccer in the front room of our house in Chingford. Twenty-fiveyears on, and Victoria could have filmed me having a kickabout thismorning with Brooklyn before I left for training. For all that so much hashappened during my life -- and the shirt I'm wearing now is a differentcolor -- some things haven't really changed at all.

As a father watching my own sons growing up, I get an idea of whatI must have been like as a boy; and reminders, as well, of what Dadwas like with me. As soon as I could walk, he made sure I had a ballto kick. Maybe I didn't even wait for a ball. I remember when Brooklynhad only just got the hang of standing up. We were messing aroundtogether one afternoon after training. For some reason there was a tinof baked beans on the floor of the kitchen and, before I realized it, he'dtaken a couple of unsteady steps towards it and kicked the thing ashard as you like. Frightening really: you could fracture a metatarsal doingthat. Even as I was hugging him, I couldn't help laughing. That musthave been me.

It's just there, wired into the genes. Look at Brooklyn: he always wants to be playing soccer, running, kicking, diving about. And he's alreadylistening, like he's ready to learn. By the time he was three and a half, if I rolled the ball to him and told him to stop it, he'd trap it by puttinghis foot on it. Then he'd take a step back and line himself up beforekicking it back to me. He's also got a great sense of balance. We werein New York when Brooklyn was about two and a half, and I rememberus coming out of a restaurant and walking down some steps. He wasstanding, facing up towards Victoria and I, his toes on one step and hisheels rocking back over the next. This guy must have been watchingfrom inside the restaurant, because suddenly he came running out andasked us how old our son was. When I told him, he explained he wasa child psychologist and that for Brooklyn to be able to balance himselfover the step like that was amazing for a boy of his age.

It's a little too early to tell with my younger boy, Romeo, but Brooklynhas got a real confidence that comes from his energy, his strength, andhis sense of coordination. He's been whizzing around on two-wheeledscooters -- I mean flying -- for years already. He's got a belief in himself, physically, that I know I had as well. When I was a boy, I only ever feltreally sure of myself when I was playing soccer. In fact I'd still say thatabout me now, although Victoria has given me confidence in myself inall sorts of other ways. I know she'll do the same for Brooklyn andRomeo too.

For all that father and son have in common, Brooklyn and I are verydifferent. By the time I was his age, I was already telling anyone whowould listen: 'I'm going to play soccer for Manchester United. 'He sayshe wants to be a soccer player like Daddy, but United? We haven'theard that out of him yet. Brooklyn's a really strong, well-built boy. Me, though, I was always skinny. However much I ate it never made anydifference while I was growing up. When I was playing soccer, I musthave seemed even smaller because, if I wasn't with my dad and hismates, I was over at Chase Lane Park, just round the corner from thehouse, playing with boys twice my age. I don't know if it was because I was good or because they could kick me up in the air and I'd comeback for more, but they always turned up on the doorstep after school:

'Mrs Beckham? Can David come and have a game in the park?'

I spent a lot of time in Chase Lane Park. If I wasn't there with thebigger boys like Alan Smith, who lived two doors away on our road, I'dbe there with my dad. We'd started by kicking a ball about in the backgarden but I was murdering the flowerbeds so, after he got in from hisjob as a heating engineer, we'd go to the park together and just practiceand practice for hours on end. All the strengths in my game are theones Dad taught me in the park twenty years ago: we'd work on touchand striking the ball properly until it was too dark to see. He'd kick theball up in the air as high as he could and get me to control it. Then itwould be kicking it with each foot, making sure I was doing it right. Itwas great, even if he did drive me mad sometimes. 'Why can't you justgo in goal and let me take shots at you?' I'd be thinking. I suppose youcould say he was pushing me along. You'd also have to say, though, that it was all I wanted to do and I was lucky Dad was so willing to doit with me.

My dad, Ted, played himself for a local team called King fisher in theForest and District League ...

Beckham
Both Feet on the Ground: An Autobiography. Copyright © by David Beckham. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

Excerpted from Beckham: Both Feet on the Ground by David Beckham, Tom Watt
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