The Roast Beckham of Old England

For a while we'd been favourably disposed towards the relatively sober coverage of the seemingly endless Beckham affair in the New York Times compared to the more gullible PR rubbish being lapped up by the Washington Post and USA Today. But the NYT seems to have decided to join the mob (slow news week?) with a Sunday op-ed piece by Phil Space er... I mean Phil Ball*. We're not sure what the point is of yet another "he'll be big in Spain, probably" article, but amongst the preposterous implications of this one is that Becks is going to bring a sense of fashion and flair to the benighted sackcloth wearers of Castille. The impression we get is that the Castillians will gaze on the showbiz flair of Becks in much the same way that the pathetic Irish and French Catholics gaze upon that huge hunk of English beef in Calais in the famous Hogarth picture. The article also contains the claim that despite his fame and fortune, Becks still has the common touch -- this from a man who had himself and his bride carried in on thrones as a key element of their wedding in Ireland.

It's not even like Becks is the first English player with some fashion aspirations to play for Real Madrid. Let us tell all these arriviste* soccer writers a little story. There once was a man named Steve McManaman who played for Liverpool Football Club. Steve combined a beautiful midfield vision and stylish passes with a pretty eventful social life. We even recall a fashion spread by Steve in The Face magazine. Eventually the antics of Steve and a couple of his mates (as he would say) on the team earned the group the collective name Spice Boys. He fell out of favour with the club, which declined to renew his contract and let him walk to Real Madrid. Where he has since learned Spanish, taken with good will his extensive time on the bench, and has popped up with some spectacular goals when he has gotten a chance to play. And despite not playing for Manchester United, he's, like, won a lot of stuff. Perhaps Steve has helped his image by confining his extensive clubbing to his beloved Liverpool, keeping himself out of the Spanish gossip columns. Indeed, there are persistent rumours he could return to the city's "other" club, Everton, though this 'Pool fan wishes they would bring him back to his old home. But anyway, the point is: instead of outlandish predictions, we'd get a much more solid benchmark for Becks by wishing him at least as well as his predecessor Steve i.e. a few medals, some decent playing time, and a seemingly happy life. That doesn't make for an eye-catching op-ed piece in the NYT.

*UPDATE [30 Sep 04] Actually, Phil is quite a nice chap with several books on Spanish football to his name, including this one. So we exclude him from the ranks of uninformed Becks-writers referred to above.