English soccer legend and pop culture icon David Beckham speaks candidly about his early passion for soccer, rapid rise to fame, relationship with a Spice Girl and the trauma that followed that red card in the new Netflix docuseries, “Beckham.”
Beckham retired from his impressive sports career 10 years ago. “Beckham” celebrates his beginnings, relationships and the highs and lows of stardom. Beckham has called the series “a roller coaster of emotions.”
“This is the 10-year anniversary of when I retired,” Beckham toldNetflix.“It’s not just about my football career, but it’s about my family, it’s about being married to a Spice Girl, and my journey, really. It’s been a roller coaster of emotions, but it’s been special making it.”
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The first two episodes of “Beckham” — “The Kick” and “Seeing Red” — touch on Beckham’s humble beginnings, the early days of his romance with Victoria Beckham and his struggles with the vicious backlash he received following a “stupid mistake” at the 1998 World Cup.
1. As a kid, Beckham prioritized soccer over his social life
David Beckham came from humble beginnings. His father worked seven days a week as a gas engineer, and his mother was a hairdresser who worked out of her home. Growing up, Beckham recalled helping his mother while she worked by preparing snacks and tea for her clients.
“We didn’t have much then,” Sandra Beckham, David Beckham’s mother, explains in “Beckham”.
His parent’s hard work rubbed off on him. “I saw my mom and dad working hard everyday until 11:00 at night, 12:00 at night, I knew the only way to be a professional footballer was to work hard,” said Beckham in the docuseries.
Beckham’s passion for soccer bordered on obsession. As a kid, he prioritized the sport over nearly everything — including a social life. Which apparently, he never had.
“He would never do anything else,” Sandra Beckham recalled. “He never went out with friends, never went out at night.”
“I never really did well at school. I wasn’t intelligent, believe it or not,” Beckham said. “I never had many friends. I kept myself to myself and the moment I got home from school to the moment I slept, I spent my time out in the garden”
2. Sir Alex Ferguson scouted Beckham when he was a young teenager
Beckham was just 17 years old when he played in his first Manchester United game. A young Beckham caught Sir Alex Ferguson’s attention shortly after he joined the soccer club as manager in 1986, the series reveals.
“The phone rings, and it rung at a time that we would look at each other and be like “who is calling us at this time of night?’” Beckham recalled during one of his recording sessions with Netflix. His mother picked up the phone and revealed that Ferguson, former manger of Manchester United, was on the line.
“He came to us as a small, skinny little boy,” explains Ferguson, “but when you see potential it sticks out at you. It’s your job then to bring that to fruition.”
As a young teenager, Beckham considered Ferguson to be a “father figure” in his life.
“Alex Ferguson was someone that I looked up to as a father figure, one of the most important people in my life from the age of 12, 13 when I first met him,” he said
3. Beckham would drive hours to see Posh Spice
The “Beckham” docuseries reveals that Beckham saw Posh Spice for the first time while watching TV with his teammate Gary Neville and declared he would marry her.
“‘See that one there? I’m going to marry that one.’ And we were laughing and joking, and I’m like, ‘No, I’m going to marry that one — the posh one, in the black dress,’” Beckham recalls.
They met and immediately “fancied” each other. During the beginning of their relationship, Beckham “was like an addict,” according to Neville. “He would drive four hours to spend 20 minutes with her.”
“The truth is he was on the phone with Victoria every second and he would stay on the phone until 1 in the morning. He was in the bathroom with the light on all night speaking to her,” Neville says in “Beckham”
“I didn’t care when I saw her, how much I saw her, if it was me driving down to London to see her for seven minutes, I did it,” Beckham recalls.
4. Victoria Beckham doesn’t care for soccer
The docuseries also reveals that, before meeting Beckham, Victoria Beckham wasn’t a soccer fan. More than two decades later, she still doesn’t care for the sport.
When the couple met at one of Beckham’s games, Victoria claims she attended the game just to “see him.”
“I am not into football at all,” said Victoria Beckham in the Netflix series.“I wasn’t into football then, I’m not into football now. But I’d seen pictures of him in magazines, and he was obviously a very good-looking boy.”
Despite being married to the soccer legend for nearly 25 years, Victoria Beckham revealed she only cares to watch her husband play soccer.
“I’ve never really been in to football. I love watching him play football but then I’d love whatever he does.”
5. Beckham is still haunted by that red card
For the first time ever, Beckham spoke candidly to Netflix about the public abuse he faced following a 1998 World Cup game which left him “clinically depressed.”
After being fouled and run over by Argentina player Diego Simeone, Beckham impulsively kicked back at Simeone — who theatrically collapsed to the ground. Beckham received a red card and was thrown out of the game.
“I wish there was a pill you could take to erase memories,” Beckham reveals on camera in the docuseries. “I made a stupid mistake. Changed my life.”
England lost. Much of the blame fell on Beckham.
“What I went through was so extreme. The whole country hated me. Hated me. It changed my life. I felt very vulnerable and alone. Wherever I went I got abuse every single day,” says Beckham in the docuseries. “People look at you in a certain way, spit at you, abuse you, come up to your face and say some of the things that they said. That was difficult.”
Thousands of fans booed Beckham every time he was introduced at games. His parents received death threats. Bullets were mailed to him at Manchester United’s offices. A dummy wearing his jersey was hung outside a London Pub. Even Prime Minister Tony Blair blamed Beckham for the team’s unfortunate loss.
“It was inhumane what he had to deal with and it would have broken 99.9% of footballers,” said Gary Neville, a former Manchester teammate.
Beckham still struggles to cope with the massive amounts of cruel behavior directed towards him. “I was a mess,” recalled Beckham. “It’s only now that I’m 47 years old that I beat myself up about it.”
6. The Beckham family has not forgiven former England manager Glenn Hoddle
Following Beckham’s infamous red card during the World Cup, former England manager Glenn Hoddle publicly attributed the team’s loss to Beckham getting kicked off the field.
During a postgame interview Hoddle claimed Beckham’s removal “cost us dearly and we are absolutely distraught.”
Hoddle’s comment likely factored in to the country-wide hate Beckham faced, which sent him spiraling into a clinical depression. Decades later, Victoria Beckham and Sandra Beckham are still frustrated with Hoddle’s comments that night.
“Glenn Hoddle didn’t come out and try and protect David. And how old was David, 23? You’re a kid at 23. And Glenn Hoddle was a man,” Victoria Beckham said during an interview for the docuseries, adding, “Well, I wouldn’t even call him a man actually … he was an older person.”
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Beckham’s mother, Sandra, echoed Victoria Beckham’s opinion on Hoddle.
“Hoddle is on my hit-list … of people that upset me,” Sandra Beckham said in the docuseries. “I thought, ‘What have you done?’ He made it that it was David’s fault. And we’d been used to a manager … Alex Ferguson never spoke about his team.”
Where to watch ‘Beckham’
All four episodes of the “Beckham” docuseries are available to stream on Netflix. The show debuted on Oct. 4.
What is ‘Beckham’ rated and why?
“Beckham” is rated TV-MA for language.
