Wednesday, 28 January 2009

The Real David Beckham

Throughout his career David Beckham has suffered accusations of being a footballer of very little brain, however recent documents have come to light proving that this is a myth created by the PR people at Manchester United who realised that a loveable buffoon was a much more saleable commodity than an intellectually superior who could possibly alienate himself from the common man. The following is an extract from the draft copy of Beckham's autobiography. It is a fascinating insight into a man whose brain genuinely is as cultured as his right foot.

"Many people have asked me what I think of pithy epithet by which my wife and I are known in the tabloid press, Posh and Becks. Well as a professional sportsman I would have preferred a more gentrified moniker such as Beckers, something you could imagine being preceeded by 'well bowled' and succeeded with 'old sport', however as football is classified as more of, shall we say, a sport of the people I am happy to settle for the uncomplicated contraction of my name.

As for my wife's little nickname of Posh I presume many people think it is ironic due to her less than salubrious upbringing, however even the most casual genealogist could dip into her family tree and find out that Victoria, as her regal name suggests, is, in fact, 27th in line for the throne. This combined with the fact that her father is good chums with the Prince of Monaco suggests that the only irony in my wife's given title is that it is a gross understatement!

In fact on the eve of the England versus Brazil game in 2002 both myself and Rio Ferdinand were discussing this very point in length over a rather wonderful glass of tawny port. He revealed to me that he is in fact a distant relative of the usurped Russian Tsars. We talked long into the night and, if I may be brutally honest, I believe it affected our performance the next day. What a pair of ninnies we are.Rio and I often enjoy long in-depth chats. Only the other day we discussed the relative merits of modernist film-maker Jean-Luc Goddard. I am a huge fan of his masterpiece Weekend, Rio on the other hand prefers the realism of the earlier French films such as Le Regle de Jeu. We phoned Wayne Rooney to see if he could mediate on our dilemma and he said "Jean-Luc Goddard? I ain't a fan. But I'd give the captain off Voyager one." Philistine."

No comments: