Читать книгу David Beckham: My Side - David Beckham - Страница 11

‘I’m in Manchester but I’ll drive down. We could go out.’

My wife picked me out of a football sticker book. And I chose her off the telly.

Considering I grew up in Chingford and Victoria lived in Goff’s Oak – fifteen minutes’ drive away – it seems we travelled a very long way round before finding one another. We’d been to the same shops, eaten in the same restaurants, danced in the same clubs but never actually come face to face during twenty-odd North-east London years. Once we finally met, we had all that catching up to do. It felt straight away like we’d always been meant to be together. Maybe everything that had gone before was just about us getting ready for the real thing to happen.

It’s November 1996. I’m sitting in a hotel bedroom in Tbilisi, the night before a World Cup qualifier against Georgia. Gary Neville, my room-mate, is lying on the other bed in the room. Aside from the matches themselves, overseas trips, whether it’s with my club or with England, aren’t my favourite part of being a professional player. What do you see? What do you do? Eat, sleep and train; sit in rooms that all look the same as the last one. That particular hotel in Georgia, the only one up to international standards after the break-up of the old Soviet Union, was built in a square, with balconies piled up on each side overlooking an open area containing the lobby, bars and restaurant. All the bedroom doors faced across at each other, there was steel and glass everywhere. This place felt even more like a prison than most. Looking out of the window, I could see a half-built dual carriageway and a grey river oozing along beside it. It wasn’t the kind of view that made you think about going out for an evening stroll.

So Gary and I are just chatting. The television’s on in the corner, tuned to a music channel. On comes the new Spice Girls’ video, ‘Say You’ll Be There’. They’re dancing in the desert and Posh is wearing this black cat suit and looks like just about the most amazing woman I’ve ever set eyes on. I’d seen the Spice Girls before – who hadn’t – and whenever that blokes’ conversation came up about which one do you fancy, I always said:

‘The posh one. The one with the bob. The one with the legs.’

But that evening, in that claustrophobic hotel room, it dawned on me for the first time. Posh Spice was fantastic and I had to find a way to be with her. Where was my Lawrence of Arabia outfit? Who was going to lend me a camel?

‘She’s so beautiful. I just love everything about that girl, Gaz. You know, I’ve got to meet her.’

Gary probably thought I was getting a bit stir-crazy. We’d been through quite a lot together but that hadn’t included me falling in love with a pop star on the television. That’s what was going on: right at that moment, my heart was set on Victoria. I had to be with her. How could I make it happen, though? I was a young guy, with a career as a footballer that was just starting to go quite well. This beautiful, sexy woman who I was desperate to meet was a Spice Girl. At the time, Victoria and the Girls were everywhere: number one in the pop charts, on the cover of every magazine and on the front page of every newspaper, jetting all over the world. They were the biggest thing on the planet. There were pop stars and pop stars. And then there were the Spice Girls. Here was I, deciding I really needed to go out with one of them.

What was I supposed to do? Write to her?

‘Dear Posh Spice. You don’t know me but I have this very strong feeling that, if we could meet somehow, I think we’d get on really well. I don’t know what your schedule’s like but you can find me at Old Trafford every other Saturday.’

You hear stories about A-list celebrities who know how to arrange this sort of thing. Not me. I couldn’t exactly get My People to speak to Her People. I’m sure I wasn’t the only bloke in the world who was carrying a torch for ‘The One With The Bob’ at the time. It might have sounded crazy, but I was absolutely certain that meeting Posh Spice was something that simply had to happen, even though I didn’t have a clue as to how or where. I got my sister Joanne to dig out a copy of Smash Hits so I could at least find out a bit more about Victoria: her surname, for a start.

Just a month or so later, we were down in London to play Chelsea and, before the game, someone in the dressing room said that a couple of the Spice Girls were at Stamford Bridge.

Which ones? Is Posh here? Where are they sitting? Somehow or other, I kept the excitement to myself. Maybe this was the chance I’d been waiting for. Later, I found out that it was Victoria, along with Melanie Chisholm, who’d come to the game. As I went up to the Players’ Lounge, I was praying she would be there.

I met up with Mum and Dad. Victoria and Melanie were chatting in one corner. Their manager walked over and introduced himself:

‘Hello, David. I’m Simon Fuller. I look after the Spice Girls. I’d like you to meet Victoria.’

I could feel little beads of sweat starting to roll down my forehead. Suddenly it was very hot indeed in that lounge. She came over. I didn’t have a speech ready, so all I could manage was:

‘Hello, I’m David.’

Victoria seemed pretty relaxed. I think she and Mel had had a glass of wine or two. In the game I’d scored with a volley, which I hoped might have impressed her, until I found out she hadn’t been wearing her glasses. The truth was Victoria didn’t really have a clue what had been going on during the match. She was looking at me and, I guessed, didn’t have the faintest idea who I was. Man United? Chelsea? Were you even playing today? Later, someone reminded her that she’d picked my picture out of an album of football stickers when the Girls had been doing a photo shoot in team strips a few days before. Knowing nothing about football, she’d been the only one who hadn’t made up her mind whose kit to wear. Looking at those pictures had been part of trying to decide which team she was going to pretend to support. Right then, though, that picture wasn’t doing me any good at all.

‘I’m Victoria.’

And that was that. I couldn’t think what to say next. Simon Fuller rattled on for a bit about the game: I can’t say I remember a word of it. She went back into her corner with Melanie. I went back to where my mum and dad were standing. I looked across the room at Victoria. Stared, in fact: I couldn’t take my eyes off her. And I could see Victoria was looking back at me. I should be trying to get her number, at least trying to say something else to her. But I didn’t. She left. I left. That was it; I’d blown my big chance. I got back on the coach and it was all I could do not to start banging my head against the back of the seat in front in frustration.

During the course of the following week, once I’d got over feeling sorry for myself, I found out a little more about the Girl of my dreams. Despite the missed opportunity, meeting her had only made me more certain about her. I saw the piece in 90 Minutes magazine featuring the Spice Girls in their football kit, Victoria in a United strip and a caption saying she liked the look of David Beckham. I didn’t know how these things worked; that the quote from her might have just been made up. No: made up was what I was. And for the next home game, there she was at Old Trafford.

This time, it had been the full works. Victoria had been wined and dined before the match by Martin Edwards, the United Chairman. She and Melanie had gone out on the pitch to do the half-time scores. And now she was in the players’ lounge after the game, in the middle of another glass of champagne. I walked in and went over to say hello to Mum and Dad. And, because we’d met before – briefly, nervously – it was easier this time to say hello to Victoria. She looked fantastic in tight combat trousers and a little khaki top, cut quite low; an unbelievable figure. I remember hoping she wouldn’t get the wrong idea about me and her cleavage: there was a tiny blemish, like a freckle, at the top of her breastbone that I just couldn’t stop staring at.

Deciding what to say next wasn’t exactly obvious. This is it. You’re the one. That was in my head. But you can’t really make that sort of declaration to someone you’ve only ever said three words to, especially with your mum and dad and your team-mates within earshot. Joanne was there and she and Victoria seemed to be doing better on the small talk than I was. My sister, at least, had some idea of how I was feeling. I did the bloke thing and went off to the bar to get in a round of drinks. The next moment, Victoria was there beside me. It wasn’t like we knew what we wanted to say. How do you start? What’s it like being a pop star? What’s it like playing football for a living? But I think we both knew that we needed to be speaking to each other and once we started talking – at last – neither of us wanted to stop. Next time I was aware of where I was, I was looking around the room and thinking: Where’s everybody gone?

Mum and Dad were still there. Oh, no. Not a Spice Girl they were probably muttering to themselves. And one or two other people were just sort of lingering, as if they were waiting to see what was going to happen. I remember Victoria going off to the ladies and me having this big now-or-never moment with myself. When she came back, I gabbled out an invitation to dinner. I didn’t have any sort of plan. I hadn’t thought about where we might go. It was just instinctive: I didn’t want her to leave. Victoria said she had to go back to London, as the Spice Girls were flying off to America on the Monday. But she asked me for my phone number. Without missing a beat, I did the reckoning up. What? So you can forget you’ve got it? Or lose it? Or decide not to call?

‘No, Victoria. I’ll take your number.’

She scrabbled around in her bag and pulled out her boarding card from the flight up to Manchester that morning. She wrote down her mobile number, then scratched that out and gave me her number at home at her parents’ instead. I still have that precious little slip of card. It was like treasure and I was never likely to lose it. But as soon as I got home, I wrote the number down on about half a dozen other bits of paper and left them in different rooms, just in case.

It usually takes me ages to get off to sleep the night after a game: the adrenalin’s still pumping five or six hours later. That particular night, I was buzzing with having met Victoria properly too. I must have slept because I remember waking up late. At about eleven, I picked up The Number and dialled. The voice at the other end sounded just like her but, because I couldn’t be sure, I decided to be polite as I could:

‘Is Victoria there?’

Just as well I hadn’t ploughed straight in. It was her sister, Louise.

‘No. She’s at the gym. Who is this? I’ll get her to give you a call.’

Everybody’s been a teenager. A teenager in love. And I’m sure there are plenty of people, like me, who were still getting a bit melodramatic about it all well into their twenties. She’s out at the gym? Well, that’s it then: that’s the brush off, isn’t it? Getting her sister to answer the phone and say she’s out. I didn’t actually go and lie down and beat the floor with my fists, but that’s what it felt like. I knew Victoria and me had to happen. But maybe she didn’t and now it wasn’t going to. I just sat on the bed, staring at the phone. Half an hour? An hour? It felt like a week. And then the thing rang.

‘David? It’s Victoria.’

We picked up where we’d left off at Old Trafford the evening before. I got the feeling we were both talking away, trying to find the nerve to actually say what we meant. I’d already asked once, in Manchester, and eventually I got round to asking again:

‘What are you doing later?’

‘Nothing.’

‘I’m in Manchester but I’ll drive down. We could go out.’

Five hours later I was at the car wash in Chingford. First things first: the car had to look its best. I wasn’t to know whether Victoria would be impressed with the new one, a blue BMW M3 convertible, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I scrubbed it, hoovered it and by the time I got to my mum’s I was looking in worse nick than the car had after the drive down. Mum knew I’d got Victoria’s number at Old Trafford and I think she knew what was going on when I turned up on the doorstep. She wasn’t too sure about the whole Spice Girls thing at all but she knew me better than to try talking me out of it: I’m as soft as she is but, when I get my heart set on something, I’m as stubborn as my dad.

‘All right, David. It’s up to you.’

She knew perfectly well she’d have no chance of changing my mind. On went clean clothes: a white t-shirt, a beige jacket, Timberlands and a pair of Versace jeans. It was like putting on my costume for the most important show ever. I rang the co-star and we arranged to meet – very swish setting – at a bus stop outside the Castle, a pub we both knew in Woodford. We worked out later that we’d been in that pub at exactly the same time as each other in the past but without realising it.

She pulled up in her car, a purple-coloured MG, and I went over. I climbed in the passenger seat. I was so nervous. What should I do? Kiss her on the cheek? Shake hands? With a little wobble in my voice, I mumbled:

‘All right?’

I’d sorted out my car. I’d sorted out my wardrobe. I can’t say I’d sorted out a plan for the evening.

‘Where do you want to go?’ Victoria smiled.

‘Um. Where would you like to go?’

We pulled out into the road, neither of us having a clue where we were heading but both of us sure we wanted to go there together. I knew her manager, Simon, was really nervous about the Girls and their boys. Anything that was going on in Spiceworld was all over the papers almost before it had happened in those days. I didn’t want to be sharing her company with anybody anyway, to be honest. So we drove around looking for somewhere that would be private enough.

The other reason for wanting to be out of the way was that she had a boyfriend, Stuart, who she was still seeing. He was off skiing in France with her dad at the time. Victoria was straight with me about it from the off; like me, she tries to be completely honest with people. We’d only just met. She didn’t want us to muck each other around, or anyone else for that matter. There was just one difficult moment and that was that night: Stuart called Victoria on her mobile while we were driving around together. I was single, of course, but I told Victoria all about the important girlfriends in my past: Deana, who I’d been with for three years when I first moved up to Manchester and who had been so important to me as a teenager away from home for the first time; and Helen, who I’d been seeing for eighteen months more recently and who’d stepped away when people started making a fuss about this young lad from London making a name for himself at United.

Victoria told me about Stuart, and about a lot else besides, as we drove past crowded pub after crowded pub around North-east London. When you meet The One, there’s a lot of catching up to do. We made a good start that night and, an hour or so later, I had my good idea:

‘I know this little Chinese.’

There was a restaurant in Chingford that I’d visited with Mum and Dad. Nothing spectacular but it had one big thing to recommend it: there was never anyone else in the place whenever I’d eaten there. I gave Victoria directions; we parked up and went in. Perfect: it was absolutely deserted. We sat down and I ordered:

‘Could we have a Coke and a Diet Coke, please?’

The lady who ran the restaurant looked at us. Oh, the last of the big spenders. She didn’t have a clue who we were. I could understand her not recognising me, but Victoria? It was a little world of its own, that Chinese.

‘You can’t have drink unless you eat meal.’

I said we just wanted a quiet drink. She wasn’t having any of it:

‘This is an exclusive restaurant, you know.’

We were getting chucked out. I offered to pay for a full meal if we could just have our drinks but it was too late for that and, suddenly, at eleven o’clock at night, we were standing back out in the street. It was time for Victoria to have her good idea:

‘We could go round to my friend’s house.’

My luck: the friend was Melanie Chisholm. What had I got myself into? I was out with one Spice Girl and now we were going round to another one’s house. How much more nervous could a lad get on a first date?

When we arrived, Melanie was in her pyjamas and had got out of bed to answer the door. The moment we walked in, my heart sank. There was this big Liverpool FC poster up on the door. I’m not ready for this.

I sat down and Victoria and Melanie went missing for ten minutes. I think they were in the kitchen chatting while I was left on my own on the sofa in the lounge like a complete lemon. By the time they came back, I’d wound myself up all over again. It was like being at a really awkward tea party. Victoria was nervous too, I think. We sat at the two ends of the sofa as if we hadn’t been properly introduced. They chatted. I sat and listened. I’m not sure I actually said a word the whole time we were there.

An hour or two later we were back in Victoria’s MG, continuing our tour of the M25’s beauty spots. I remember she drove us past her parents’ house at one point, maybe just so that I’d know where to find her. Eventually, in the early hours of the morning, we were back at the Castle. The Spice Girls were off to the States the following day and we had to say our goodbyes. I got back in my car and waved. Victoria promised to call when she got to New York. Not exactly the most romantic of first dates, but I felt like it couldn’t have been better. I’d known that all we needed was to meet. Love at first sight? No, it was happening quicker than that.

So was everything else. That 1996/97 season United won the League again and got closer than we ever had before to what I think had become the gaffer’s real ambition: winning the European Cup again for the club. It’s a bit like learning football all over again, getting to grips with playing the best teams in Europe. There have been one or two teams that United seem to have played over and over again in the last ten years. I’m thinking of Barcelona, Juventus and Bayern Munich, in particular. It’s almost as if you have to meet those teams in the Champions League just to find out what kind of progress you’ve made on the European stage.

In the autumn of 1996, I remember we got turned over twice by Juve, 1–0 both home and away. However much of the ball we had, we just couldn’t work out how to beat them. We still qualified from the first group stage, though, and it felt for a while like we were on our way. There was one amazing night at Old Trafford when we beat Porto 4–0 in the quarter-finals. That was the start, I think, of people taking United seriously as a team that could win the competition. That year, we went into the semi-finals against Borussia Dortmund believing we had a real chance. Instead, they mugged us: like so many German teams, they were very organised and knew exactly what they were doing. They defended really well; I remember their left-back, Jorg Heinrich, was about as difficult to play against over those two games as any player I’ve ever faced. After they beat us 1–0 in the first leg in Dortmund, we fancied our chances, but they repeated that score line at Old Trafford and then went on to beat Juventus in the final.

Those games against Dortmund were real killers but, otherwise, things couldn’t have gone much better for me that season. I found myself wearing the number 10 shirt, playing almost every game, and scoring the kind of goals I used to when playing for Ridgeway Rovers: like the one from beyond the halfway line at Selhurst Park against Wimbledon, or the volley against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on the day I first met Victoria. To top it all off, I was voted PFA Young Player of the Year. When the opponents you’re up against in the Premiership every week give you that kind of recognition, you can’t help but feel like you’re doing something right.

It was a great time to be a United player. We had the best manager in the country, and it definitely felt like we had the best number two as well. I know the gaffer said some uncomplimentary things about Brian Kidd after he left Old Trafford to take the manager’s job at Blackburn Rovers, but I thought they made a great team. Kiddo’s a fantastic coach – just ask anybody who’s ever worked with him – and I think, at United especially, he did a great job working between the boss and the players. Everybody in the dressing room thought that Brian was ‘one of us’. After training or after a game, no one needed to watch what they were saying or doing. Kiddo would be having a laugh along with the rest.

He knew when it was time to be serious too. We worked really hard in training but you never noticed it with Kiddo because he made sure every session was different: it stopped us ever getting bored and the new routines kept players fresh. Scholesy and Nicky Butt and the Nevilles had known Brian even longer than I had: he was United through and through. I think that’s part of the reason he handled relationships between people at the club so well. I know I’m not the only one who, at some point during his time at Old Trafford, had to thank him for defusing a confrontation with the gaffer. He never went against the manager, or tried to undermine him in any way, but I always felt like he looked out for us players. It made for a really happy dressing room.

It was also a pretty successful dressing room. We were disappointed to miss out in Europe but, in May 1997, winning the Premiership for the second year running was a big achievement in itself. In the end, we finished seven points clear, but it was more than just a one- or two-horse race. Liverpool, Newcastle and Arsenal all had a go at different times in the season. We won the title with a couple of weeks to spare; it was a bit strange becoming champions thanks to another team losing. On the Monday night we drew 3–3 with Middlesbrough at Old Trafford. You don’t forget any game where Gary Neville scores a goal. Then on the Tuesday, Liverpool, the only team who could beat us to the title, had a televised match at Selhurst Park. I was round at Ben Thornley’s house with Gary to see it. I don’t like watching football on television at the best of times and, with what was at stake, I couldn’t stand the tension. Gary and I ended up going out for a walk and missing the whole of the second half.

By the time we got back, Wimbledon had won and that meant we were champions. Normally at the end of a game in which you win a trophy, you can let some of the adrenalin out, on the pitch and back in the dressing room. That evening in 1997, though, we were sitting in Ben Thornley’s lounge. We broke the club curfew that night; the only time I ever did. We had a game against Newcastle coming up on the Thursday and so we should have been at home, getting an early night. I’m not a drinker or a clubber anyway, as a general rule. But that evening was different. We’d won the League, hadn’t we? It didn’t feel like an occasion to be sitting indoors, so the three of us went out on the town in Manchester and had a beer or two more than we should have done. I’m sure the gaffer knew – he knows everything about everybody – but we got away with it. And there was no harm done because we drew against Newcastle two evenings later.

I think the really big winner that season was probably my mobile phone company. I knew straight away I was crazy about Victoria. I found myself thinking about how and when I could be with her during most of every day we were apart. No sooner had we met, she’d had to jet off to America with the Spice Girls. We spent hour after hour talking and the bills got scarier and scarier. But they were the best investment I’ve ever made. The couple of times we’d actually been face to face, I’d felt so nervous it took my breath away. It’s strange how different it was on the phone. It seemed to be the most natural thing in the world to be telling this amazing woman all about my life – and my feelings – and listening to her do the same. By the time she got back to England, it felt like we really knew each other. We started to find out, as well, what we were going to mean to each other. Whatever the phone company had made out of it seemed like a bargain.

The florists didn’t do too badly out of me, either. I sent flowers to each new hotel Victoria booked into and a single red rose every day for the best part of a month. I couldn’t wait for her to come home. I think perhaps people have this idea that our life together must always have been about glamorous parties: stars, luxuries, photo opportunities. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Having the time together was all that mattered. The first date had been about driving around, getting thrown out of a Chinese, and sitting on a friend’s sofa. Our second evening out was just as low-key as the first. We arranged to meet up in another pub car park – that’s how stylish we were – this one called City Limits. A strange thing happened on the way there. I stopped at a petrol station and went in to buy some chewing gum. Just as I was pulling out of the forecourt, I saw Victoria arrive, jump out and do the same thing. Fresh breath, or something to steady the nerves? Both probably. I drove on to City Limits and parked.

When Victoria arrived, I jumped out, went over to her MG and got in beside her. For such a little car, I remember there was a big gap between the driver’s and front passenger’s seats. We didn’t go anywhere. We talked. And we kissed, for the first time. I had a cut on my finger from training. Victoria reached across me to the glove compartment and pulled out this sprig of a plant, Aloe Vera.

‘It’ll heal you.’

She rubbed it on the cut and then gave it to me. I must have told her about getting hurt on the phone and she’d brought it along. I remember, a week or two later, looking in my fridge and seeing this Aloe Vera plant, starting to decompose in a bag on the shelf. By then, whatever magic it contained had already done its job. At the end of that evening in the car park at City Limits, I felt like at least a year’s worth of dreams had come true.

I went mad the next day and had roses and a Prada handbag delivered to Victoria at her mum’s house. It’s amazing what you find out in a Smash Hits ‘Likes and Dislikes’ feature. I still try and send gifts like that now: it’s a natural thing to me. If you love someone, you want to treat them, surprise them, remind them how you feel, whether that means a weekend away somewhere, or a bowl of fruit in the morning laid out in the shape of a heart. I know Victoria thinks I’m romantic like that. Some people reading about it might call it soft. But that’s me. I get a good feeling now, when I see Brooklyn with his baby brother or with other children at school, looking after them, being gentle, making sure they’re okay. I think I know the parts of my character that I’ve inherited from my mum. Some of what a person grows up to be comes from what they see and learn. There are other things, deeper things, that are already with you and all you have to do is pass them on.

The next time Victoria and I met, we decided I would do the driving. Not that we had any better idea as to where we were going to go. Victoria’s mum and her brother, Christian, dropped her off at our favourite dodgy rendezvous, the City Limits car park. As she got out of her mum’s BMW, Christian leant over and whispered to his mum:

‘Well, at least he’s got a decent car.’

I read somewhere that Victoria liked Aston Martins, so I managed to borrow this brand new silver DB7 from a showroom, telling the salesman that I was thinking about buying one. Of course, if it was going to make a difference with Victoria, I would have done just that. After a minute or two of our ‘I don’t know, where do you want to go?’ routine, we settled on a run down to Southend: I’d gone to the seaside there so often with Mum and Dad and Lynne and Joanne when I was a kid. Who cared about the state of the beach or the sea back then? We’d always splashed straight in and loved every minute of it. Now, as we headed off round the North Circular, I suddenly realised this spanking new car didn’t have a map in it. Worse still, I couldn’t remember the way: Dad had always driven us down there and I’d probably been too busy messing about in the back with Joanne to take much notice of where we were going.

I couldn’t tell Victoria I was already lost before we’d even left London, could I? So I just drove: all the way to Cambridge, as it turned out. We stopped and had a pizza in a restaurant in the middle of town, never mind that one or two of the other people in there were turning round and having to take a second look. It felt to me like Victoria and I had the place to ourselves. We drove back to London and I dropped her home at her mum and dad’s. Not before time, it had been like a proper date: dinner for two, even if we had ended up about seventy miles north of where we’d been planning to go.

Next time out was lovely, too: the back row at the pictures down in Chelsea. We saw Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire, but all I cared about was whose hand I was holding. The big deal that evening was going back to Victoria’s parents’ house afterwards and meeting Tony and Jackie for the first time. We walked in and I was so embarrassed. I remember sitting down on the settee, a big brown leather thing, the material gathered and pinned down with those little buttons, worrying about what noise I might make if I moved on it to get comfortable.

Victoria’s mum came down and introduced herself. When you first meet Jackie, she can seem a little prickly. Or, at least, that’s what it felt like that evening. It was probably as much to do with me, jumping to a new boyfriend’s conclusion and imagining that the mother was being a bit sharp with me even though she wasn’t meaning to be:

‘You’re the footballer then, are you?’

Victoria’s mum and dad weren’t interested in football, but living in Goff’s Oak, an area where many footballers live too, meant they knew some older players socially. After the opener from Jackie, it was Tony’s turn:

‘What team do you play for?’

For whatever reason, I don’t think they liked the idea of their daughter going out with a footballer. Maybe I got stuck with someone else’s reputation at first, at least until we met and they could judge for themselves. I don’t know if they thought footballers were all loud and cocky but I just sat there on their sofa and was too nervous to say more than a couple of words. At least they didn’t kick me out of the house and, after a while, they said goodnight and disappeared upstairs. I’m sure every mum and dad feels that no boyfriend is ever good enough for their little girl. That, as well as me being a footballer, might have had something to do with Tony and Jackie being wary of me at first. They knew Victoria, though, and that meant they were willing to get to know me. I’m glad they were. When you marry a woman, you become part of her family too. However frosty I might have imagined they were that first night, Tony and Jackie have welcomed me in ever since.

I think Victoria and I were so happy to have found each other that we wouldn’t have minded telling complete strangers about it. That’s how it is, being in love: you want the rest of the world to know about it. But our relationship was this big secret. Simon Fuller wanted it that way and I think Victoria understood why, early on at least. Who was I to argue? To be honest, all the ducking and diving, sneaking around and keeping ourselves out of sight, was exciting in a way as well. There was one night when Victoria was in Manchester for a Spice Girls concert. United had a party that same evening to celebrate winning the Premiership. Victoria had travelled up the night before and come to stay with me at the house in Worsley. We arranged that I would try and get to the hotel where she was staying after the club function wound down. All the Girls were around. She couldn’t really have disappeared off to North Manchester after her gig.

I left our party around one in the morning, so it was already late. Victoria was staying at the Midland Hotel and I took a cab across town, and rang on the way to let her know I was coming. I was wearing this mac, probably looking like a character in a detective movie, and, sticking to the part, I sneaked into the hotel and up the back stairs to the leading lady’s room. Victoria answered the door, half asleep, and then I kept her up half the night talking. At one point, very early the next morning, someone knocked at the door. I dashed into the bathroom to hide: well, I’d seen that particular move in plenty of films too. I crept out of the Midland the same way I’d crept in, and hailed a cab to take me back to Worsley. It wasn’t until we were on our way that I realised all I had on me was a pocket full of loose change. I had to watch the meter and got out about 200 yards from my front door, which was as far as my money would take me.

I’d never felt this way about anyone before. As soon as I met Victoria, I knew I wanted to marry her, to have children, to be together always. I could have said it to her on that first date, as we drove round the M25 in her MG. I was that sure that quickly. After we first met, Victoria and I spent a lot of time apart: she was on tour, I was in the middle of an amazing season with United. We got used to each other, found out about one another and learned to trust each other during those four-hour telephone conversations. I’m not the world’s best talker, not at least until I know someone well. Maybe being on opposite sides of the world wasn’t the worst thing for us in those early days. When we had our chances to be together, it seemed like we’d already grown close very quickly. And for all that I was shy and would sometimes get a bit embarrassed in company, when it came to telling Victoria how I was feeling, I couldn’t let nerves stop me saying what I needed to. I remember us lying side by side at her mum and dad’s house one evening. It was the simplest, most beautiful conversation two people can ever have with each other:

‘I think I’m in love with you, Victoria.’

‘I think I’m in love with you, too.’

Keeping it all to ourselves wasn’t exactly my choice but I respected the way things had to be for Victoria. I’d stepped into Spiceworld and understood how important the Girls and their management team felt it was to keep everything under control. I didn’t talk to anyone about what was happening between us. My parents were aware something was going on but, at United, I wasn’t going to be a lad who came into the dressing room one morning boasting that he was going out with a pop star. That wasn’t me. I remember turning up for training one Monday after a lovely weekend with Victoria and Ben Thornley asking me why I was in such a good mood.

‘I’ve met this lovely girl.’

‘Who?’

‘Oh, just this lovely girl who lives down in London.’

Rumours started anyway. I suppose that was bound to happen. And rumours are something we’ve lived with ever since. It wasn’t long after our relationship became public that Victoria was getting phone calls to say the papers had pictures of me kissing another girl in my car. Those kinds of stories – completely untrue – still turn up now and again. Of course, proving something’s not true is a lot harder than proving it is. We’ve got used to rumours, though, and how and why they happen. We had to almost from the start. Victoria and I trusted each other then, just as we do now. If you’re with someone you love, you know anyway, deep down, what’s real and what isn’t.

With all the gossip doing the rounds, it got to the point where I had half a dozen photographers camped outside my house in Worsley every day, just waiting for Victoria to turn up. I’d never experienced anything like this before, whereas Victoria had, of course. I think she made the decision, really. She phoned to say she was coming up to see me and that she was happy enough to stop all the secrecy. We knew what we meant to each other, didn’t we? It was better that we decided where and when the public found out for sure that we were together. People imagine ours has been a glitzy, showbiz romance. Just remember: the first photos of us together were taken when we were walking down my road to go to the newsagents on the corner.

Once the story was out officially, I couldn’t believe the fuss: flashbulbs popping everywhere we went, stories all over the papers almost every day and everyone having an opinion on us and our lives. I think the attention was as intense as it was because of Victoria; after all, the Spice Girls were making headlines every time they blinked in those days. If I’m honest, all that side of it made being with Victoria even more exciting. It was a daily reminder of just how good she was at what she did. I loved the whole package: her looks, her personality, her energy. Those legs. But I was really turned on, too, by her talent and the recognition in the public eye that came her way because of it. I knew I wasn’t the only person out there who thought she was a star.

I realised what was going to happen. I think Victoria did, too. Before long, we’d started talking about getting engaged. I’d even asked her what sort of ring she might like and, being a woman with a pretty clear idea about her taste in things, Victoria had talked straight away about a particular shape of diamond, the stone longer and thinner at one end than the other, almost like the sail on a boat. She was busy with the Spice Girls, and so we didn’t settle anything at first, but about six months after we’d begun seeing each other, I arranged a weekend away at a lovely old hotel in Cheshire. It was just down the M6 from Manchester and we checked in early one evening after a United home game.

Somehow I knew this was the right time. A week later, Victoria and the Girls would be off on tour; it would be a year before they were back in England for more than a few days at a time. We had a bedroom overlooking a lake and the fields beyond. It was August, so we had dinner in the room while the sun set in the distance. We were both wearing towelling robes, which wasn’t exactly the obvious costume for the drama but, after we’d eaten, Victoria sat on the bed and I got down on one knee in front of her and asked her to marry me. I’d always wanted to marry and to have children and now I’d found the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Lucky for me, that night in Cheshire, the woman said yes. For all that I’d hoped she would, it’s difficult to describe the thrill for me when she said that word. It was like an electric charge running up my spine.

I really believe in the traditional way of doing these things, which meant that proposing to Victoria was the easy bit. I had a pretty good idea that she felt the same way as I did. The really hard part was asking Victoria’s dad for his daughter’s hand in marriage. I was nervous before I took the penalty against Argentina at the 2002 World Cup but, for tension, building myself up to ask Tony the big question wasn’t too far off. I knew I had to do it. I just didn’t know how or where or when. We were at their house in Goff’s Oak and no-one was giving me an inch. When I asked Jackie if she’d get Tony to come and talk to me, she wasn’t having any of it:

‘No, David. You have to do it yourself.’

I eventually cornered the prospective father-in-law in the prospective brother-in-law’s old room. I’d asked Tony if we could have a quick word in private and we trudged up the stairs together, me feeling like I was off to an execution. I walked into Christian’s old bedroom and tripped on the leg of the bed and stubbed my toe. At least Tony was behind me and so he didn’t see it happen. I looked at him. He looked at me. I wasn’t doing too well on breathing, never mind getting the words out and the pain in my foot didn’t help.

‘Tony. I’m asking Victoria to marry me. Is that okay?’

Not the best speech a would-be son-in-law ever made. He answered as if I’d just asked him if egg and chips would be all right for tea:

‘Yeah. No problem.’

I suppose I’d been getting wound up about it enough for both of us. I know how much Tony and Jackie love Victoria, so I realised his relaxed attitude about us getting engaged meant they’d decided I wasn’t the worst sort in the world. In fact, they’d already made me feel part of the family: this was just the next step for us all. Maybe I could have saved myself from a potential heart attack by not posing the big question, but asking Tony – like going down on one knee to Victoria – wasn’t just for show. I was only going to do these things once in my life, which meant they were incredibly important to me: I wanted to make sure I went about them the right way.

I’d like to say that it was because those were the months when I fell in love with Victoria and proposed to her that I don’t remember much of United’s season in 1997/98. The truth is, I’ve probably done my best to forget reaching that May and not having any kind of winners’ medal to show for it. It was new to all of us, the generation who had grown up together during the 1990s. We’d won Youth Cups and Reserve leagues and then, when we stepped up to the United first team, we’d just carried on where we’d left off as kids. The season ended up being a painful one, learning what it felt like to lose. Suddenly, here were Arsenal, doing what we expected to do ourselves: winning the Double. Without wanting to be disrespectful about that Arsenal team, the disappointment didn’t ever undermine our belief in ourselves. They won their games but at United we felt we lost the Premiership by not winning ours. Confidence was still high but maybe our standards had slipped along the way.

We badly missed Roy Keane, who had ruptured his cruciate ligaments in October, and was out for almost the whole season. No team is quite the same without its best players but, when Roy’s not in the United side, there’s something more than just his ability as a player that the rest have to do without. He was and still is a huge influence. For leadership and drive there’s absolutely no one to touch him: he’s a great footballer, of course, but he also brings out the best in the players around him. Whoever he’s getting at out on the park during games, his passion and determination always get that player, and the rest of the team, going. People can come in and cover for him but nobody replaces that strength United get from Roy. We didn’t talk about it during the season. The supporters did, the papers did, but we just got on with our games. Maybe it’s only looking back now that I realise how much we missed Keano.

I was lucky, though. So were Nicky Butt, Paul Scholes and the Nevilles. We were finding out what it was like to miss out with United, but we were getting the chance to be part of an England team together. And a successful England team at that. When it came to the end of the season in May 1998, we were hurting from losing out to Arsenal, of course, but there wasn’t the time to sit down and feel sorry for ourselves. Almost as soon as the last League game had been played, I was packing my bags for La Manga in Spain, and joining up with the other United lads and the rest of a 27-man England squad to prepare for the biggest summer any of us had ever known. I might have felt a little weary after a long English season, and maybe we all did, but that wasn’t important. I was about to experience a World Cup for the first time. France 98 meant new dreams and new expectations: as if being a husband-to-be didn’t already have me buzzing every day. I couldn’t wait for the tournament – and another chapter – to start.