SPECTATOR SPORT
In thong and on song
Simon Barnes
FIRST of all it was the thrilling news that David Beckham wears his wife's knickers, the particularly skimpy kind known as thongs. Then it was the sight of Beckham making a thigh-high lunge at a Mexican footballer and being sent off. Wherever you looked, the entire nation was caught up in the question of Beckham's tackle.
The fact that Beckham wears his wife's knickers will come as no great revelation to readers of this column. Perhaps the fact that the information came initially in a book rather than a television programme somehow disqualified it as a story of national interest.
But the link between the knickers and the foul would seem to be a very intimate one. Beckham's highly public OK' magazine mar- riage to Posh Spice, a pop star at her perihe- lion of fame, is not without its pressures. Boy George once said that the most exciting thing about the Spice Girls was Beckham; the rest of the world has caught on.
Thus the build-up to the World Club Championship was dominated by knickers after Posh's artless and spectacularly ill- timed disclosure of this non-secret of their domestic life. Beckham's personal fortune, that of his wife, and the wife herself may be envied and admired, but there has always been something irresistibly hilarious about Beckham. Naturally, the world revelled in what is perhaps the best knickers story of the year so far.
The pressure of being a national laugh- ing-stock was no doubt the ultimate cause of that wild, incontinent tackle, even if the proximate cause was the brusque behaviour of the Mexican. Beckham becomes the first footballer to be sent off for wearing his wife's knickers — perhaps it counts as ungentlemanly conduct Thus he landed in the soup again: sent off and banned for the following match, which his team, Manch- ester United, duly lost. Beckham was pho- tographed larking in the swimming-pool with his team-mates, showing no remorse' for his actions. He should have behaved like a mediaeval flagellant, providing a photo-opportunity for the pops.
Every newspaper has been filled with car- ing, sharing advice: concentrate on the football, son, remember that publicity is your wife's business, not yours; move abroad; change your temperament, your wardrobe, your haircut, your personality.
I recall hearing from some sage that Beck- ham was a genius on a level with Einstein. This is a very tenable view, as it happens. Space and time is Beckham's special subject as ten minutes' study of any Manchester United match will tell you.
There is also the matter of Beckham's extraordinary strength of mind. After that last sending-off in the World Cup, he became the most hated person in England, taunted at every step. But he rose from the ashes to become a central figure in his side's unprecedented success.
People advise him to change. Why change a person who adds substantially to the gaiety of national life? That he wears his wife's knickers is charming, if uncom- fortable; that he plays football quite beauti- fully is a delight; that opponents can wind him up like a clock is only an aspect of his vulnerability. Beckham doesn't need reforming, he needs delighting in. He is delightful in his absurdity — more delight- ful still when playing football in his full Ein- stein pomp.
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