SPECTATOR SPORT
Banishment of boy Beckham
Simon Barnes
WHEN a father meets a son at the cross- roads, it is generally the beginning rather than the end of a story. The inevitable row about precedence is never the final word in the matter. The rest of the tale must unwind its slow and dreadful length.
'You win nothing with kids,' Alan Hansen, the television football pundit, memorably said when Sir Alex Ferguson, manager of Manchester United, set out to conquer the world with a band of very tal- ented, very loyal and very young men.
But Ferguson won everything. He required very little of his boys, his pseudo-sons, apart from total commitment, total obedience, total subjection of individuality to the com- mon cause. That is to say, Ferguson's cause.
A remarkable bunch: Ryan Giggs, Nicky Butt, Paul Scholes, Phil and Gary Neville . . . and that chap Beckham. Yes, him again. Probably the most talented, certainly the most turbulent, and infinitely the most gaudy. But not the most disobedient; there is no competition at all here — Beckham is the only one ever to have shown even a trace of disobedience.
Last weekend Manchester United beat Leeds United and took what will probably be a decisive lead in the Premiership. The story of the day, however, was David Beckham. Beckham did not play; he was not even a sub. The most important picture was not Andy Cole's winning goal but Beckham, banished to the stands, a baseball cap tugged low over his face, allowing the occasional glimpse of the famous boyish bumfluff and those haunt- ed eyes. What was he thinking?
Like all contrite sons, he was probably planning his retribution. He missed training the previous Friday, and that was a form of naked defiance. Ferguson is the heavy- handed, old-fashioned sort of father — this is his house and what he says goes. That is the way he works, and very effec- tive it is, too. He is not one of those man- agers who must work with submissive indi- viduals: his captains of choice have been Eric Cantona and Roy Keane. But these babes are, perhaps, a little different from Ferguson. Why? He has done — and risked — everything for them, has he not?
Beckham has been in trouble for going to parties, like any other turbulent boy. His priorities have shifted south with his mar- riage and the birth of a son. He commutes from Hertfordshire; if you're heading for Manchester, I wouldn't start from there.
The Hertfordshire/celeb partying was always destined to clash with Ferguson's mis- sion of global conquest. Naturally, a training session was going to be missed. Ferguson's retribution was immense; and so was the retribution of Beckham's team. They won, and triumphantly, the most difficult game of the domestic season. Who needs you, son?
It was a match that may well have settled the league, but it hasn't settled the matter between Beckham and Ferguson. True, Beckham is one of the main men in one of the world's leading clubs. But at what price? The price of obedience. Fathers and sons grow older at the same rate, which is why father-and-son rows never end with the vic- tory of the father. In fact, the more intense the situation, the more certain it is to end with the defeat of both. It is an old story. The wearing of a baseball cap does not mask its eternal truth.
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