SoccerDespite an avalanche of books about Beckham, the man himself remains elusive, writes Alan Gilsenan
A chiselled face squints out at us from the cover of the July issue of Vanity Fair. Fine features with a hint of machismo underscored by a hint of 5 o'clock shadow. A lightly muscled torso, bare-chested naturally, right down to the low-slung designer jeans, complete with ripped edges. Around the neck hang a medallion and rosary beads. The body is shrouded in what appears to be a white cowl, but on closer inspection turns out to be a white hooded fleece, which drapes from the head down behind the body. There are religious overtones to this, but also something of the gowned boxer entering the ring. The violent allusion is reinforced by the blood-red backdrop that dramatically frames our figure. It has a wooden texture, weathered, with a hint of steel bolts and peeling crimson paint, with echoes of a great door, perhaps an entrance to some grand blood-splattered arena.
There is something iconic about it, in a contrived way, but vaguely familiar too. The image is superficially profound, the figure instantly recognisable yet strangely interchangeable. It could be Brad Pitt, Colin Farrell, Jude Law or any number of good-looking, iconic males. But it is David Beckham, so common and ordinary in so many ways, yet one of the most recognisable faces on the planet, photographed by Annie Leibovitz at the Municipal Bull Fighting Ring in Toledo. So this is David Beckham, yet again, part mysterious god, part bloke next door. Beckham our dream boy, but Beckham writ large. Beckham in Spain. Our toreador.
For this is the year, as Jimmy Burns's book would have it, when Beckham went to Spain, and for those in contemplative orders - or, perhaps, just with more interesting lives than the rest of us - the story, briefly, is this. English football star and advertising pin-up boy David Beckham, who only recently replaced Princess Diana in the people's affections, leaves Manchester United, that dream-team of every schoolboy, for Real Madrid, arguably the other most famous soccer team in the world. He goes apparently because his mentor and father-figure, manager Alex Ferguson, is losing faith in him. There is much speculation as to whether the Spanish club want Beckham to score goals or sell merchandise. Real Madrid, with its starry international array of footballing mercenaries, is a club with a past. It is a symbol too, if not of Spain itself, but of Madrid certainly, and perhaps of a new mythology or vision of modern Spain today.
But Spain is, of course, a country stricken by division, and its sporting history reflects this. So if Real Madrid is the team of the capital - centrist, royalist, right-wing with subtle overtones of collusion with Franco - their antithesis is FC Barcelona, the potent symbol of Catalonian nationalism - regional, left-leaning, democratic. To oversimplify, they are the Celtic and Rangers of the Hispanic world. So in choosing Royal Madrid, David Beckham - tabloid royalty himself - unwittingly or not, was choosing sides in a Spanish civil war. And, of course, in case we had forgotten, there is also Mrs Beckham to factor in. Lady Macbeth herself, Victoria Beckham, aka Posh Spice.
There has been a slew of books about Beckham, including his own Beckham and My Side. But now comes another new wave about Beckham in Spain, of which Jimmy Burns's is the most authoritative. There are four books just published that traverse exactly the same ground. Alongside Burns's book is the highly readable An Englishman Abroad by Phil Ball (Ebury/Random House), John Carlin's insider view White Angels: Beckham, Real Madrid and The New Football (Bloomsbury), and Alex Leith's hung-over travelogue El Becks (VSP). But the problem is that they're not about Beckham at all. Like the man himself, the cover and the contents do not relate. Marketing hype and genuine substance come head to head.
There is no doubt that all these authors love football and love Spain, and write enthusiastically, if casually, about both. It is also true that Beckham is a lightening-rod of sorts for examining the cultural resonances of Real Madrid. But there is little of note about Beckham in any of the books, and a whiff of cynicism envelops all of them. One strongly senses the influence of shrewd editors exploiting the "B" word and jumping on the Beckham Bandwagon.
Jimmy Burns wrote an excellent history of his true love, FC Barcelona, in Barca: A People's Passion, as well as his book on a true legend, Hand of God: The Life of Diego Maradonna. But this Beckham effort feels like just a book too far. In it, he is at his best writing in great detail about the fascinating story of Real Madrid's past and its intimate relationship with the evolution of the Spanish nation. Burns is a true Spaniard, and that gives him the edge in cultural understanding. But when he comes to the man who dominates the book's cover, there seems to be an over-reliance on Mr and Mrs Beckham's autobiographies, along with a quick dander through Hello magazine, perhaps, in the dentist's waiting-room.
Overall, it feels rushed and unstructured, with repeated clarifications of clarifications - how many times do we need it explained that Victoria Beckham is also known by her Spice Girls name, "Posh"? And, in the concluding pages, a very unfortunate and trite analogy between a disappointing end to Real Madrid's season and the tragic bombing at Atocha Station last March.
In all these books about Beckham in Spain, the man himself remains an elusive phantom, an idea around which so many other stories are woven, or theories based. In boxing parlance, the authors do not put a glove on him. They have used the icon and missed the man. Yet, if this icon is a commodity to be horse-traded by the merchandisers and the advertisers and the media, then why not too by a few humble sportswriters?
Maybe we need to separate the two Beckhams: the tabloid commodity and the loveable lad. And the lad remains loveable somehow, despite how little we really know of him. A fine footballer with his curving corners and his red-card furies and his oh-so-human penalty-taking. A shy gentle man with a high-pitched voice and a twinkling smile, in love with his wife and children. Loveable despite all his frailties, the Loos and the tattoos, even those haircuts and his dodgy flair for girlie style. For on the desolate concrete plains of Blair's Britain, David and Victoria Beckham represent the distant possibility that tabloid dreams really do come true. Maybe, in selling his self, David Beckham has saved his soul.
Alan Gilsenan is a film-maker and theatre director. His latest film is Timbuktu
When Beckham went to Spain By Jimmy Burns Michael Joseph/Penguin, 402pp. £16.99