A sporting icon courted by prime ministers past and present, newly knighted Sir David Beckham is renowned for being extremely media savvy.
Never more so than when I interviewed him for Sky News at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, after he took part in the closing ceremony having played a key role in London’s winning bid to host the 2012 Games.
Speaking about Sir Alex Ferguson in the interview, canny Sir Becks heaped praise on his old boss in our interview. But he’d been less complimentary about his old boss in a conversation with prime minister Gordon Brown, I later learned.
I’d travelled to Beijing with Mr Brown, via Afghanistan, and we spent the final evening of the Games at the handover party, when Boris Johnson – then London mayor – famously spoke in his speech about “wiff waff” (table tennis) coming home.
During his Beijing visit, Mr Brown had been promoting the idea of a Great Britain football team competing at the 2012 Games and there was speculation about Sir Alex being the team’s coach.
“Aah, Sir Alex,” Becks said wistfully and apparently affectionately when I asked him about being re-united with his former Manchester United manager during the interview. “Like a father to me.”
Later, on the flight home to the UK, when I told Gordon Brown about the interview, the prime minister laughed. “That’s funny,” he said.
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“Why?” I asked him.
He replied: “He told me ‘If Sir Alex is manager, he won’t pick me!'”
Beckham played for Fergie at Manchester United from 1995 until 2003, when he joined Real Madrid amid claims that Ferguson disapproved of the player’s showbiz lifestyle.
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By 2008 he was playing for LA Galaxy in the US.
But despite his canny, PR-savvy answers in my interview, I saw him work the room that night in Beijing and glad-hand relentlessly.
He gave every interview asked of him and turned on the charm on behalf of UK PLC to everyone present.
For politicians and prime ministers, sportsmen and women like Beckham are pure gold. David Cameron was also a fan and was photographed sitting alongside Becks at the London Games.
When “Goldenballs”, as wife Victoria called him, retired from football a year later, a No 10 spokesman gushed: “The prime minister’s view is that David Beckham has been an outstanding footballer throughout his career.
“But not only that, he has been a brilliant ambassador for this country, not least if we remember all the work he did on helping us win London 2012.”
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There was indeed a Great Britain men’s football team at the Olympics, but it was coached by former England legend Stuart Pearce, not Sir Alex.
And Pearce, nicknamed “psycho” for his aggressive style on the pitch, didn’t pick Becks either, though he claimed he’d faced pressure from Downing Street to include him.
Then in 2017, David Cameron’s former spin doctor Craig Oliver claimed a senior Tory cabinet minister – thought to have been George Osborne – suggested giving Becks a peerage and appointing him sports minister in a 2013 cabinet reshuffle.
That never happened either, obviously, though at least now David Beckham is also a knight – just like his “father figure” Sir Alex.
