I cannot imagine many people putting up with what David Beckham has put up with. If a lot of the footballers of the recent era had been abused like he had, they would have been on the scrapheap by now.
It all really started when he started going out with ’’Spice Girl’’ Victoria Adams. This just put the spotlight on him even more and earned him a lot of critiscism for his performances on the pitch. The word was that Victoria was ’’wearing him out’’. This was backed up by the fact that the rest of that season was arguably his worst yet.
Then followed ’World Cup 98’ in France. England had steadily qualified from the group stage and then faced Argentina in the second round. Early in the second half Diego Simeone fouled Beckham resulting in a slight retalitory kick from Beckham. It wasn’t a sending off offence in my eyes but the referee saw different. This proved a down point in Beckham’s career.
Following his return to England a couple of days later he was instantly hated by a minority of the british public. They blamed Beckham for our exit from the competition. Nothing was said about the fact that we got beaten on penalties and that Beckham would have not been able to prevent that anyway.
This resulted in death threats and I honestly think that has made him a much better player. He has gone from the most hated man in Britain to the much respected England captain. He obviously has got over what happened in 1998 and now is enjoying some very good success on the pitch.