The Best Of Beckham

David Beckham was THE celebrity footballer of the 1990s and 2000s. You were just as likely to see Becks curl a free kick into the top corner on 'Super Sunday' as you were to see him on at least three of the adverts shown at half time such was the pulling power of 'Brand Beckham'. 

Beckham's rise has been documented in the new book by Wayne Barton (author of the tremendous 'Too Good To Go Down') titled 'Beckham: The Making Of A Megastar' and as we prepare for the book's release (we'll be doing a review once it's available) let's take a look at some of David Beckham's highlights in a Manchester United shirt. 

Halfway Line Howitzer 

Beckham's rise to the Manchester United first team began as part of the famed 'Class Of '92' alongside Ryan Giggs, Gary Neville, Paul Scholes and Nicky Butt. His first team bow came just a few short months after the famous FA Youth Cup triumph in 1992 when he replaced Andrei Kanchelskis in a League Cup tie against Brighton. His maiden first team goal came over two years later when his strike from the edge of the area helped an already eliminated United defeat Galatasaray at Old Trafford in a December 1994 Champions League clash. 

After a spell on loan at Preston North End and the sale of Kanchelskis to Everton in the summer of 1995, Beckham affirmed himself as the first choice right winger as Alex Ferguson's side silenced the 'experts' (and Alan Hansen) to prove you can win things with 'kids', overcoming a 12-point deficit to overhaul Newcastle United at the top of the Premier League to win their third title in four seasons and add the FA Cup for good measure, Beckham even scored the goal that took United to Wembley as his strike saw off Chelsea in a 2-1 semi-final win at Villa Park. 

The moment Beckham propelled himself into the headlines came on the opening day of the 1996-97 season at Selhurst Park. Already cruising 2-0 against Wimbledon and with the game ticking into stoppage time Beckham received the ball just short of the halfway line (inside his own half no less) and unleashed a lob that sailed over the head of Dons keeper Neil Sullivan and into the empty net. Football had come home in the summer of 1996, now as the Autumn dawned a new era in the English game had begun, BeckhamMania and it was about to run wild. 

Beckham celebrates his halfway line wonder gaol against Wimbledon on the opening day of the 1996-97 Premier League season. 

The Road To Redemption 

A string of impressive performances during the 1996-97 season not only helped United win the Premier League title for the second year running, they also earned him the PFA Young Player Of The Year award. In September of 1996, Beckham also made his international debut, playing for England in a World Cup qualifier against Moldova. 

During the 1998 FIFA World Cup in France, Beckham experienced both ends of the tabloid spectrum. Lauded as a hero following his stunning free-kick against Colombia that proved to be the goal that took England into the last-16. A few days later, he became persona non grata following his dismissal in the feisty clash with Argentina in St. Etienne which saw Glenn Hoddle's side exit the competition on penalties. 

The British tabloid press went into overdrive in it's campaign of vilification against the young winger. The Daily Mirror (under the editorship of one Piers Morgan) printed a dartboard in the paper with Beckham's face on the bullseye while rival fans began sickening taunts towards him with the zenith of the hate campaign coming when an effigy of Beckham was hung from a pub in South London. 

One set of supporters who rallied behind their idol was the United faithful and his long road to redemption (which can probably be pinpointed to his winning goal from the penalty spot against Argentina in Saitama at the 2002 World Cup) began on the opening day of the 1998-99 season. 

In an off colour performance at home to Leicester City which saw United trail Martin O'Neill's side 2-1 into stoppage time, Beckham's opportunity came in the dying minutes when The Red Devils were awarded a free kick. The winger brought the house down at Old Trafford by dipping a free kick beyond the grasp of Foxes goalkeeper Kasey Keller. 

David Beckham celebrates his dramatic equaliser against Leicester City on the opening day of the 1998-99 season. 

Beckham's maturity came to the fore over the course of the season as he assisted United towards their famous Treble triumph which culminated with the dramatic Champions League final win over Bayern Munich at the Camp Nou. 

Manchester Derby Dazzler

By the 2000-2001 season, United had won the Premier League title two years in a row with the most recent (1999-2000) coming via a record 18-point margin over nearest challengers Arsenal, The Red Devils were even able to afford missing out on a number of games in January 2000 to play in the controversial World Club Cup in Brazil. 

In May 2000, United's traditional local rivals Manchester City achieved their second successive promotion which saw them take a place in the Premier League for the first time since their relegation in 1996. This meant that the two bitter cross-city rivals were ready to lock horns for the first time in four years. 

Only 90 seconds had elapsed when Beckham left his mark on the derby clash with a stunning trademark free-kick that whipped away from the despairing City goalkeeper Nicky Weaver. The goal was Beckham's seventh of the season and capped a period of personal triumph for him after he had recently been made England captain for the first time, a role he would hold until the end of the 2006 World Cup. 

Beckham lashes United into a decisive 1-0 lead over Manchester City in the November 2001 derby clash. 

At the end of the 2000-2001 season, United wrapped up their third Premier League title in a row while City's stay back in the Premier League would only be a temporary one as they suffered relegation back to the First Division. 

Comeback Captain

During his formative years as a young footballer, Beckham spent time at Tottenham Hotspur's school of excellence and would frequently receive Spurs kits for Christmas and birthdays thanks to his maternal grandfather being an avid Lilywhites fan. 

It seems fitting then that Beckham would be chosen to captain Manchester United for the first time when they visited White Hart Lane in September 2001, although it wasn't all plain sailing. 

At the early part of the 2001-2002 campaign, United found themselves off the pace set by eventual champions Arsenal and a resurgent Liverpool. A much publicised fall-out between Sir Alex Ferguson and star defender Jaap Stam which led to the giant Dutchman's departure from Old Trafford exposed many frailties in the Manchester United backline. These problems at the back once again came to the fore as Tottenham raced into a 3-0 half-time lead, United were poor and if it had been a boxing match, the referee would have stopped it a long time prior to the whistle blowing. 

Andy Cole's headed goal sparked the fightback and the England striker was joined on the scoresheet by Laurent Blanc, prolific summer signing Ruud van Nistelrooy and Juan Sebastian Veron which remarkably transformed the scoreline to 4-3 in United's favour. 

United's players celebrate Beckham's winning goal to cap the comeback and deliver an unlikely 5-3 win over Tottenham in 2001. 

With less than ten minutes remaining, Beckham received Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's low pass and cracked a diagonal shot across Spurs keeper Neil Sullivan which flew into the top corner of the net to seal the unlikeliest of three points for United. 

The Long Goodbye 

By the latter stages of the 2002-03 season, rumours had begun to gain traction that Beckham's time at Manchester United was coming to an end. 

In the aftermath of the 2-0 defeat at the hands of Arsenal in the fifth round of the FA Cup, details began to emerge of a heated bust-up between Beckham and Sir Alex Ferguson with a discarded football boot striking the midfielder in the face after being kicked by the manager during one of his legendary 'hairdryer' rants. 

Press photographs showed Beckham sporting a plaster above his eye from where the wound had opened after the incident and speculation began to abound that he would be leaving Old Trafford at the end of the season. 

Despite the off-field incidents, United were still fighting on two fronts in the Premier League and the knockout phases of the Champions League where they squared up to European heavyweights Real Madrid, the club seemingly ready to prise Beckham away from England. 

Trailing 3-1 from the first leg in the intimidating Santiago Bernabeu and having been tormented in the second game by Brazilian superstar Ronaldo, United were staring down the barrel by the time Beckham came off the bench. 

With the score at 3-2 on the night (6-3 overall) in Madrid's favour, Beckham's first act was to conjure up an equaliser with yet another free kick which he curled expertly over the wall and into the top corner of Iker Casillas' net. Just minutes later, Beckham scrambled the ball into the goal at the far post to put United ahead on the night, they still needed two more to progress. Unfortunately the elusive two goals never came and Manchester United were eliminated from the competition. 

Beckham strikes a free-kick towards goal in the 2003 Champions League clash with Real Madrid at Old Trafford. 

Thankfully, United were able to regain the Premier League title after it's season-long loan at Arsenal, following a 4-1 win over Charlton Athletic. The win left Arsene Wenger's side needing to beat Leeds United the following day to prevent them from losing the title. Leeds, fighting for their top division lives produced a surprise 3-2 win at Highbury to hand the title to United. 

United received the trophy on the final day of the 2002-03 season on which they defeated Everton 2-1 at Goodison Park. In what proved to be Beckham's final appearance for Manchester United, he gave the fans something to remember him by with yet another free kick. This one was a dipping effort that shot across the penalty area and high into Richard Wright's goal to equalise just before half-time. 

David Beckham celebrates his 85th and final goal for Manchester United alongside club captain Roy Keane on the last day of the 2002-03 Premier League season. 

Ten years after his first team debut and with six Premier League titles, two FA Cups and a Champions League winner's medal to his name, David Beckham left Manchester United to join Real Madrid in a £25,000,000 deal in the summer of 2003. 

That brings our Beckham retrospective to a close, I hope you have enjoyed our look back at Becks' time at Old Trafford. What's your favourite David Beckham memory? Why not get in touch on Twitter @RewindRed and reminisce with us. 

'Beckham: The Making Of A Megastar' by Wayne Barton (published by Pitch) is now available to pre-order from the following link here. 

We'll be back soon with some more red nostalgia so until next time, take care. 

The Premier League Years: 1992-93

Hello and welcome to The RedRewind, a new regular look at classic moments, players, goals and matches from the Manchester United archives. This will be the home of plenty of longform articles that will hopefully stir some happy memories for United fans. 

You can follow us on Twitter @RewindRed and if you fancy contributing something for the site yourself then just drop us a DM and your piece can come to life! 

For now we're going to take a look back at the first of our thirteen Premier League triumphs and reminisce about the 1992-93 season when United finished top of the pile for the first time in 26 years as English football embraced a brave new world. 

An Indifferent Start 

The despair of losing the title to cross-Pennine rivals Leeds at the end of the previous season still rankled as United lined up for their opening game of the 1992-93 campaign and their first under the authority of the Premier League which had launched during the summer to much fanfare. Unfortunately, the season couldn't really have started any worse when Sheffield United's Brian Deane wrote himself into pub quiz questions forever more when he scored the new league's first goal after just five minutes. Despite Mark Hughes pulling a goal back, he was unable to stir a comeback and United went on to lose their opening fixture 2-1 at Bramall Lane. 

It actually took United until their fourth game to record their first victory of the season. Old Trafford's opening game of the season saw Everton go back up the East Lancs Road with the points after they defeated United 3-0 and Alex Ferguson's men could only muster a 1-1 draw with Ipswich four days later. The first win eventually came on August 24th when Dion Dublin, the club's only summer signing of note in a £1,000,000 deal from Cambridge United, grabbed the winning goal with two minutes remaining in a Monday night 1-0 win away at Southampton. 

Dion Dublin was United's only major signing during the summer of 1992. Despite missing a large portion of the season after suffering a broken leg, the former Cambridge forward still received a winner's medal at the end of the season. 

The win at The Dell kickstarted a run of five consecutive wins with United taking maximum points from Nottingham Forest, Crystal Palace (in front of a sub 30,000 crowd!), the previous season's champions Leeds and a 2-0 revenge win over Everton at Goodison Park. The winning run ground to a halt with a 1-1 draw away at Tottenham and suddenly form slipped to the extent that United then went on a run of seven games without a win. 

Worryingly enough, the lack of goals that plagued the title run-in during the previous season appeared to be rearing it's ugly head again as The Red Devils only notched three times during this run. Two of them came as a brace from Mark Hughes dragged United back from 2-0 down to record a 2-2 draw at Old Trafford against Liverpool. Thankfully, reinforcements were just around the corner. 

Bonjour Monsieur Cantona! 

A usual run of the mill meeting between Alex Ferguson and chairman Martin Edwards was interrupted by a phone call from Leeds United chairman Bill Fotherby. The Elland Road supremo's enquiry regarding Denis Irwin's availability was politely rebuffed but before the phone's receiver was put back on the hook, Ferguson prompted his chairman to ask about Eric Cantona. Within what appeared to be the blink of an eye, the Frenchman had swapped West Yorkshire for Manchester with the £1.200,000 fee going down as one of the biggest bargains in English football history. 

Eric Cantona is paraded as a Manchester United for the first time in front of the press following his November 1992 transfer to Old Trafford from Leeds United. 

United were in the midsts of a four game winning streak when Cantona joined the club, having disposed of Oldham Athletic 3-0 at Old Trafford and pre-season favourites Arsenal 1-0 at Highbury. 

The Frenchman's debut came in the cauldron of a Manchester derby in which goals from Paul Ince and Mark Hughes gave United the bragging rights after a 2-1 win over Manchester City. Cantona got himself on the scoresheet for the first time as a United player in a 1-1 draw with Chelsea in the last game before Christmas while the team showed tremendous fighting spirit to recover from 3-0 down to salvage a point and draw 3-3 in a pulsating Boxing Day encounter with Sheffield Wednesday at Hillsborough. 

Another Gear 

Cantona's arrival (much like the introduction of Bruno Fernandes during 2019-2020) galvanised the team and gave them fresh impetus as they would not drop below third place for the remainder of the season. 

Following a 5-0 home thumping of Coventry City, United welcomed Tottenham Hotspur to Old Trafford for the first league game of 1993. Cantona placed his own indelible stamp on proceedings, opening the scoring and then setting up Denis Irwin in sublime style for United's second goal, gently lifting the ball into the path of the Irish full-back to hammer beyond a powerless Erik Thorsvedt in the Spurs goal. Irwin's goal was the first in a frantic five minute spell during which Brian McClair and Paul Parker added further strikes to record an emphatic 4-1 win. 

Lee Sharpe and Jamie Redknapp, two of football's poster boys of the early 1990s, tussle for the ball during United's 2-1 win over Liverpool at Anfield in March 1993. 

United went on to lose just once between the new year and early March as they began building the sort of form that got the Old Trafford faithful talking in serious terms that the 26-year long wait for a league title was finally at an end. The title talk was cooled somewhat during March as United went on a four game winless streak, losing to Oldham Athletic at Boundary Park before consecutive draws against Aston Villa, Manchester City and Arsenal. 

The Hallmark Of Champions 

Norwich City had been the surprise package as the third team locked in the title battle with United and Aston Villa, at one point topping the table despite having a negative goal difference (the only side in Premier League history to do so). Unfortunately for Mike Walker and The Canaries, their title challenge was ended in spectacular style. 

In front of the Sky Sports 'Monday Night Football' cameras, United tore into Norwich like a pack of wolves in a display of scintillating attacking football and amassing a 3-0 lead inside the opening twenty minutes thanks to goals from Ryan Giggs, Andrei Kanchelskis and Eric Cantona, not even a consolation from Ruel Fox in the second half could dampen United's spirits. 

If the Norwich result displayed United's championship quality, they showed the other side of what it takes to be champions in their next game when Sheffield Wednesday came to Old Trafford. 

After the referee had to be substituted for the fourth official, Wednesday went ahead via a John Sheridan penalty, as time was ticking away it appeared the championship might be too just as it had at the same time the previous year. Parity was restored with four minutes remaining when Steve Bruce rose to head home an equaliser and spark an extraordinary turn of events. 

Owing to the substitution of the match official, an astonishing seven minutes of injury time were played. In what has been commonly accepted as the birth of 'Fergie Time' and with the added period entering it's sixth minute Ryan Giggs swung a corner into the Wednesday penalty area, the ball found it's way out to the right wing and was chased out by Gary Pallister of all people. The centre-half's cross was met by his defensive partner Bruce who powered another header into the net. The goal was met with euphoric scenes as Alex Ferguson and his assistant Brian Kidd charged out of the technical area with Kidd sinking to his knees and thanking the heavens on the pitch. Within the space of five days, United had displayed all the hallmarks of a champion side, the prize was now tantalisingly close. 

Steve Bruce wheels away in celebration after his header has given United a decisive 2-1 lead in stoppage time of the clash against Sheffield Wednesday in April 1993. 

Glory Glory Man United 

The win over Wednesday was the second of the seven consecutive wins that propelled United towards the title with further wins coming over Coventry City, Chelsea and a tumultuous 2-0 win at Selhurst Park over Crystal Palace. Mark Hughes smashed home a trademark volley before Paul Ince sealed the points to put United on the brink of glory. Given they had lost to Blackburn in the evening's early kick off, the ball was now very much in Aston Villa's court as they knew defeat in their next match with Oldham would hand the title to United. 

Just as they had done to United earlier in the season, Oldham aided their battle against relegation from the top flight by taking the scalp of one of the front runners, their 1-0 win over Villa at Boundary Park going some way to ensuring they played Premier League football during the 1993-94 season. More importantly however for those of a United persuasion, it made certain of the fact they could no longer be caught at the top of the table. For the first time since the days of Busby, Law, Charlton and Best, Manchester United were once again champions of England. 

In front of a sell-out crowd and in a party atmosphere at Old Trafford, United recovered from a goal down to defeat Blackburn 3-1 with goals coming from Ryan Giggs, Paul Ince and Gary Palmister. The latter goal came in stoppage time and the big defender ensured that every outfield player had scored a league goal during the season as he thumped a low free kick beyond the grasp of Bobby Mimms. 

Club captains Steve Bruce and Bryan Robson hold the Premier League trophy aloft for the first time in front of a jubilant Old Trafford crowd. 

With Matt Busby and Bobby Charlton in attendance there were emotional scenes as Steve Bruce and Bryan Robson jointly received the new Premier League trophy to rapturous applause and cheers to finally cement the fact that Manchester United were back at the top of the tree and that the rest of the league had better get used to the sight of United lifting the trophy aloft! It was to become a common sight over the next 20+ years. 

Well that brings a close to our look back at the 1992-93 league campaign. I hope it has stirred some happy memories for you. If you have a particular memory of the season then why not follow us on Twitter @RewindRed and get in touch. 

We'll be back soon with some more United nostalgia so until next time, take care.