David Beckham has been speaking about the incident that effectively ended his time at Manchester United.
In February 2003, following a 2-0 defeat to Arsenal in an FA Cup tie at Old Trafford, Beckham and Sir Alex Ferguson had a dressing room argument. Ferguson had some words for the United midfielder, which he didn’t appreciate.
Beckham refused to accept Ferguson’s criticism and is said to have sworn at him. The United manager lost his temper and kicked a boot which flew across the room and hit his already disgruntled player in the face. Beckham was so angered that he had to be restrained by some of his teammates. Ferguson has said he didn’t intend to hit Beckham with the boot, but within a few months the midfielder had left for Real Madrid.
“He was around 12 feet from me. Between us on the floor lay a row of boots. David swore. I moved towards him, and as I approached I kicked a boot,” Ferguson writes in his second autobiography.
“It hit him right above the eye. Of course he rose to have a go at me and the players stopped him. ‘Sit down,’ I said. ‘You’ve let your team down. You can argue as much as you like’. The next day the story was in the press. In public an Alice band highlighted the damage inflicted by the boot. It was in those days that I told the board David had to go.”
However, almost 15 years later, there appears to be no ill-feelings between the pair. Ferguson and Beckham appeared at an event together on Friday, and the former England captain referred to the incident. He even made a joke about it.
“We had a few wobbles over the 13 years,” Beckham said at a charity event for World Aids Day.
“You know the boss, always on European nights would come onto the pitch, he’d start taking penalties and free kicks and telling all of us how great he was when he played. The goals he scored and things like that. But the time when I really got to find out how great he was after a game against Arsenal where I think I’d made a couple of mistakes. He came into the dressing room, we had a few words, he started to walk over toward me and he kicked a pile of clothes on the floor. Out came this boot and hit me. That’s when I realised actually how accurate he really is.”
You can watch the clip here:
It took a boot to the face to convince Beckham of Ferguson's talent
He should have just taken his word for it! pic.twitter.com/kcY8s8sTqP
— GOAL News (@GoalNews) December 2, 2017
