Is that Romeo's Dad?

......there's more to this than currently in the public domain.....

same David Beckham who, allegedly, doesn't know his DNA from his dinner, as he put it to a puzzled FIFA counsellor - "football is in the Englishman's dinner".

"You stupid boy.".

From a football perspective

He can bring an insider's view on AC Milan who Spurs play in next round of Champions League
If he does end up playing in some games he can play an important role 10/15 minutes to go, helping ball retention and perhaps taking advantage of a dead ball situation
He can bring experience to an inexperienced team as they go into territory they have not been in before
He could be back for a longer term engagement next season and move into a coaching role

From a commercial perspective
He will increase Spurs profile
He will sell shirts
Spurs are a PLC. No turning the clock back

Aside from anything else, although the media circus that surrounds him is immense, he strikes me as down to earth and still has the respect of his fellow players and has not become a Billy Big Boots

.....with no formal coaching badges;
an abysmal record (about a 10% success rate) in the 15 or so 'must-win' games he's played for England;
and an emotional maturity that has moved on not a jot since his seventh birthday;
if David Beckham does have anything to do with the England set-up in the future (I don't care about Tottenham) no one should expect anything better than yet more mundane last eight or last sixteen appearances in Euro and World Cup Tournaments, if they qualify in the first place, and tepid defeats against the likes of Portugal, Sweden and/or America.

Beckham's involvement would virtually guarantee it.

wants him for a 12-18 month contract. As for Cheshunt you could just bowl up and play on the pitch afterwards. likewise at Mill Hill (3 days before the '91 cup final, fetching waywards balls for Ray Clemence.)

His free kick against Greece was a big part in England getting to the finals, even if he didn't. In 2006 he provided a 2 or 3 assists for goals and scored one in the second round. Not world class maybe, but better than "10% / abysmal". And in a comparison of emotional maturity, Beckham (if any of us are in a position to judge) seems better than many of his footballing peers.

I get the impression that Beckham doesn't know how or when to quit. He left the UK close to the top of his game and I'm struggling to see what he's got to gain by doing this.

I think he is trying to play the game he loves for as long as he can. Sir Stanley Matthews was revered for this approach. Beckham is derided as not knowing when to stop.

I think David Beckham's attitude to football is exemplary.

He could happily sit by his pool in LA doing nothing for a few months, yet he would rather come to freezing cold England just to be involved with the game in his time off.

By all accounts he is a model of professionalism in training, punctuality and respect for coaches.

He won his place back in the title winning Real Madrid side on merit - which is why Capello was so wedded to him.

He was an incredible player for Manchester United from 1999 until he left.

Remember what a national disaster it was when he broke his metatarsal in 2002?! He INVENTED metatarsals!

He's not one of the best players of all time, nowhere near. The clothes horse thing (I don't mean Victoria) sticks in the throat a bit. But he can look back on his career with considerable satisfaction I would have thought

Well, you're all very considerate and understanding and what a wonderful way to be in this new year.

However, I'm not.
For me, Beckham-mania has hampered the national team now for 15 years and it seems the country is ready to sleep-walk into the next 15 years with the same formula intact.

Repeating the same mistakes over and over and over again, unlike the English cricket team which took a hard look at itself following 2006/2007 and has come back looking world-beaters in the Test arena, the 50 over game and 20/20. Way to go!

Remember my opinion of 10% was for 'must-win' games.....
The 5-1 v. Germany was not a 'must-win' game.
Ditto the fabled and undeserved draw with Greece (a team, incidentally, who were so haunted by Beckham's free-kick that they won the Euros in 2004 beating Portugal, remember them?, twice!).
Both results lead to the rivals of our 'success' (Germany) reaching the final of the 2002 World Cup!!!!

Still, if you think the Beckham-saturated era of 1996-2010 was a successful era for the England football team here's to the next 15 years.

I'm going to a Ryman League game tonight to get the taste of over-paid and over-feted habitual losers out of my mouth!

had nothing to do with Beckham and more, much more, to do with Rooney, Terry, Gerrard and all the babies who couldnt put their differences to one side for a short tournament. Beckham has developed dignity and some poise since his petulance against Argentina. He was villified after that tournament but showed immense courage to regain the favour of the British public. Contrast this with Rooney who has completely lost his way, his footballing ability and sense of reality. Put simply Beckham is charming, Rooney is charmless. I agree that the move to Tottenham may be a media sideshow but but surely he is not to blame for that.

Isn't terrible. At his worst he's pretty harmless and silly, and his best he demonstrates a simple dignity and love for his family that these days has to be commended.

However, his fame and celebrity amongst my southern friends has always mystified me. He has been a good international standard footballer, but then so was Phil Neal, his record of success in big games is best described as "moderate" and the number of top trophies he's been part of winning - especially since leaving United - is modest.

Yest he'll probably end up a knight of the realm before he's 50. Why?

Very good football player, made best use of his talents but was severely hampered by his lack of pace and dribbling skills...
Go back to 1999 when us Jocks played Engurland in a double header to qualify for Euro 2000, that cannie old fox Craig Broon pushed journeyman, but speedy, wing back Calum Davidson up tight and beyond Beckham. Beckham did not have the skills or speed to go past Davidson and indeed spent most of both games tracking back Davidson's runs forward. Result? Beckham was a non factor in both games.
Go on, ask yourself, if it was a straight choice between Beckham and Giggs for your team, who would you choose? Only one correct decision there to make, methinks.
Now we all know that "Becks" is a good egg, that is a given, but a Lifetime Achievement Award from the BBC? WTF? Now there's talk of a knighthood? For what exactly?

Thierry Henry begins training in his off season with Arsenal with no media scrum.

Isn't what we find 'difficult' about David Beckham more to do with the fashion, the underwear modelling, the plucked eyebrows and Victoria.

I know it is with me.

He's always been very, very good at one thing: kicking a football and getting it to go where he wants it to end up. He could also run up and down and back again with the best of them. And that, basically is it. Being in the right place at the right time himself, or intuiting where his teammates could, should or would be - what is generally called "vision" - has never been his strong suit.

Even at Real Madrid, for example, he was nowhere near as effective (or appreciated) as Steve McManaman, and putting his importance to Manchester United on a par with that of Paul Scholes or Ryan Giggs is surely more than a little exaggerated.

I don't doubt that he's a generally good egg, and - in the latter period of his career at least - a credit to the sport and all that, but Beckham has never been a mover and shaker on the pitch to the extent that he's a major brand off it. Let's be honest here: if he'd married some anonymous WAG instead of the most hyperambitious Spice Girl, would we even know - much less care - what he's doing these days?

But I'd raise another regarding whether anyone really does care about Posh'n Becks? Is there really a consituencyout there in the hinterland of Blighty who buy/read/follow/tattoo based on the Beckhams? Nothing they do seems to be big sellers or that successful.

I suspect that the whole thing is a metropolitan media confection that no-one really gives a toss about.

Bobby Moore and George Best may well be revolving in the afterlife at the news,but far worse charlatans than the boy Beckham have been knighted

.....has gone up another couple of hundred notches.

While he earns money for doing nothing but 'train' at Tottenham, Leyton FC (founded 1868, two FA Amateur Cups, second oldest club in London) have been suspended from the Ryman League for falling behind in their subscription payments.....presumably the kind of amount that rubbish Beckham makes in a minute (genuinely).
Oh, and Wayne Bridge is going to be on £90,000 a week at timid little, Bobby-Moore-must-be-turning-in-his-grave, West Ham.

England.....2011.....you can have it.....if you're not on this gravy train, you should be attacking, not defending, it.
I though some of you guys were punks!!!!!

P.S. One of the comment above describe my Beckham stuff as 'scattergun'. Beckham and England have been total shit for 15 years.....what's 'scattergun' about that?
In the words of Jim Royle, 'Last eight, my arse'.

Even quicker at the thought of the Hammers paying Wayne Bridge £90K a week. Not his fault English football has gone tonto.