Arise, Sir David: But what does Beckham's knighthood entail, and what does it mean?

New York Times

a day ago

So, arise, Sir David Beckham, and welcome to the small and exclusive band of people from the football industry to receive one of the highest honours in the United Kingdom — a knighthood from the royal family.
The announcement was made in The Gazette, the official organ of public record, as part of King Charles III's official birthday honours — one of the two occasions each year when the ruling monarch honours a selection of people for their 'significant contributions' to the country.
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Beckham, the former England captain and now joint owner of MLS team Inter Miami, will be invited to an investiture ceremony to make everything official, including his wife, formerly a pop star with the Spice Girls, becoming Lady Victoria.
The wait is finally over for the man she famously christened Goldenballs in his playing days, whose desire to become a Sir has been depicted at times as almost obsessional.
'Growing up in east London with parents and grandparents who were so patriotic and proud to be British, I never could have imagined I would receive such a truly humbling honour,' said Beckham. 'It will take a little while for the news to sink in but I'm immensely proud and it's such an emotional moment for me to share with my family.'
Not everyone will wish to join in the celebrations, bearing in mind the honours system — described by The Gazette as 'classes of appointment' to the Order of the British Empire — is regarded by many of its anti-Establishment critics as outdated and elitist and, as such, brings some strong opinions.
'Truly deserved,' writer, author and broadcaster Brian Reade responded on X after the story of Beckham's knighthood was leaked to the UK's Sun newspaper. 'Never before has a man scraped and crawled so hard to get three pointless letters stuck in front of his brand name.'
Others, however, will find it hard to begrudge Beckham after a career that took in Manchester United, Real Madrid, LA Galaxy, AC Milan and Paris Saint-Germain (plus a loan spell at Preston North End as a youngster), as well as 115 appearances for England's national team and some prodigious work for charity, principally Unicef.
Now 50, Beckham will be the 14th name on a list of football knighthoods (excluding administrators) featuring four former England managers — Walter Winterbottom, Alf Ramsey, Bobby Robson and, most recently, Gareth Southgate — as well as celebrated figures such as Tom Finney, Stanley Matthews and Geoff Hurst.
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Charles Clegg, a former England international who became chairman/president of the English Football Association, was the first person from the sport to be knighted, in 1927. It was Kenny Dalglish's turn in 2018 and, before that, Trevor Brooking in 2004. And the other names on the list mean that Manchester United can now claim to have contributed four knights of the realm — more than any other club.
One was Matt Busby, the manager who led United from the horrors of the 1958 Munich air disaster to winning the European Cup a decade later. Bobby Charlton, who was alongside him during those moments of tragedy and glory, was another. Then, of course, there is Alex Ferguson, whose knighthood was rushed through in 1999 only weeks after he steered United to an unprecedented treble of Champions League, Premier League and FA Cup.
So, how does it all work? And how does the honours committee — a body made up of politicians and senior civil servants — go about informing the relevant people they are under consideration?
With great secrecy, is the short answer.
'You get a few months' notice,' says Brendan Foster, the former long-distance runner who was knighted in 2020. 'An email comes through saying they are minded to give you a knighthood, and asking whether you would want to accept; and you have to keep it a secret, otherwise you're in trouble.'
Foster, regarded as the voice of British athletics because of his long and distinguished commentary career with the BBC after retiring from the sport, is also the founder of the Great North Run, the largest half-marathon in the world. He received his knighthood from Princess Anne, once an equestrian athlete who had competed with him in Great Britain's squad at the 1976 Olympic Games, rather than her mother, Queen Elizabeth II.
'You think about the people who have helped you get where you are,' says Foster, recalling his knighthood ceremony. 'You think about your parents, your coaches, the guys you trained with and everyone else who helped. But you also think about the country. This is a great country and anybody who accepts the honours is, by definition, saying, 'I'm proud of the country I live in'.'
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Most of the time, the knights-elect receive their insignia at either Buckingham Palace in London or Windsor Castle, when the protocol is to kneel on your right knee while the King, or another member of the royal family, touches your right shoulder, then the left one, with a bare sword blade. For females, the equivalent is to be made a Dame.
After that, it is the individual's choice whether they want to use their new title. Foster, for example, says he is '50-50' about using 'Sir', though he jokes that it comes in handy when he needs to make a restaurant booking.
Anthony Hopkins, knighted by the Queen in 1993, also found it a dilemma. 'I only ever use the title in the U.S.,' the actor explained. 'The Americans insist on it, and get offended if I don't.'
Ferguson, statistically the most successful manager in British football history, had some misgivings of his own, despite having previously been given an OBE (Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) and CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) — two of the awards beneath a knighthood in rank — in 1985 and 1995 respectively.
He and his wife were worried about the extra commitments the new title might involve (although there are no special requirements) and how it might look, with them hailing from a working-class background in the Scottish city of Glasgow, to be known as Sir Alex and Lady Cathy.
'I put it to the family,' Ferguson revealed in a 2000 interview with the official Manchester United magazine, 'and Cathy was a bit, 'Oh, I don't know, what would your father think?'. And my son said, 'Mum, it's nothing to do with Dad's parents. They're gone. They'd be proud of him — you can't refuse this, it's recognition of what he's done'. We had a discussion and decided it was right.'
In 2020, it was revealed that the number of people refusing an honour was 68 out of 2,504 offered (2.7 per cent), whereas there were only 277 occasions from 1951 to 1999 when somebody took that stance. So the frequency with which people say 'Thanks, but no thanks' is going up.
Realistically, though, Beckham's name was never going to be added to a list that includes singer David Bowie, physicist Professor Stephen Hawking, the ex-Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone and, on five occasions for various honours including a knighthood, artist LS Lowry.
The only awkwardness here is that Beckham, awarded an OBE in the Queen's birthday list in 2003, will probably never be allowed to forget the controversy in 2017 when leaked emails, from four years earlier, showed his anger about being rejected for a knighthood.
The emails had been hacked from a company associated with his then-representative, Simon Oliveira, and were published by a variety of newspapers, showing him branding the honours committee 'unappreciative c**ts' and insisting he didn't 'care about being knighted'. The email exchanges also revealed the UK authorities had concerns over Beckham's tax affairs.
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And now? Nobody should be surprised he has finally got his wish, bearing in mind his career achievements and several other factors that may or may not have counted in his favour.
He is, after all, on friendly terms with Prince William, Charles' eldest son, and has banqueted at Buckingham Palace as a guest of the King (they are said to have bonded over a shared love of making honey). Plus, who could forget Beckham standing for 12 hours in the queue of people to see the late Queen lying in state in central London's Westminster Hall following her death in 2022?
All that is left, perhaps, is to see whether the six-time Premier League champion chooses to call himself Sir David or takes a similar approach to the manager who gave him his professional debut.
'Ferguson found the title uncomfortable for a while,' Michael Crick wrote in The Boss, his 2002 biography of the Scot, noting how the subject of the book 'refused to sign himself 'Sir Alex' when asked to by a woman autograph-hunter shortly afterwards.'