The Gerry Buckley Column: Has the World Cup lost its Becks appeal?

"I don't think he's a great player. He can't kick with his left foot, he doesn't score many goals, he can't head a ball and he can't tackle. Apart from that he's all right." A decade ago, this was the verdict of a player with the same initials as this columnist and slightly more football ability, the late great George Best, on the man then donning his famous number seven red jersey at Old Trafford, David Beckham.Over the past few days, as George sips champagne alongside Marilyn Monroe in the great football stadium in the sky, no doubt he is fascinated by the hysteria over the multi-tattooed Londoner missing this year's World Cup in South Africa. And that makes two of us, George. And deep down, I suspect Fabio Capello makes three of us. My name-dropping extends to meeting the phenomenon that is Brian O'Driscoll, who can kick with his left foot, scores oodles of tries, will head into anything in sight in a green or blue jersey, and boy can he can tackle. No, I'll never meet David Beckham and I genuinely suspect he's a very nice decent guy, unfairly labelled as clueless off the pitch. As somebody who abhors intrusions into people's private lives, irrespective of their status, I can't but feel for Beckham when he said: "The way me and my family have been treated is an absolute disgrace. At the end of the day, I'm a nice person and loving husband and father. I've been called a bad father, I've been called a bad husband and my wife has been called a bad mother. Things always hurt that are said about my family, and for people to call my wife a bad mother is unbelievable. I'm a strong person, I'm a strong family man, I'm a strong husband and a strong father. At home things are hard. For instance, my curtains are never open, I get no privacy at all. In fact, I can't remember the last time I saw daylight in my house."Ok, among other things, his dress sense and continually-changing coiffure attract the paparazzi, but did he deserve this description in a British tabloid after his infamous sending-off against Argentina in the 1998 World Cup: "A Gaultier-saronged, Posh-Spiced, Cooled Britannia, look-at-me, what-a-lad, loadsamoney, sex-and-shopping, fame-schooled, daytime-TV, over-coiffed twerp"? Hardly. Particularly as it has always been clear that he is immensely proud to play for, and especially captain, England. However, former great striker Jimmy Greaves (who accumulated less than half the England caps tally of Beckham, who wasn't fit to lace Greavesie's drinks) wasn't particularly out of order with this observation: "If I walked down the street with a hankie on my head and wearing a Tahitian skirt, people would point at me and laugh." We know all about begrudgery in this country, and it's easy to see why Beckham would say the following when he went to the USA (quite apart from the fact that nobody gives a tuppenny damn about soccer there!): "It's one thing I like about America - they respect sportsmen. They put them up on a pedestal. They don't try to knock them down. And that's a great thing, to be respected by the whole country. It's so patriotic."However, on the pitch I happen to think Beckham is overrated beyond belief. Other than the pinpoint crossing and the superb free kicks, what else does he bring to a team to merit superstardom and about 90 caps more than a less glamorous man would have earned with similar limitations? I have never seen him bamboozle an opponent with Damien Duff-like trickery or skin one with Theo Walcott-like speed. And aged almost 35, those statistics are unlikely to change (assuming, please God, that he actually plays again in some shape or form). With the decline in respect for the Royal family across the water, in ways the Beckhams became the 'new royalty'. Indeed, it is easy to see where Will (no relation) Buckley was coming from when he wrote this in a respected British newspaper in 2004: "They have a cookery 'O' level between them, yet David Beckham and Princess Diana's antics have dominated the media for 20 years and counting. They were made for each other, but sudden death prevented them from ever getting it together."The upcoming World Cup is not about David Beckham. It is about Wayne Rooney (one of England's finest ever talents), Cesc Fabregas, Lionel Messi, Kaka, Cristiano Ronaldo et al (and, apologies for the aforementioned begrudgery, hopefully not Thierry Henry).Far too often, David Beckham has been 'Captain Invisible' for England, rather than 'Captain Fantastic' or 'Captain Marvel' or other terms used for true leaders of their countries such as Mick McCarthy or Bryan Robson. To be fair to Beckham, he often said how he couldn't possibly have been skipper at Old Trafford when Roy Keane was also in the side. Indeed, on a purely football front, this columnist thinks the Corkman was probably the finest all-round contributor to Manchester United in my lifetime. In Beckham's absence, the World Cup may have lost its sex appeal for screaming teenage girls. But that's all.