A hard day’s knight

Goodbye Mr Beckham, hello Sir David.

This is a knighthood that has been a long time coming, with rumours bouncing around for years that the former Manchester United and Real Madrid player was set to get the honour.

Of course, few would argue that it’s anything less than a fully deserved title. Beckham was pretty much an exemplary professional during his playing career and worked tirelessly for good causes before and after hanging up his boots.

While most stars fade quietly into the commentary box, he reinvented himself. He used his fame for good, raised millions, backed real causes and somehow managed to look immaculate while doing it.

And let’s not forget this is a player who managed to win back the affection of the English people when others in similar positions have failed. In 1998, after his infamous World Cup red card, he was public enemy number one. By the time he retired in 2013, he was viewed as nothing short of a national treasure.

That’s quite a turnaround, and it’s fair to say not many could have pulled off that level of redemption.

But – and this is the bit that irks me a little – I can’t help but suspect he got this award not just for his achievements and acts but also because of his global fame.

If you strip away the documentaries, the fragrance lines and the designer suits, would the sword have fallen quite so neatly on the same shoulders?

Plenty of others have done as much – or more – for football and charity without getting a call from the king or queen.

Bobby Moore lifted a World Cup and never got a knighthood. Billy Wright captained England 90 times yet had to settle for a CBE. Bryan Robson dragged average United teams through mud, put his body on the line time and time again for the national team, and still turns out for charity matches till today.

Yet he only has an OBE to show for his efforts.

Plenty of others have done as much – or more – for football and charity without getting a call from the king or queen

Maybe that’s just how things work now. To get the top honour, you don’t just have to be brilliant and generous – you have to be visibly brilliant and generous. Beckham has been the face of everything from UNICEF to hair cream, and that mix of fame and philanthropy is irresistible to an honours committee desperate to stay relevant.

None of that is David’s fault. He’s done everything asked of him and plenty that wasn’t, and if the system happens to reward players who double as celebrities, that says more about us than it does about him.

So yes, rise Sir David. Thoroughly earned.

But next time the swords come out, perhaps save a few taps on the shoulders for the players who didn’t have Netflix deals or their own range of underpants.

The manager who cried wolf

Turns out José Mourinho might have been onto something after all.

During his time at Fenerbahçe, he spent half his press conferences moaning about Turkish match officials, saying they were biased and guilty of consistent questionable decisions.

Everyone rolled their eyes, assumed it was nothing more than a classic Mourinho deflection tactic and moved swiftly along.

It turns out, though, that Mourinho was spot on.

In recent days, the Turkish Football Federation has revealed a massive betting scandal involving 371 of their match officials, with one referee actually placing more than 18,000 bets on games. So far, 149 of these match officials have been suspended, with more expected to follow.

This is almost a classic case of the manager who cried wolf. Over the past three decades or so, we have heard Mourinho complain about officials so often, and mostly without justification, that the one time he actually had a point, nobody listened.

The Special One has moved on from his not particularly successful Turkish adventure to start finding fault with refs back in Portugal.

But as he sat there reading the news over his cornflakes, he will probably have afforded himself a wry smile with a side order of “told you so”.

Hair we go again

If you want confirmation of the power of social media, look no further than Manchester United’s recent spurt of victories.

Ruben Amorim’s team finally hit some form over the past few weeks, stringing together three wins on the spin for the first time since football was in black and white.

On that basis you would have expected all the online chatter before last Saturday’s clash with Nottingham Forest to be about whether United could make it four in a row.

And it was. Just not for the reasons you would expect.

Because just about all I heard in the build-up to the kick-off at the City Ground, and then again in the aftermath of the 2-2 draw, was about one man and his hair cut.

Or rather, lack of one.

Frank llet, otherwise known as The United Stand, has not cut his hair since October 2024 and has vowed not to do so until Manchester United win five games in a row. As he closes in on 15 unshorn months, he has started to look like a cross between Mariane Fellaini and a Shetland pony.

With three wins in the bag and the not impossible task of beating a struggling Nottingham Forest, it looked like Frank could well be about to take another crucial step on his way to getting up close and personal with a pair of scissors. And the internet got excited.

But the eventual stalemate means the wait for the big snip goes on.

That all the talk was about Frank and his unruly hair shows the incredible scale and reach of social media. This guy has done absolutely nothing – and I mean zero – for 400 days, apart from let his hair grow.

Yet he is now a ‘celebrity’, with hundreds of thousands of followers, millions of views, advertising contracts with Paddy Power and more endorsements that you can shake a stick at.

Good luck to him though. He has found a way to have a bit of fun – and make a bit of money – out of the misery he was going through as a United fan.

It just makes the mind boggle when social media displays enough power to make a football result less about the points and more about the haircut.

E-mail: Jamescalvertmalta@gmail.com

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