‘I was there when David Beckham met Victoria for the first time – she did me a favour’ | Football | Sport

Comedy legend Steve Coogan has claimed that he was present when David Beckham met Victoria for the first time on a night out. The couple have had one of the highest-profile celebrity relationships over the last few decades, initially meeting in 1997. They announced their engagement the following year and have since welcomed four children: sons Brooklyn, Romeo, and Cruz, and a daughter, Harper Seven.

Coogan played an unlikely role in their first meeting, which he says took place on a night out in Manchester. Speaking to BBC Breakfast, the 60-year-old explained that he was mingling with Beckham and Giggs after a charity event. He also noted an interesting fashion choice on Beckham’s part that Victoria didn’t seem to mind.

“I was out in Manchester with David Beckham and Ryan Giggs, we were on a sort of night out after a charity event in Manchester,” said Coogan.

“The night he met Victoria. I was there hovering. I remember he was wearing a suit and shoes with no socks, which was quite a trendy and fashionable thing for a young man to do. Has that gone away now?”

Coogan was a mutual acquaintance of Victoria, with the Spice Girls having done him a huge favour when he was touring before that fateful night out.

“When I was on tour, somebody stole all our musical equipment and the Spice Girls lent us their musical equipment because ours had been nicked,” he explained.

“It was around the same time. They were in Manchester the same time I was doing gigs and David Beckham was there too.”

Coogan’s account of how the power couple initially met differs from the story told by Beckham, who revealed they first crossed paths at a football match.

During an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, he said: “She came to a football match and I said hi from across the room and that was it. I thought I’d missed my chance, and then a week later she turned up at another football match.”

Their second meeting was more involved, as Beckham told Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show: “We talked for about an hour in the players’ lounge and then she actually got the train up that day, so she wrote her number down on her train ticket, which I still have.”

Victoria, meanwhile, detailed how she was taken aback by Beckham’s family-oriented nature in a letter written to her younger self in Vogue.

“While the other football players stand at the bar drinking with their mates, you will see David standing aside with his family. (He’s not even in the first team at this stage — you are the famous one),” she wrote.

“And he has such a cute smile. You, too, are close to your family, and you will think how similar he feels to you.”