Inside David and Victoria Beckham’s romance and their horrific dinner party blunder

David Beckham has never hidden his belief in love at first sight, especially when it comes to his wife Victoria. “I had a feeling straight away before I even met her,” he said, recalling the moment he first saw Victoria on TV and knew he had to meet her.

Their fateful meeting took place in 1997, when Victoria, then better known as Posh Spice, attended a Manchester United match. At the time, she was the more famous of the two, buoyed by the global success of the Spice Girls.

David recalled their first meeting, saying they simply “said hello across the room and that was it”. But he was so taken with the pop star that he couldn’t help but gush to bandmate Gary Neville, declaring: “I’m going to marry that one, the chic one in the black dress”.

Victoria, who has previously expressed her ambition to become as famous as Persil Automatic, also had her eye on David. She had even picked a picture of him as her favourite footballer in a magazine before they met. “I actually went to a football match because I liked him and I heard he liked me,” she revealed to OK! magazine, explaining how she had gone to the game with the intention of meeting him again.

Posh Spice Victoria Beckham was back at another football match a week after her first brief interaction with David Beckham, this time accompanied by fellow Spice Girl Mel C. Recalling the memorable day, David said: “The second time we met was when Victoria came with Mel C, I was a bit shy.

“I went to the bar and I heard a little voice say, ‘I’m going to the bar, Melanie.’ I’m a pretty shy person. I had a drink in each hand and I saw Victoria coming. I said, ‘Okay?’ and I left. I thought, ‘I can’t believe it. She came to the bar and I left. This was my chance and I missed it!’ But later on we started talking and we ended up being the last people left in the (players’) lounge.”

After an hour of chatting, David recalls Victoria giving him her phone number, saying: “Actually, she took the train that day, so she wrote her number on her train ticket, which I still have.” Victoria, for her part, recalls struggling to start a conversation due to her limited football knowledge.

“It’s funny actually, because I’m not really a football fan,” she later admitted. “I go to games sometimes but I don’t understand the rules, offside and all that. I only understand the goals. So then, when I met him in the living room, I didn’t know what to say. I mean, what do you say? ‘Great game?’ I had no idea. So I probably said something corny like, ‘Do you come here often?’”