Magnificent
7 David Beckham poster . Giant poster of the
England captain . 36 by 24 inch glossy poster , 170
gsm art paper . Postage in UK £1.80 .
Buy
one now New
David Beckham poster . The England captain in
action for Manchester United . 36 by 24 inch glossy
poster , 170 gsm art paper . Postage in UK
£1.80 . Buy
one now
Advertise to 38,000 visitors a month Jack Vettriano - limited edition prints by Scottish artist plus calendars , books and diaires limited
edition prints Castles of Scotland - the history of Scottish castles , pictures and visitor guides |
Giant
David Beckham poster, £4.99. Cometh the
moment , cometh the man .Giant David Beckham poster,
£4.99. 16 pictures from England v Argentina , World Cup
2002 . 36 by 24 inch glossy poster , 170 gsm art paper .
Postage in UK £1.80 .
Order
online now Over the
past three seasons Real Madrid , determined to match
Manchester United's hugely profitable commercial operations,
have conducted market research in the far east, a crucial
region for clubs with international appeal. They
tested the appeal of individual players and found that only
a handful of superstars, most of whom already play for
Madrid, could compete with Beckham's profile and popularity.
Beckham is
a fine footballer, but in Luis Figo, Zinedine Zidane and
Ronaldo Real Madrid have no shortage of those. It is
Beckham's ability to attract audiences with no traditional
interest in football and persuade them to part with money,
as much as his skill on the ball, that could prompt Madrid
to offer a record fee to tempt him from Old Trafford.
Beckham's
earning power, and his ability to generate revenue for
clubs, is extraordinary. On top of his £5m annual
salary he earns £10m from endorsements, including
Adidas, Vodafone and Marks and Spencer. Manchester United
sell more shirts bearing his name than any other player, but
that revenue is dwarfed by his contribution to United's
sponsorship and media deals. United
take the view that the club is bigger than any player and
are wary of basing their marketing strategy on an
individual. They insist, for example, that three players are
featured in any pictures used. There is no doubt, too, that
the decision whether to sell Beckham will be made for
football reasons. But whether the club admits it or not,
Beckham is a key commercial asset. Just how
key would be revealed if he went, said Richard Gillis,
editor of Sport Business International. "It would be the
biggest test of the relative commercial power of players
compared to clubs," he said. "How much is United's global
brand dependent on Beckham?" For
confirmation of Beckham's extraordinary global appeal one
needed to look no further than the front page of Spain's
biggest selling newspaper yesterday, which quoted Naomi
Campbell as providing evidence that the Beckham transfer was
a done deal. "Victoria [Beckham] told me 'David's
going to play in Madrid next year and in May we will start
hunting for houses in Spain'," the supermodel is reported to
have told dinner party guests, including Ronaldo.
It is
exactly this crossover appeal, the juxtaposition of football
and showbusiness, that attracts Real Madrid. And the Spanish
club has no qualms about using a single superstar player to
drive its commercial operation. Since
construction mogul Florentino Perez assumed the club
presidency three years ago his ambition has been to match
and then overtake all competitors on and off the pitch.
This
policy was realised in the audacious signings of arguably
the three greatest players in the world, Figo, Zidane and
Ronaldo, in successive seasons. Two European Cups followed
inside three years. Perez's next ambition is to follow
United's lead and conquer the Asian market. Eastern
promise United's
global reach, particularly in the far east, is astonishing.
In 2000 they opened a superstore in Singapore, with plans
for similar operations in Thailand, Indonesia and Brunei.
The previous year 10 million Thais entered a competition to
win a trip to Old Trafford. On the day the club's new Nike
strip was launched it was available in 58 countries. That
reach is what Perez covets. Madrid's
research revealed that players, not clubs, attract loyalty
in the far east, allowing them to buy the loyalty of fans by
buying the player they follow. Figo's arrival doubled
Madrid's marketing and merchandise income, and the feeling
is that Beckham could do the same. Despite a
series of mediocre performances the England captain was the
star of last year's World Cup in Japan and Korea, for his
combination of good looks, celebrity and family man image.
Some
experts believe he could have the same effect in China,
where according to a survey by football consultants FMM
International Madrid are twice as popular as United already.
They are scheduled to open an academy in Beijing later this
year, and will tour in August. Whether
Beckham joins them in China remains to be seen. Yesterday
United declined to comment, while Beckham's father, Ted,
said: "As England captain he can't stay on the bench".
In Madrid
coach Vicente del Bosque did nothing to stem the
speculation. "All I will say is that I have been following
him [Beckham] since he was 17 years old and I think
he is a fantastic player with great technical abilities," he
said. "Nobody can doubt that he is an extraordinary player."
**
David
Beckham pictures at
castlepictures.com David
Beckham General Info David
Beckham Links Join
in : Hundred
of gifts in our complete
guide
Latest
David Beckham news Beckham
fell off the edge of Manchester United on the night
his team fell out of Europe. The sumptuous
free-kick with which the England captain brought
the scores level and a tap-in close to the end were
his application to join football's greatest club.
Old Trafford substitute one minute, Real Madrid
luminary the next? A
deal is being worked on to take the game's second
most marketable player after Ronaldo to the
Bernabeu. Sources say there is a 90 per cent chance
of him starting next season in Spain. If it comes
off he will be this year's Castillian butterfly.
Madrid have to have a new one every year. Last
year's acquisition was Ronaldo - and last night
Brazil's unbreakable goal monster destroyed United
with a hat-trick that will go down in Manchester
legend. For
the second time in a week, Beckham started a vital
United game in the stands. Arsenal last Wednesday,
a Champions League quarter-final second leg last
night. This is serious stuff. His brace of goals in
a 4-3 victory were a rebuke for his manager, Sir
Alex Ferguson, who opted, in Paul Scholes's
absence, for Juan Sebastian Veron, who kept Beckham
out until the 64th minute. Ferguson's
anxiety about restoring him to his familiar
position wide right was that Roberto Carlos had
bewitched him in their three previous encounters.
Beckham's primary athletic weakness is an absence
of natural pace. Knowing this, Brazil's left-back
has had no difficulty driving the Premiership's
best crosser and dead-ball specialist back into his
own half. The word nemesis jumped to
mind. But
the United manager's preference for a converted
striker (Ole Gunnar Solskjaer) in the
right-winger's shirt speaks of a deeper collapse in
the Ferguson-Beckham relationship, which stretches
all the way back to United posters being pinned on
Beckham's bedroom wall in London, and Ferguson
taking him into the Old Trafford family like Sir
Matt Busby nurturing one of his Babes. At
3-1 down in a Champions League quarter-final, the
natural expectation is that the manager summons his
best 11 players and then worries about the
formation later. Beckham's name failed to appear
and from that only one inference can be drawn. It
would have been easy to save this one-man
merchandising industry from Roberto Carlos by
deploying him in a central midfield three,
alongside Nicky Butt and Roy Keane. Instead, the
boss preferred to gamble on Veron, who had not
played first-team football since March 5. And so it
was that Beckham was sharing the worst seats in the
house with Laurent Blanc, Darren Fletcher and
Quinton Fortune. 'The
End' was announced, by some, when Beckham was among
the reserves for United's potentially
season-defining game at Highbury. It's one thing to
give him an enforced break in November or December,
but quite another to ignore him in the club's two
most important games. This, when the Premiership
had honoured him with the goal-of-the-decade award
in their 10th anniversary celebrations, and various
marketing onslaughts are being planned for United's
pre-season tour of the US. So
now is the time to wonder where Beckham is going as
a footballer - literally and figuratively. If you
include the famous FA Youth Cup winning team from
1992-93, he has worn the red yoke with distinction
for a decade. There is no earthly reason why a
parting should be depicted as a tragedy. Football
clubs are moving organisms. They evolve. Beckham's
own development has stagnated to the point where
skydiving into Madrid would awaken his senses,
widen his technical repertoire and extend his
celebrity still further. There's
no point denying that Beckham's sense of himself as
a commodity is now highly developed. This explains
why he told his Japanese fans he would "love to
come back and play here", and why interviews have
begun appearing in American magazines such as Time.
If the US is the last frontier commercially, the
idea of Beckham in a Real Madrid shirt has its own
special frisson, for both him and the club.
Insiders at Real say the players there pick out
Scholes and Giggs as the Mancunians they most
admire. But they also understand Beckham's value as
a box-office
missionary. All
over England the cry goes up: if he can't get in
Man Utd's starting XI, how can he depose Luis Figo
or Zinedine Zidane? Zidane is a master not just of
the ball but time itself. Such craft, such powers
of orchestration. Naturally, Ronaldo's hat-trick
will be carved deepest in the Champions League's
tree of life, but it's Zidane who makes possible
those fizzing runs, those belting finishes.
Ferguson, surely, was being mischievous when he
suggested that the world's most gifted playmaker
merely "plays across you" and indulges himself with
"tricks". DAVID BECKHAM can become
the first £100million superstar by moving to
Real Madrid. The Spanish giants reckon
snatching Goldenballs will help them leapfrog
Manchester United to become the world's richest
club. United face Real in the European
Cup quarter-final second leg next week, locked in a
tug-of-war for Becks. The England skipper has been
linked with a £38m move to the European
champions. Beckham's skill, pin-up looks
and popstar image means he is worth a fortune to
the money men. Real marketing director Jose
Angel Sanchez revealed: "You can buy a fan's
allegiance to your club if their favourite player
moves to you. "Manchester United have been the
reference for us in Europe. "They understood earlier than
anyone that the industrial side of the game needed
to be developed and that the club had to be a
brand. There are three or four of us competing to
be the biggest club force in global
football." United's market value is around
£350m, compared to more than
£1BILLION at the height of
their power. Arsenal's failed
experiment with £4m Japan midfielder Junichi
Inamoto was as much about merchandising in the Far
East as it was about football. Real are just as
keen to exploit lucrative commercial deals in the
Orient. A 10ft chocolate statue of
Beckham was sculpted in Tokyo and BP launched their
Asian Pacific Castrol Oil campaign using his
image. Sanchez added: "In some parts of
our marketing work there is a very direct
relationship between the stars we buy and our
financial performance. "Real Madrid realises that you
have to grab certain market shares
immediately. "Otherwise, it could be very
damaging to you and your financial power,
particularly if one of your competitors does have
that share. Market research shows that many
football fans across Asia will transfer their
allegiance from club to club without a thought if
their favourite star moves. "In Europe, with a game which is
well over a century old, we give our loyalty to the
clubs. But that is not the way it works in the
emerging markets." DAVID BECKHAM
is buying a horse as a present for his
wife Victoria. Posh, 29 today, went
riding as a child and has always dreamed of owning
her own mount. David has spent weeks
scouring stables near their £1.7million
converted barn at Nether Alderley, Cheshire, for
the perfect four-legged friend for his pop star
wife. The Manchester United
and England hero hasn't bought the horse in time
for Victoria's big day. But he hopes to take
delivery in the next few weeks. He wants to surprise
her by presenting it during a walk in the grounds
of their home. A friend of David's
told me last night: "A horse is the ideal present
for the girl who has almost everything. "Victoria loves
horse-riding but has never had her own. She used to
love riding as a young girl but hasn't done much of
it since. "She and the other
Spice Girls went on a riding weekend in Ireland
during one of their breaks. "And Victoria
couldn't stop saying how much she enjoyed it and
how she would love to take it up again. So it is really
thoughtful of David to make the decision to get her
one. He toyed with the idea of getting a horse for
himself too but was told not to by his bosses at
United.Brooklyn already has a Shetland pony and
really enjoys riding it. Now Victoria will be able
to ride with him. And it will be a
great way for Victoria to get out the house and
chill out for a while in the peace and quiet. David
hasn't managed to get it in time for her birthday
but it will hopefully arrive in a few
weeks." Becks has been
looking at pedigree horses and isn't afraid to
splash out to get the very best for Posh. He
doesn't know much about horses but has been taking
advice from some of the top experts in the
field. After having the
horse delivered to their Cheshire home it is likely
they will keep it at a private stable
nearby. Becks has never shied
away from buying Victoria lavish gifts and he has
had his fair share from her, too. He once spent
£10,000 on a pendant from posh jeweller
Tiffany for a Christmas pressie. David also bought her
a diamond-encrusted crucifix worth tens of
thousands. And he regularly
splashes out on gifts for her from designer stores
Dolce & Gabbana, Gucci and Christian
Dior. Posh once paid
£12,000 for a diamond-studded Cartier bracelet
for Becks and in early days of their romance she
even bought her sports car-loving hubby a new
Ferrari. Victoria Beckham has
denied she colluded with top paparazzi photographer
Jason Fraser to supply photos of herself and her
husband, England football captain David
Beckham, to the tabloids. Going head to head
with Piers Morgan in the first of his new BBC1
series, Tabloid Tales, the Daily Mirror editor
suggested that Fraser "always seems to be in the
right place at the right time," raising questions
as to where he gets his information from.
In the programme
Andrew Morton, who made millions from his biography
of Princess Diana before later writing a
controversial biography on the Beckhams, also
claimed that Fraser was effectively their "court
photographer". "It looks as though
they're snatched pictures, that they're taken
off-guard, off duty, when all along those pictures
where rehearsed and pre-arranged", he claimed.
But both Victoria
Beckham and Fraser denied any collusion between the
two. Fraser has snapped the Beckhams on dozens of
occasions, most famously when took pictures of the
couple's new haircuts. "Occasionally what I
have done in the past if I am walking out of a shop
or a restaurant and there is a photographer there,
sometimes I say 'hang on, let me put the kids in
the car', because at the end of the day I want to
know my children are safe," she Ms Beckham said.
"I'll put the
children in the car and then I might say, 'OK if
you let me do that and you don't take photographs
of the boys I will go back and I will come out
again and you can take pictures of me on my own',"
she added. Morton recalled how,
on the day David Beckham got a new stunt
haircut and his wife went for a blonde look, they
evaded the photographers outside their home and
instead met Fraser. Fraser said he gets
paparazzo tip-offs from a variety of sources,
including celebrities themselves - but he would not
be drawn on his specific relationship with the
Beckhams. Joe Sene, the former
picture editor of OK! magazine, reckons photographs
of the Beckhams are "easy sales", but claimed he
had never received a tip-off from them as to their
whereabouts. "We know that
pictures of Victoria will sell, we can sell
pictures of Victoria Beckham and week in week out,
it's easy sales," said Sene. "We had an exclusive
set of pictures of David strolling on the beach
with Brooklyn in the morning before they left
Barbados, well into five figures, closer to six
figures, and it's not the first time we've sold
pictures of the Beckhams for that sort of amount of
money," he added, In the interview Mrs
Beckham also revealed how life imitated art
imitating life, revealing how her hairdresser calls
her Beaujolais - a reference to the shallow model
character, TV cult hit Footballers' Wives who is
called Chardonnay. Source - media
Guardian Giant
David Beckham poster, £4.99. Cometh
the moment , cometh the man .Giant David Beckham
poster, £4.99. 16 pictures from England v
Argentina , World Cup 2002 .
36 by 24 inch glossy poster , 170 gsm art paper .
Postage in UK £1.80 .
Order
online now Buy
both David Beckham posters for just £8.99
Buy
posters now The
pop
poster section
features Gareth
Gates,
the Appletons,
Courtney
Love
and many more . Giant
David Beckham poster, £4.99. 16 pictures from
England v Argentina , World Cup 2002 . 36 by 24
inch glossy poster , 170 gsm art paper . Postage in
UK £1.80 . Buy
one now Dunnottar
Castle
| Edinburgh
Castle
| Linlithgow
Palace
| Gareth
Gates
| pop
posters
|
New David Beckham glamour poster , £5.99. 36 by 24 inch glossy poster , 170 gsm art paper . Postage in UK £1.80 . Order online now |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
More music posters from Push Posters in the UK Click here for over 5000 concert posters
Home Castles of Scotland Clans page Posters page Site map
Visit our photo shopping mall
Order Stephen Gately pictures
Phone 01324 883305
All text copyright Photogold 2001
