The way Spanish sports newspaper AS delivered its latest verdict, it was as if David Beckham were an Iberico ham hanging from the ceiling of a Spanish bar. “What a piece of Englishman,” it declared.
It was September 2003: after what was only his sixth Real Madrid game, against Marseilles in the Champions League, Beckham was decreed to have produced a succulent personal performance and his perceived national characteristics — endeavour, teamwork — were winning over an audience not known for its patience. Real approved of their new man, el Ingles.
Beckham was a global superstar who attracted a particular kind of scepticism focused on his fame and commerce. In Real Madrid’s then 101-year history, he was also only the fourth Englishman to play for the Spanish giant, so it was understandable that additional questions should surround his provenance.
He had been preceded at the Estadio Bernabeu by Steve McManaman in 1999, Laurie Cunningham in 1979 and at the very beginnings of the club in 1902, Arthur Johnson (more on him later). Beckham was then quickly succeeded by Michael Owen and Jonathan Woodgate in 2004.
Beckham greets fans after his presentation in 2003 (Photo: Christophe Simon/AFP via Getty Images)
Having four England internationals in five years drive down Calle del Padre Damian meant English football had a stake in Real Madrid. But when Jude Bellingham makes his competitive debut for the club at Athletic Bilbao tonight, it will be almost two decades since an Englishman pulled on the acclaimed Los Blancos jersey.
In the intervening years, Real still looked to England for major players — Cristiano Ronaldo joined from Manchester United in 2009 and Welshman Gareth Bale arrived from Tottenham four years later — but when an Englishman next arrived in Spain’s capital, it was Kieran Trippier across the city at Atletico in 2019.
Bellingham is not a pioneer, but he is something the Bernabeu has not witnessed since June 2007 when Beckham played his last Real match — an English footballer in the starting XI.
At his unveiling in June, a fortnight before his 20th birthday, Bellingham said that at the World Cup in Qatar, England colleagues had been trying to coax him to leave Borussia Dortmund for the Premier League — “all of them wanted to see me come back to England and play for their teams, which I really appreciate” — but the fact he had left England for Germany at 17 demonstrated he is a different kind of young English footballer.
“I like the idea of this being out of my comfort zone,” Bellingham said. “It would maybe be an easier option to go back to England, my native country and live there, play there.
“But I couldn’t turn down Real Madrid.”
Real’s first three La Liga games are away from home due to the reconstruction of the Bernabeu, so it will be September before Madrid witnesses Bellingham in all white wearing the No 5 shirt previously worn by Zinedine Zidane.
Bilbao comes first and the venue takes McManaman back to his earliest days at Madrid. Bilbao away was McManaman’s third Real game and, as he tells The Athletic, happily, he scored: “Yes, I did. After three games I was Real Madrid’s leading goalscorer.”
McManaman laughs — Raul soon took over — but he was making a point about starting efficiently. Now working in Liverpool’s academy as well as commentating on television, McManaman recalls the summer of 1999 when his transfer from Anfield was more about his Bosman status than his nationality — “though enough people told you, ‘Laurie Cunningham this, Laurie Cunningham that’, to remind you where you came from,” he says.
When he reached the training ground, McManaman was determined to start sharply: “It’s in pre-season when questions are asked: ‘How fit is he?’, ‘What’s he like?’. You have to win over the players straight away. I am in the academy at Liverpool so I know people are impressed by Dominik Szoboszlai because he’s fit, he runs. That’s what Jude will want.
“But that’s the easy part, on the pitch. Because if you’re a good player, you’re going to be fine. I felt at home immediately on the pitch, I was good with a football and when you play with a technical team like this, you fit in. Of course, you’re nervous, you don’t want to give the ball away, but Jude will have seen them enough on television to know. Luka Modric, Toni Kroos, they’re wonderful with the ball.
“It’s just about fitting in. We have to remember Jude’s only just gone 20, he could be in awe of these players — and he should be. Luka Modric has won five Champions Leagues.”
McManaman ended his first Real Madrid season winning the Champions League in Paris, scoring a scissor-kick volley to make it 2-0 against Valencia. He was popular on and off the pitch at the dawn of the first Galactico era. He became “El Macca”, training daily alongside Raul, Roberto Carlos, the original Ronaldo and Zidane at the old, surprisingly humdrum facilities. Bellingham has the luxury of Valdebebas.
In McManaman’s third season, Jorge Valdano, then Real’s technical director, assessed the Liverpudlian’s overall contribution — “McManaman?” Valdano said. “McManaman is connected to everybody. A football match is a game of little societies and McManaman is a member of them all.”
McManaman and Ronaldo at Real Madrid training (Photo: Liu Jin/AFP via Getty Images)
It was an indication of McManaman’s assimilation, though that was not always straightforward. He did not speak Spanish in 1999 — he remembers making chicken gestures in a restaurant. But then he landed in Madrid when the Spanish peseta was still in use. Google was 10 months old. It was a less homogenized world.
“There was no Google translate and very few Spanish people then spoke English,” McManaman says. “You can go anywhere now and understand just by looking at your phone. That wasn’t the case.
“So Jude’s adaptation will not be an issue. Most of the players speak English, so it’ll be easier. The main thing is getting to know the language, the players. Twenty-five years ago, nobody spoke English, bar Christian Karembeu or Clarence Seedorf. When I go back to the club now and see some of the staff who were there then, they all speak English.”
McManaman’s nationality was more of a curiosity than an issue. There were newspaper spreads on the street he grew up on near Anfield and because he was Liverpudlian, there was the obligatory Fifth Beatle zebra crossing photograph.
But Bellingham, he thinks, is part of a new generation of young Englishmen prepared to travel.
“My nationality wasn’t a big deal for me personally,” he says. “Yet I am constantly asked why English players do not go abroad — that question persists. I say to them that the Premier League is a wonderful league, the facilities are amazing, people get paid well and on time, they have families, children, grandparents, so they want to stay. I’ve no problem with that.
“But there are more players moving — Jadon Sancho, Tammy Abraham, Chris Smalling — so there is a pathway there.
“To get to the glamour teams in Europe is bloody hard. They only want the best and the fact Real Madrid have gone for Jude at his age shows what respect they have for him. Jude has already shown he ‘can do, will do’ — he’s excelled in Germany. I’ve talked to a lot of people at the club and they are incredibly impressed by Jude, his attitude, the way he’s just got on with things. The fact we haven’t heard anything (negative) is a sign.”
Sports paper Marca reported this week that “the dressing room” is struck by the speed of Bellingham’s adjustment and a previous report, again anonymous, stated he was the least English of the Englishmen who have played for the club.
Perhaps it is correct — Bellingham left England at 17 for Germany, whereas Cunningham was 23 when moved to the Bernabeu, McManaman was 27, Beckham was 28, Owen and Woodgate were 24. None of them had previously played abroad.
“As soon as I left England, the plane went up and I was all in,” Bellingham said of the July 2020 day he flew to Dortmund, just three weeks after his 17th birthday. “I think that’s the way you have to be.”
He was accompanied by his mother, Denise, and she is expected to be with him again in Madrid. Bellingham learned some German and is keen to learn Spanish. The willingness alone will be acknowledged, something Bale, for instance, did not seem to grasp.
The family support is another contrast with McManaman, who lost his mother Irene shortly before he left Liverpool. Few beyond Anfield knew and McManaman did not speak about it when he got to Madrid.
“I’m a private person, so nobody really knew, no,” he says. “I’m from a very working-class background in Liverpool and I just had to get on with it. It was devastating, but I didn’t need it to be known. I didn’t want people to feel sorry for me. Jude going with his mother is deemed a real support — and it is. We now look at how people are feeling, the mental side of it. Twenty years ago, you just got on with it.”
McManaman played 158 times for Real and won another Champions League, plus two La Liga titles. Beckham played 155 times and won La Liga. Cunningham scored 20 goals in 66 appearances and won La Liga and the Copa del Rey (twice). Owen scored 16 times in 45 games. Woodgate, blighted by injuries, played only nine times across two seasons and will, unfortunately for him, be remembered for a debut (against Bilbao) that featured an own goal and a red card.
Owen celebrates a 2005 goal against Barcelona (Photo: Pierre-Philippe Marcou/AFP via Getty Images)
McManaman made the greatest impression on the pitch. Off it, Beckham took the club into a new commercial realm. “He is a man of our times and a symbol of modern-day stardom,” club president Florentino Perez said at Beckham’s 2003 unveiling.
As of now, McManaman sees Bellingham purely in football terms. But 20 years on from Beckham, in a world where the English language is dominant and in a football environment in which North America is viewed by European clubs as the next growth market, Bellingham could be a persuasive asset. He has some interesting Americana — his favourite film is Pulp Fiction, his musical tastes include Al Green and Ray Charles. Bellingham is not your average 20-year-old and he is a gregarious natural in front of the camera.
Another Englishman, Michael Robinson, was the same. Robinson did not play for Real Madrid but in his role as Spanish TV’s most high-profile pundit, he was a huge La Liga presence for decades. A former Liverpool player, Robinson gave McManaman an early warning: “What Steven has to realise is that when he becomes a Real Madrid player, he is more important than a cabinet minister.”
In the club’s centenary season — 2002-03 — Valdano produced a code of etiquette for the squad including phrases in bold type such as: “Remember that each time you speak, people hear Real Madrid.”
McManaman understood the intensity of this scrutiny — training was dissected as well as matches — and won over reporters with his approachability. Bellingham is doing the same.
The pressure will come only if Real do not perform. As McManaman says bluntly: “The most important thing is being successful — if you’re successful, it’s fine. If you’re not successful for Real Madrid… it’s a problem.”
Robinson was as English as the seaside town in which he grew up — Blackpool – but internationally he played for the Republic of Ireland and the Anglo-Irish overlap common in British families touches the Bellinghams.
Jude’s father Mark has described himself as “half-Irish”. This in turn could help Real if England’s great hope can get an Irish passport. As a European Union-registered player, Bellingham would free up a place in the squad for a non-EU signing.
And this takes Real Madrid back to their roots when they were simply Madrid FC (the “Real” prefix did not come until 1920) and to Arthur Johnson. Johnson, the first Englishman to play for the club, was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1879.
Not much is known about him, but by 1902 he was living in Madrid and visited the La Taurina tavern on the old Calle Alcala. Johnson worked in engineering, although then he may have been studying, as in the club’s official history — The Real Madrid Book of Football (1961) — it is said “university students” had been renting a back room in La Taurina since 1898.
In May 1902, these students’ new club — Madrid FC — participated in a six-team tournament in the city and Johnson was effectively the team’s coach. Madrid’s first opponents were, fairly amazingly, a new club from Catalonia — FC Barcelona. So Madrid’s first game was the first El Clasico. They lost 2-1; their goal, the first in the 121-year history of Real Madrid was scored by their captain, Arthur Johnson.
He was 23. Furthermore, it is said it was Johnson who shaped Madrid for life by selecting an all-white kit in homage to the Corinthian Football Club in London. He would formally become the first manager and is listed on the club’s website in that role from 1910-20. Santiago Bernabeu, the legend after whom today’s stadium is named, joined in 1912, so he and Johnson knew each other.
Bernabeu wrote in the 1961 book and says he would like to have signed England’s Stanley Matthews — “I considered him the world’s leading player” — but there is no mention of Johnson and as the years passed, his name faded.
At The Athletic, however, we think we have found Arthur Vere Scott Johnson. A man of that name lies in grave 177 on plot 16C of Rake Lane cemetery in Wallasey, Birkenhead — across the Mersey estuary from Liverpool. There is a small, “open-book” headstone with his name and that of his wife, Ada. Overgrown grass obscures some of the inscription. There is no record of Real Madrid.
The grave of Arthur Johnson (Photo: Michael Walker/The Athletic)
Johnson’s date of death was recorded as March 23, 1929, and three miles away in the Wirral Archives, the local newspaper of that month — The Wallasey News — carried a report on Johnson’s passing. The headline was: “Well-known Sportsman’s Death”, but once again there is no reference to Real Madrid. He was secretary of the bowls club — “he had been a member since he came to Wallasey 15 years ago”, the paper said. He lived nearby on Rullerton Road and worked for the United Alkali Company in Liverpool. He was “well-known in their Spanish mines from which letters of condolence have been sent”. He had died suddenly of pneumonia, aged 50.
Presumably, the “large crowd assembled” at Johnson’s funeral knew of his football past, it’s just on grave 177 on plot 16C it does not say so. But there he lies, Real Madrid’s first piece of Englishman, their first coach, their first goalscorer. Jude Bellingham will be the next.
(Top photo: Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)
