Beckham enjoyed 10 trophy-laden years at Old Trafford under the Scot’s tutelage but his relationship with Ferguson deteriorated significantly towards the end of his time with the Premier League giants, and culminated in the infamous boot-kicking incident that followed an FA Cup defeat at the hands of Arsenal.
In his new book Alex Ferguson: My Autobiography, the 71-year-old reveals that it became obvious Beckham had allowed himself to be distracted during his final season at United and led to the sort of mistakes that triggered one of the biggest bust-ups in Ferguson’s 26-year reign.
“The confrontation between us that caused so much excitement around the game was an FA Cup fifth-round tie against Arsenal at Old Trafford in February 2003, which we lost 2-0,” he said.
“David’s offence in that particular game was that he neglected to track back for the second Arsenal goal, scored by Sylvain Wiltord. He merely jogged. At the end I got on to him. As usual, with David at that time, he was dismissive of my criticism.
“He was around 12 feet from me. Between us on the floor lay a row of boots. David swore. I moved towards him, and as I approached I kicked a boot. It hit him right above the eye. Of course he rose to have a go at me and the players stopped him. ‘Sit down,’ I said. ‘You’ve let your team down. You can argue as much as you like.’
