Culture shock awaits Beckham on his mission to create new 'sah-kurr' galaxy

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How splendid to learn that David Beckham is off to conquer America. He is leaving real Madrid for artificial Los Angeles — or Real Madrid for Los Angeles Galaxy — and we are left to guess why, at the age of 31, he will be turning his back on grown-up football. Has he run out of footballing ambition? Not at all. He doesn’t want to go to America to get by. He wants to go to America to change it. He wants to put “sah-kurr” up there with the Super Bowl and the World Series and the NBA finals. He wants to change the face of American sport, he wants to alter the balance of power in world football. Oh, my America! My new found land! I was once a part of an exhibition to change the balance of power in world sport myself. It was a decade and a half back. We were missionaries bringing civilisation to the far-flung places of the Earth; we ended up in the cooking pot. You know how America has been longing for cricket all these years? Well, we satisfied that need. An entrepreneur signed up most of the England and West Indies players and invited the press along as well. We were to spread the word of America’s capitulation to the charms of cricket. The first game was in the Toronto SkyDome, of all places, home of the Toronto Blue Jays. The venue contains an hotel, with views of the game from your room and, as was discovered by a couple celebrating their friendship not wisely but too well during a baseball game, views of your room from the game. It was a fabulous occasion. Not that anybody turned up. The best part was the expression on David Gower’s face when the press walked into the England dressing-room after the match. He was unaware that, in North America, the press has “locker-room access”. I asked him if Curtly was sending down fastballs or change-ups. “Mostly curves,” he replied, regaining his cool with a jolt. On, then, to New York. If cricket could make it there, it could make it anywhere. The match took place on a Sunday afternoon on that funny little island you can see from the Triborough Bridge. The dinky stadium was maybe a third full: Caribbean emigrants eating curry goat and drinking Red Stripe. It was great, actually. I think the match made a few lines in the New York Post, maybe even The New York Times. They reported what is known in the trade as “colour”. Meanwhile, the NFL season had just begun and the baseball season was bracing itself for its climax. We flew home, America unconquered, but we had all had a nice time. Our failure did not surprise me. America had already tried to conquer England by means of sport. England, you may recall, was going to give up football and take up gridiron in a big way. The NFL sent top teams to play exhibition matches at Wembley, and Wembley was packed.