It seems there's one family it's OK to sneer at for being 'common': the Beckhams

DID anyone else feel a flicker of shame watching the Beckham documentary? I did. Those poor Beckhams. That wedding. Those monstrous matching purple outfits.

- Anna van Praagh

Those thrones. God how we sniggered and sneered. What was wrong with us?

The gripping four-part Netflix documentary they have made is instructive in so many ways, but the most interesting thing I took from it was how harshly two hard-working working-class people who succeeded in rising above their station got smashed down for it in so many ways by a culture that at the time celebrated the public shaming of the newly coined “chav”. Were they laughed at, reviled and vilified because they were highly ambitious and “common”?

The series offers searing insight into David Beckham’s childhood in Leytonstone as the son of Sandra, a hairdresser, and Ted, a kitchen fitter. The show follows his incredible career from playing for the first time for Manchester United at 17 to his emotional retirement 20 years later, the interim dotted with fleeting highs and desperate lows.