David Beckham's Match Worn & Hand Signed Adidas Predator Accelerator/Touch Hybrid Football Boots 1997/98 Season
Player name: David Robert Joseph Beckham
Clubs: Manchester United, Preston North End, Real Madrid, LA Galaxy, AC Milan, Paris Saint Germain
Country: England
Position: Midfielder
DOB: 02/05/1975
Height: 6 ft 0 in
David Beckham is an English former professional footballer, the president and co-owner of Inter Miami CF and co-owner of Salford City. Primarily a right winger and known for his range of passing, crossing ability and free-kick taking, Beckham has been hailed as one of the greatest and most recognisable midfielders of his generation, as well as one of the best free-kick takers of all time. He won 19 major trophies in his career, and is the first English player to win league titles in four different countries: England, Spain, the United States and France.
Beckham's professional club career began with Manchester United, where he made his first-team debut in 1992 at age 17. With United, he won the Premier League title six times, the FA Cup twice, the FA Charity Shield twice, the Intercontinental Cup and the UEFA Champions League in 1999. He then played four seasons with Real Madrid, winning the La Liga championship in his final season with the club. In July 2007, Beckham signed a five-year contract with Major League Soccer club LA Galaxy. While a Galaxy player, he spent two loan spells in Italy with AC Milan in 2009 and 2010. He became the first British footballer to play 100 UEFA Champions League games. He retired in May 2013 after a 20-year career.
In today's blog, we present to you a true piece of footballing history, a piece which represents once of the most nostalgic eras in football, in particular, English Premier League football. David Beckham is one of the world's most iconic footballers of all time, you'll struggle to find anyone on around the globe who doesn't know who Becks is! He is considered a global ambassador for the beautiful game & a true British icon. What we have here, is a tremendous pair of Adidas Predator's which were not only match worn, but also double hand signed, by the man himself during one of the earlier seasons in his footballing career. This, however, are not any regular model of Adidas Predator, allow us to explain...
What we have here then, is what may appear from a distance to be a pair of Adidas Predator Touch, however when seen up close, it becomes apparent that they are far from it. This pair are, for the most pair, the Accelerator model of the iconic Predator silo. This exact pair were match worn by David Beckham during the 1997/98 season whilst playing for Manchester United in a HUGE number of matches across the FA Cup, Premier League & UEFA Champions League. It is INSANELY rare to find a pair of match worn David Beckham boots that feature this much match use. It is widely known within the football boot community that Becks regularly changed pairs, often having a new pair for every match, however this wasn't strictly always the case during the earlier stages of his career.
The right boot of the pair, seen above, is responsible for TWO of Beckham's iconic free-kick goals. Yes, this is true football history right here! Becks whipped into the back of the net free-kicks against Liverpool in the FA Carling Premiership at Anfield on December 6th 1997 & against Chelsea in the FA Cup 3rd Round at Stamford bridge on January 3rd 1998, the first of which from 20 yards went in off the crossbar, and the second, well he bent that one right around the wall - unstoppable. These goals both led to victories for Beckham & his Manchester United teammates, with the matches winning 1-3 & 3-5 respectively. In the Chelsea game, David also scored a goal prior to his free-kick in that match which was assisted by his fellow Englishman, Teddy Sherringham.
We have even managed to photomatch this piece to some up-close, in game shots of Becks using them on the pitch. Despite the picture quality from that era being rather poor due to the difference in camera technology when compared to the modern day, we have still managed to spot some unique and distinct characteristics that allow us to spot that this is unequivocally the pair. So, lets discuss those details. The first of 3 pictures above is a match to the 1-3 win in the Premier League for Manchester United against Liverpool (GettyImages ref 1922109), with the particular picture being taken during Beckham's celebration, running over to the Manchester United fans in the away end after having scored a 20-yard free-kick, here we can see distinct creases in the leather tongue & leather stripe. In the second photomatch, we can see the black paint flaking away from the heel section of the soleplate, with a couple of distinct pieces still intact on the right boot, whilst celebrating going 0-5 up against Chelsea against Stamford Bridge. The third photomatch is from the same fixture as the second, here we can see a unique indent/crease in the bespoke red leather tongue on the left boot, along with the positioning of the number '7' embroidery, lining up perfectly with the stitched 'adidas' branding.
So you may be thinking "what model are this pair exactly?". Well, whilst they are largely based on the Accelerator model, Adidas had actually disgusied them through a number of features in order for them to appear from a distance & to the naked eye as the Predator Touch. Why would they do this? As the Accelerator model hadn't been publicly released at the time of Becks wearing this pair, Adidas had to hide that their top sponsored players, such as Beckham & Gazza, were actually wearing the upcoming model. Typically, back in the day, players were supplied the next model prior to the public so that they can get used to wearing them on the pitch in advance.
During the 1996–97 season, Beckham became an automatic first-choice player at Manchester United, helping them to retain the Premier League title, and was voted PFA Young Player of the Year by his peers. Prior to the 1997–98 season, Beckham inherited the iconic number 7 shirt, a number previously worn by such United greats as George Best and Eric Cantona. Manchester United started the season well but erratic performances in the second half of the season saw United finish second behind Arsenal. Beckham had the most assists in the league with 13, while his nine Premier League goals included a free kick from the edge of the 20-yard box against Manchester United's arch rivals Liverpool at Anfield, whilst wearing this exact pair.
The first detail we can notice here on this pair, over the visual design of the publicly released Adidas Predator Accelerator, is to the iconic white 3 Adidas Stripes to the medial & lateral sides of the upper. In the above pictures we can see that they have actually been painted over, by hand, in black, to the top and bottom sections with the only white areas remaining being in the centre. This is because the srtipes in these areas on the Touch model were very short, so the idea here was to give the appearance that Becks was wearing the touch model through fans identifying the size of the stripes from a distance and thinking nothing of it. When, in actual fact as we can see here, the white leather stripes are indeed actually the same as what's found on the Accelerator model, it just was made very, very difficult to spot. Clever disguising.
We can also see that on Beckhams custom match worn pair, of these somewhat hybrid Accelerator/Touch boots, is that Adidas also painted over part of the red leather section around the ankle cup on both the lateral & medial sides, again in black. This is a further detail whereby Adidas were cleverly disguising the boots as a regular Touch model, an example of which we can see above - the size of those strips as we can see there, much shorter than those found on the Accelerator.
Secondly, and this is an absolutely beautiful detail, we can see that this pair have indeed got bespoke tongues. Nothing like this was ever seen on any general release Accelerator model. The tongue style here has been taken from, you guessed it, the Predator Touch model! But just like every section of Beckham's actual boots, they do feature some exquisite details. The tongues themselves are constructed from a supple, ultra-soft, premium leather which is certainly of much higher quality than what was found on the retail specification of the Touch & Accelerator models. It is quite remarkable just how soft those custom leather tongues are, given that this pair are 27 years old - a testament to the level of quality at which Adidas made this pair. Beckham's bespoke version of the tongues featured his iconic squad number '7' stitched into them, sitting underneath the 'adidas' branding, along with a custom elasticated strap - which is a detail that Beckham himself actually started, not Adidas. David announced publicly that he used to attach elastic to the tongues of his boots himself in order to keep them in place during use. Just like the stripes, Adidas had painted over the elastic straps in black so that they were as invisible as possible - this paint did wear off with match use, however.
Having signed for Manchester United as a trainee on 8 July 1991, Beckham was part of a group of young players, including Ryan Giggs, Gary Neville, Phil Neville, Nicky Butt and Paul Scholes, who were coached by Eric Harrison, and helped the club win the FA Youth Cup in May 1992. Beckham scored Manchester United's second goal in the 30th minute of their 3–1 first-leg win of the final against Crystal Palace on 14 April 1992. In the second leg on 15 May, Beckham played a full 90-minutes of the fixture which ended 3–2 in favour of Manchester United and 6–3 on aggregate. Beckham's impact led to a first-team debut on 23 September 1992, as a substitute for Andrei Kanchelskis in a League Cup match against Brighton & Hove Albion. Shortly afterwards, Beckham signed as a professional on 23 January 1993.
Major difference number 3! Where the Predator Accelerator general release specification featured a red and silver soleplate, the Touch model instead featured a mostly white plate with the studs being black. With Beckham's hybrid pair Adidas changed the soleplate to, again like the other details, look visually as close as possible to the standard Touch model for the purpose of keeping the Accelerator release very 'hush hush'. We can see here that Becks' custom pair they feature a fully white soleplate instead of red, with the centre piece being black rather than silver. A white soleplate on a Predator Accelerator? Totally unheard of!
But the customisations to the soleplate don't just stop at the colour/visual appearance on this pair. Adidas actually converted this plate to be a full metal stud SG screw-in version which was never available to the general public on any of the Touch or Accelerator models. The general release SG was essentially plastic blades, with actual metal studs only being an option available to Adidas' top sponsored pros. We can see above that Becks like to have both of the central forefoot studs shaven down/removed, with only 1 of them being replaced with a screw-in stud. We did also acquire some further information regarding the studs which had been removed from the source of this piece, whom originally, is actually a former Manchester United teammate of Beckham's from that era. David removed those 4 studs, 2 on each boot, for the last match in which he used them - they were red screw in studs with metal tips, whilst the others as we can see, are all black. This angle also gives another look at the custom elastic straps which, due to the sheer amount of match use this pair endured, are very much on their last legs.
Yet another difference on this pair over the general release models of the Touch & Accelerator Predators is to the heels. Now, whilst both of those models did feature a logo at the heel in the form of the Adidas Stripes (Accelerator was white, Touch was red) this pair actually feature no logo whatsoever, rather strangely. Underneath that big blank space on each boot is David's name 'Beckham' stitched into the area just above the edge of the soleplate, which, was originally covered in that black paint in the heel area, but has mostly worn away due to match use. Some flakes of that paint are still visible in areas of the heel section of the soleplate from this angle.
There is absolutely no doubt about it, this is THE rarest pair of David Beckham match worn boots in the world. Where most pairs within the market were used by Becks once or twice, this pair were worn in *TEN* matches for club & country (vs Cameroon, Liverpool, Chelsea, Everton, Tottenham, Southampton, Coventry City, Juventus, Aston Villa, Newcastle United) with him scoring multiple iconic goals in them, and to top it off? They are a truly one-off bespoke model of Predator, with nothing like it ever being sold to the general public, or indeed being supplied to other players and the icing on the cake being that this pair have been photomatched, even with the poorer quality of match pictures from that era. This masterpiece is fit for a museum display, and would truly elevate any collection.
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