David Beckham recalls ‘great memories’ at Preston North End and his Manchester United fear

David Beckham has ‘great memories’ of his brief Preston North End loan spell in 1995.

The Manchester United man was loaned out to Deepdale in the 1994/95 campaign, having been in and around the first team set up at Old Trafford. Preston boss Gary Peters put Beckham on set-piece duty immediately and the 19-year-old scored two goals in his five appearances for North End.

In Division Three at the time, Beckham received a £50 bonus each time he made the PNE match day squad. His debut came off the bench against Doncaster Rovers, a game in which Beckham scored directly from a corner. He went on to feature in wins over Fulham, Bury and Exeter City as well as a draw at Lincoln City. United then recalled Beckham and he went on to help them win the Premier League in 1996.

On the back of his popular Netflix documentary, Beckham has now reflected on his playing career by looking back at his old kits with Classic Football Shirts - a business with stores in Manchester and London. The England star spoke highly of North End - a club whom he went back to visit, with his dad, when they secured promotion to Division Two the following season. The Coloroll strip he wore during his Deepdale spell is iconic - the United legend agreed that they don’t make kits like it anymore.

“No they don’t!” said Beckham. “To be honest, great memories. I arrived thinking that Manchester United didn’t want me anymore. It’s what Sir Alex Ferguson used to do, with a lot of young players who needed toughing up. He’d send them out to the lower leagues to get kicked around a little bit and that’s exactly what I did. I went there, played four or five games, scored a couple of goals, set a few up and it actually went very well. But, I definitely got kicked around a little bit.”

And when him scoring from a corner was mentioned, Beckham added: “I did! It was very windy that day.”

In 2022, Peters recalled his time working with Beckham and said: “I just thought, what he was doing was so simple for him. He was crossing balls and doing things all the time. I saw him doing that in the reserves at Manchester United and I thought he would just suit us. He did better than I ever thought he would. And he obviously did so well, we only had him for three months. Fergie took him back because he was going to put him in the team, so it must’ve helped him as well.”