This extraordinary book charts David Beckham’s rise to celebrity during his years in Manchester.

At the age of 3 David Beckham’s parents gave him a Manchester United shirt as a Christmas present, beginning a relationship with the club that was to last a quarter of a century. He signed schoolboy terms in May 1988, eventually joining United as a trainee in July 1991 and moving up to Manchester to begin what was to become an extraordinary story.

From relatively early days, right up to his departure for Real Madrid, Eamonn and James Clarke, the Manchester paparrazi, have recorded his unofficial story—even before he came to prominence as a player and well before his meteoric rise to iconic status.

They were there when he was a young player finding his feet at the club, there to see him out and about with girlfriends or team colleagues, there when “Posh Spice” arrived on the scene, and there to see him becoming a proud father and family man.

And they were the first to photograph him, with the cut above his eye, walking in Manchester after the boot-kicking incident with Sir Alex Ferguson, when it began to dawn on everyone that David Beckham’s time at Manchester United was almost over.

In an introductory text, and through extended captions, Eamonn and James Clarke describe their work and encounters with David Beckham. The two brothers have worked as the Manchester paparrazi for the last 10 years. Their images appear regularly on the front pages of the press in the UK as well as internationally in magazines.