Photo credit: David Beckham FB
LONDON, Nov 4: Former England captain David Beckham will be among those accepting honours at Windsor Castle today when he receives a knighthood.
The football star, 50, is being honoured for his services to sport and charity.
Earlier this year, Sir David said he was “immensely proud” of being recognised in the King’s Birthday Honours.
The sports star from northeast London made his Premier League debut for Manchester United in 1995 and was part of the team that earned a dramatic Champions League final victory in 1999 when they beat Bayern Munich with two late goals.
In total, he scored 85 goals and collected honours, including six Premier League titles and two FA Cups as a footballer, before retiring from the sport in 2013.
Alongside his football career, he has supported many charity causes, including serving as a goodwill ambassador for the humanitarian aid organisation UNICEF since 2005.
Last year, Beckham, who has described himself as a “huge royalist”, was named an ambassador for the King’s Foundation, an educational charity established by the King in 1990.
He is also known for his stylish clothing choices, and in 1998 was named the most stylish man of the year by GQ magazine. He has modelled for the likes of H&M, Armani, and Boss.
Beckham married his wife Victoria in 1999. The couple have four children together – Brooklyn, Romeo, Cruz, and Harper.
Also, among the personalities to be honoured on Tuesday are Nobel Prize-winning novelist Kazuo Ishiguro and West End performer Elaine Paige.
Ishiguro was made a Companion of Honour for services to literature.
The Order of the Companions of Honour was founded in 1917 by George V and is limited to 65 members at any one time. Appointments go to those who have made a long-standing contribution to arts, science, medicine, or government.
The Japanese-born author, 70, who moved to the UK as a child, is known for 2005’s Never Let Me Go and 1989’s The Remains Of The Day, for which he won the Man Booker Prize.
The Remains Of The Day was his third novel and was adapted into a film starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson, which earned them both Academy Award nominations, and the 1993 adaptation a total of eight Oscar nods.
Ishiguro is also a film writer and wrote the Oscar-nominated screenplay for the 2022 film Living, about a civil servant, played by Bill Nighy, who embraces life after he finds out he is dying.
Paige, given a damehood for services to music and charity, was born Elaine Bickerstaff in north London in 1948 and became an overnight star with her portrayal of Eva Peron in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s hit musical Evita.
After the show debuted in 1978, the 77-year-old, who had been nominated alongside her co-star David Essex, won the Olivier Award for performance of the year in a musical.
She has had starring roles in Cats, Chess, Piaf, and Sunset Boulevard – and has more recently starred in pantomimes at The London Palladium.
Across her career, she has recorded more than 20 solo albums and has had one chart-topping single with I Know Him So Well featuring Barbara Dickson.
She has also won a number of accolades, including the Gold Badge of Merit from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (BASCA) in 1993.
Outside of her work, she has supported many charities, including The Children’s Trust, the Royal Voluntary Service, and Dan Maskell Tennis Trust, which she has been president of since 2010.
— BERNAMA-PA MEDIA/dpa