On the 3 August 1997 Manchester United faced Chelsea in the FA Charity Shield after United has won the Premier League in the 1996/97 season and Chelsea has won the FA Cup the same season. David Beckham was reaching his prime and didn’t expect what happened.
Albert Morgan, United’s kit man would be blamed for the error with United’s kit ahead of the match, which Beckham would not have expected. 73,636 supporters were present at Wembley Stadium for the season opener and each one of them would have seen the error by United’s kit man.
On the back of the United legend’s shirt, which was United’s away shirt for the upcoming season, also used in the infamous 1998/99 season, was the player’s name spelt wrong, reading BECKAM instead of the proper spelling BECKHAM. Something that made many smile on the day.
Morgan insisted that he was not responsible for the error but Beckham blamed United’s kit man anyway. Beckham, 49, also insisted that it was Morgan’s only mistake, whether he in fact made it himself or took the flack for someone else – we may never actually know.
Beckham has appeared on ClassicFootballShirts’ ‘Career in Shirts’ on YouTube back in 2023 and spoke about the error, saying;
“That was Albert Morgan, the kit man. That was one of his mistakes – his only mistake.”
Beckham admitted that he wasn’t too enthused of the error when asked if he found the ordeal embarrassing or funny, saying;
“No, not at all. It’s not hard to spell my name!”
Speaking to talkSPORT at the premiere of ’99, an Amazon Sport documentary about United’s 1998/99 treble winning season, Morgan blamed a subcontractor about the error, saying;
“We used to subcontract the shirts out then, to people. I used to take two long sleeves and two short sleeves for every player. So you’ve got, like, 30 players in the squad and so I used to take 120 shirts. Outfield player shirts.
“And that day I just happened to pick this shirt with the ‘H’ missing [from his surname]. I’ve still not heard the last of it off Becks because he’s still got the shirt apparently!”
Written by Paul
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