Victoria Adams and David Beckham

Victoria and David are a hot item nowadays. Both could handle themselves quite well on their own. (Financially, that is...Mentally I'm not so sure.) It all started when Melanie C took Victoria to see him play against Sheffield, because she liked the look of him. He and Ryan Giggs met Melanie C and Victoria after the game. On a double date. And that was in March, 1997. Now they always ring each other their mobile phones any chance they get.

On January 24, 1998, David proposed to Victoria. She accepted and they announced the engagement at the Rookery Hall Hotel in Nantwich, Cheshire. They never really talk about each other to the press. Just briefly from time to time. Lonely Victoria admitted to sleeping in one of David's old England shirts when away on tour because it helps her feel close to him.

Together they compare notes on fame and shop, dashing from Armani to Prada, buying each other Cartier trinkets, but beneath the homespun glitz one suspects the relationship is sweeter and less contrived than it appears. He is clearly nuts about her, and damn those rumours that Max Clifford is behind the whole liaison, or the ones currently gathering credence in the music business, that the Spice Girls need an excuse to quit before they are toppled, and Posh's obsession with the hunky footballer is the perfect subterfuge.

Doesn't it make it harder that they are both press fodder? "Yeah, but we understand the pressures: we encourage each other to ignore it or we laugh about it. She's more famous than me, anyway; we joke about who is more big time. It's nice, I like Victoria for herself, not for nothing else. I'd like her if she worked in Tesco". Would she return the compliment if he were plain broke Dave from Essex? Possibly, but the looks and the money can't hurt. He is un-embarrassed, and naive, about the wealth: "Footballers are no different to a milkman or a dustman, we're just in the limelight and get paid a lot of money".

It's so cute when they are asked about each other. She will only refer to him as "My Boyfriend." I think this might have changed now that they are engaged.... David only refers to her as "that girl." "That girl that everyone is talking about." They never seem to refer to each other by name!