First came the hand of God...

FIRST it was the hand of God. Then came the foot of the Little Sod.

But I know which one hurts more.

Because David Beckham's childish, peevish, petty, irresponsible, churlish, selfish retaliation was a disaster waiting to happen.

This was no moment of madness - it was entirely predictable.

And I spare a thought, for once, for Glenn Hoddle.

He was prepared to stick his neck out and leave Beckham out of the starting line-up at the start of the tournament because the £8.1 million-a-year superbrat was not focused.

But Beckham has never been ever to focus further than the beautifully sculptured nose on his face, such is his raging self-opinion.

Hoddle was, however, swayed by a tide of public opinion. And, in a football sense alone, that proved correct against Columbia.

However, in a tournament where teamwork is everything, reckless individualism caught up with Hoddle and England all too soon.

Beckham's cowardice was all the more difficult to stomach against the back-drop of the heroics of his colleagues.

Where Batty, Ince, Adams, Shearer, Owen and the rest should return ro receive the freedom of their respective cities, Beckham should be locked up in Strangeways for a couple of weeks to reflect on his actions.

The skirt-wearing greasy-haired pin-up will, however, swan back into his millionaire lifestyle without a care in the world.

For such publicity sells, as he and his adidas-backed chums Patrick Kluivert and Zinedine Zidane know only too well.

Neil Bramwell is the Sports Editor

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.