I was on the phone, listening carefully to my daughters. ‘OK, so dark hair is Posh, curly hair is Scary, blonde is Baby, then ginger is… Ginger and that leaves Sporty. Yes, thank you, girls.’
I whispered goodbye, hung up the call and was ushered into a meeting room. In it were five young women surrounded by more suits than I had ever seen before in a record company meeting.
‘Girls, this is Mr Edwards,’ said Paul Conroy, head of Virgin Music UK. ‘He’s worked with some of our most established acts, like Janet Jackson and David Bowie, and we’d like to employ him on your behalf. Is there anything you want to ask him?’
It was 1997 and these five girls were arguably the biggest music story in the world. I had the sense, as I had only a few times in my career, that what happened in the next few minutes was going to change my life. A lengthy silence followed. I braced myself for a bombardment of technical questions about the media, just like Mick Jagger had unleashed before he had hired me.
‘Yes,’ said the sleek brunette I had recently learned was known as Posh (though in that moment Scary would have worked equally well). ‘We have one question.’
I leaned forward in anticipation. Posh spoke again. ‘What kind of shoes are you wearing?’ she asked. There was a sharp intake of breath around the room. I genuinely had no idea. So, I checked and said: ‘Hush Puppies?’
The girls looked at each other and one of them responded: ‘We can work with that. Let’s hire him.’ It was a perfect introduction to the Spice Girls and their comic strip humour.
In the late-1990s, the five Spice Girls (L-R) Geri Halliwell, Victoria Beckham, Emma Bunton, Melanie Brown and Melanie Chisholm were arguably the biggest global music act
They’d obviously made the decision before I got there, but wanted to add a touch of drama. And, boy, was there a lot of drama.
My time with the Spice Girls began like a rocket taking off.
I went from not knowing which one was which to knowing everything about their lives. I discovered that Victoria was very funny — I immediately christened her Witty Spice. Geri was a genuine believer in Girl Power. I’d spend a long time talking to Mel C about football. Mel B would always ask about my daughters. And Emma Bunton was the most eternally good humoured person I’d ever met.
In 1998, I joined them for their world tour, including the American leg where they would fill stadiums with 70,000 people a night. It was Beatles-level stuff.
Incredibly, despite the constant public attention, the group remained down to earth. One time, Victoria and I wanted to have a meeting somewhere discreet, so we went to the first-floor cafe of the local Heal’s furniture store — you had to walk through the carpet section to get there.
The shoppers never bothered us because obviously it couldn’t be Posh Spice — it must be someone who looks like her.
This was very much my style, too, although my habit of turning up for meetings with a Tesco carrier bag eventually got on the girls’ nerves to such a degree that they bought me an expensive Gucci briefcase.
Alan remembers how Mel B would always ask about his daughters, Geri was a genuine believer in Girl Power, Victoria was very funny, Emma was the most good-humoured person he had met and that Mel C would always talk about football
Most of our interactions were very casual, whether it was having a takeaway with them, or Mel B turning up unannounced in the office and turning it into a playpen for her daughter.
My role felt like being a father figure at times. I certainly felt protective of the young women at the centre of this media storm.
They looked out for me, too. When one of my daughters, Ruby, was reluctant to go to school for some very understandable reasons, Victoria insisted on calling her. At this time, getting a call from Posh Spice was akin to being phoned by the Pope.
When my mother died I’m not sure that anybody looked at the card attached to the huge bouquet of flowers that was sitting in the church that day. But if they had, they might have been surprised to see the names Victoria, Emma, Melanie B, Geri and Melanie C written there.
I had met David Beckham through Victoria and soon took on his PR, too — although our relationship had begun with a crisis.
It was the 1998 World Cup and he had been sent off during England vs Argentina for flicking out a foot at Diego Simeone. It was an extraordinarily unfair decision — I’m not sure he even touched Simeone — but the backlash was full-on. He was vilified in a way that nobody in sport really has been since. It went way too far.
The day after the match, I flew out to New York for the Spice Girls’ gig at Madison Square Garden. As I approached the venue, I saw someone who seemed completely out of context: David Beckham. He had come out to be with Victoria and get away from it all. As ‘soccer’ wasn’t as popular in the U.S. he had relative anonymity out there.
He explained to me that he had forgotten his pass and asked me very nicely if I could get him a ticket to the concert, which I found endearing because if anyone could get a ticket, it was David Beckham. It was quickly obvious that the man was in pieces about what had happened, utterly devastated.
That week we were travelling up the east coast in a tour bus and, for David, that bus was a protective bubble — he was with the girls and just one of the group.
There were no journalists around, no people on the street yelling at him. And from the U.S. newspapers, you wouldn’t even have known that there was a World Cup taking place.
You couldn’t easily get hold of British papers out there — it was in the days before digital editions — but I knew what was on the front pages back home because my staff faxed them to me.
I took it upon myself to help manage the situation. I realised David was in too sensitive a place for me to show him everything. In any case, nobody can cope with a huge deluge of bad news.
Instead, I desperately looked through the UK papers for glimmers of hope. I’d find even just a column or a paragraph that was favourable and gather up all those little nuggets, so that when I showed David the bad stuff, I was also able to present something sympathetic. It wasn’t manipulative. It was more a case of looking after a client’s wellbeing and judging how much bad news a person can take in one go. I was also constantly reminding journalists that there was a human being underneath this story.
PR guru Alan Edwards recalls that he was hired by the Spice Girls after Posh asked him: ‘What kind of shoes are you wearing?’
Eventually, writing something positive became the more interesting angle for the Press and things calmed down. The incident with Simeone didn’t dent David’s image in the long term. In fact, his brand was just getting started.
In those days, footballers were largely just blokes who kicked a ball around on Saturday afternoons. They didn’t grace the pages of fashion magazines like GQ or have opinions on global issues.
David, however, was determined to change that. My job was to build Beckham’s brand outside football — an ambition that burned deep within him.
One of the first non-sport pieces we did was when I took a journalist to the Malmaison Hotel in Manchester to interview David in December 1998.
Afterwards, David invited me back to his house for dinner. He was living in what footballers used to call ‘digs’ in a terrace in Salford. It was a modest affair.
The first drama was we couldn’t get the lights on until I found a coin for the meter, followed by a kerfuffle while he looked for a can opener for the baked beans, which it transpired was the only food he had in the house.
At last we settled down and I asked him what he wanted from his PR adviser. Usually, the first question young stars would ask me was, ‘Can you get me a Ferrari?’ or ‘Could you get me into this nightclub?’
I realised straight away that David had a different agenda. He told me that he felt very strongly about developing women’s football; he hated racism and homophobia and wanted to fight against it; he thought soccer in the U.S. was underdeveloped and wanted to be part of taking it forward — and all that was just for starters. He clearly had a vision that went way beyond kicking a football.
David also had strong views on the development of his own image, suggesting we do an Elvis-esque, 50s-style shoot for a forthcoming broadsheet interview, with him sporting a quiff. His attention to detail was extraordinary. David and Victoria were obviously very much in love and when they decided to get married, it was such a happy time and no surprise to anyone like me who was around them so much.
I remember The Sun was convinced that there was a Beckham wedding list at a branch of John Lewis outside Manchester. Victoria was appalled.
It wasn’t so much that the paper had a private story about the wedding, but more that anyone thought the wedding list would be at John Lewis. She exploded when I told her. ‘John Lewis! It could be f*****g Gucci at least!’
I don’t think any of us realised this was the beginning of ‘Brand Beckham: the business’.
David Beckham and Victoria after their engagement – the true beginning of ‘Brand Beckham: the business’
David’s approach was twofold. On the pitch, he trained harder and longer than everyone else, while off the pitch he relentlessly cultivated his personal style.
He was acutely conscious of the way he looked and was determined to be original. He wasn’t copying the other players; he took his cues from American rap music, fashion and beyond. It marked him out from his teammates.
The fashion focus of Brand Beckham had already hit the headlines in 1998 when David went to a restaurant during the World Cup in France in a sleeveless shirt and Jean Paul Gaultier sarong.
The look divided opinion. Many admired his ‘metrosexuality’, while the traditionalists in the football community were predictably scathing.
Beckham’s bravery increased his global recognition. Speaking later to a journalist, he said: ‘Maybe I’ve sometimes overstepped the mark with something that a footballer in the past wouldn’t wear and that’s led to trends or people trying new things. Everyone should be allowed to be who they are and dress how they want.’
By now, Brand Beckham was in full swing. The plan wasn’t written down but was clear to all involved: to develop him as a global brand that existed beyond the world of football.
It was all very informal. The meeting notes were often written on the back of a Chinese takeaway carton lid on a Friday night at Victoria’s parents’ house in Hertfordshire.
Years later, Brand Beckham ended up being studied on university courses and occasionally I’d hear learned professors of pop culture pontificating about the phenomenon on Radio 4.
In all honesty, it was simpler than that and was built on perpetual motion, instinct and remorselessly hard work. David and Victoria both wanted it more than the rest.
When he and Victoria were done renovating their new home, Rowneybury House — or ‘Beckingham Palace’ as it became known — David wanted to do something to say thank you to the builders.
The grounds of the house were so extensive that he had full-size football pitches installed, so he organised a tournament. But this wasn’t just any old kickabout.
All the builders were divided into teams peppered with professional footballers whom David had enlisted. He played as well. He called it the Rowneybury Cup and had a trophy made in the shape of a silver boot.
I took part and my team made it to the final — but David was on the opposing side, so we had a battle on our hands. We decided to really go for it. We played out of our skins and tackles were flying in — this was the cup final of our lives.
David was being kind letting us get a couple of goals ahead, but in the second half he suddenly didn’t want to be on the losing team and started playing properly.
He began spraying shots from the halfway line, but they kept hitting the bar or the post.
He was not laughing. So somehow, despite being massively outclassed, our team managed to win it. I’ve still got the trophy.
Alan was hired by Paul McCartney – but the Beatles star soon left on a rather sour note after one of his PR men exited the team
I was fired by Macca, Nick Faldo — and Michael Flatley (twice!)
Invariably, as a PR you spend time with the artist out of hours, seeing the ‘real’ them. Most stars are almost ordinary people, although they live in fantastic worlds, often surrounded by sycophants and totally out of touch with reality.
That doesn’t make them bad people. They’re just in need of careful handling sometimes. They are often victims of the showbusiness system: built up too quickly, money thrown at them and living the dream. Some are generous, like Elton and Debbie Harry. Others, like Mick Jagger, keep a careful eye on their wallet.
Some are surprisingly loyal, others drop you like a cheap pair of tights when they realise you can’t secure them a Vogue cover.
Mick would invite me round for afternoon tea at his house in Kensington to discuss business. Jerry Hall would be there, too, and the kids would be playing around us, so you become one of the family. You allow yourself to become emotionally invested. You’re lulled into a false sense of security. They confide things in you that you maybe rather wouldn’t know.
Then the storm passes and they forget the vital role you’ve played, or maybe want to forget you because you remind them of whatever it was they did.
Or perhaps they see you like an unexploded mine that might go off any time, so they decide to get rid of you. You’ve become too close just by caring and doing your job properly. Now you get the ‘Dear Alan’ letter.
When I was hired by Paul McCartney his team were very business-focused and we received a 60-page contract, the longest I’d seen. It took months to negotiate and cost a lot in legal fees.
Paul himself was always very personable, super charming to be with. Once I accompanied him to a public school where he was doing a memorial concert for Linda. Both he and I had arrived early and were left in the school music room to chat.
He asked me if I’d like to hear a song. ‘Sure,’ I said, before he sat at the piano and launched into Lady Madonna. I had to pinch myself. I’d bought the single at school and here I was getting a private performance.
But when a key member of my team left and Paul decided he wanted to go with them, I said I needed a bit of time to find a replacement PR and stabilise the company. This was what the onerous contract guaranteed me.
Then one of his team rang up and started threatening me, saying Paul should be allowed to leave immediately, swearing and slamming the phone down when I didn’t immediately acquiesce.
I was shocked. I hadn’t experienced this side of working with Paul. He sent me a persuasive personal letter, but I responded saying that my business was in effect a small family affair and that I couldn’t allow it to be collapsed, however important he thought it to have my former PR up and running and fixing media schedules right away.
Part of me felt like saying that The Beatles were only the Westlife of their generation or how much I admired Lennon, but luckily I held back. I had to take it on the chin and keep my cool to get through it all.
Even here, I had to pinch myself. Here I was having a full-on personal row with a Beatle.
Getting fired comes with the territory when you’re a PR. It can be an almost weekly occurrence. It’s not always what clients do but how they do it and that’s so true when it comes to being ‘let go’. There are, though, nice ways of doing it and some not so nice.
I was fired by Nick Faldo for a line he didn’t like in one newspaper about him and a female caddy. In view of the great work we’d done turning around his image, getting him on the cover of a couple of magazines, I was disappointed to receive a four-letter voicemail early one Sunday morning.
In the 2000s, I did some work for Riverdance maestro Michael Flatley and he gave me the bullet for no good reason that I know of. A few years later, his manager called and asked if I would do some publicity for him. I said yes, assuming they were aware of our history. On the day of the meeting, I turned up to see various people sitting around a table, Flatley at the head of it. When our eyes met, he did a double take.
‘Haven’t I seen you before?’ ‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Didn’t I fire you before?’ ‘Yes . . .’ I replied hesitantly.
‘Well, you’re fired again.’
My soccer match with Bob Marley
‘Do you want to join in?’ I blinked, wondering if I’d misheard or misunderstood. ‘Here? With him?’
I had been standing under a purple jacaranda tree with a group of journalists in Jamaica watching the football match for a while, as the easily recognisable figure of Bob Marley passed the ball expertly about. Did I want to play football with Bob Marley?
‘Yes please,’ I said. It was 1979 and I was 24. If you’d told 17-year-old me that one day someone would ask me that question, I’d probably have had to sit down.
Bob was so quick on the ball, fast and skillful. He could beat a man, but was very much a team player, always looking for the pass that would help the cause.
Bob Marley was playing football in Jamaica when Alan, then 24, was asked to join while watching with a group of journalists
Just two years later news broke of Marley’s death from melanoma (skin cancer) when he was just 36.
I often think about the songs he had yet to write, the things he would never accomplish. I had already experienced many moments of professional pride by this point in my life and would go on to have many more.
But nothing has ever got close to getting a thumbs-up from Bob Marley for playing a good pass to him.
Adapted from I Was There by Alan Edwards to be published by Simon & Schuster at £25, on June 6. © Alan Edwards 2024. To order a copy for £22.50 (offer valid to 01/06/24; UK P&P free on orders over £25) go to mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937.
