The David Beckham Academy was a football school founded by England international David Beckham that existed from 2005 to 2009. It operated in two locations: London, United Kingdom and Los Angeles, California, United States. The Academy pulled out of the London site at the end of the lease in October 2009, and the California branch closed soon after.
Further Academy sites were planned at Cabo São Roque near Natal, Brazil, [1] and in Manchester, [2] but neither ever materialised.
The Academy is said to have been inspired by Beckham's attendance as a boy at the Bobby Charlton Soccer School. Wanting to give later generations of children the same experience, he put his name to two facilities in 2005.
The Academy in London was situated on the Greenwich Peninsula in east Greenwich, close to The O2 and North Greenwich Underground station. Its temporary building was opened on 28 November 2005, with backing from the Anschutz Entertainment Group and sponsorship from Volkswagen Group and Adidas. Its indoor arena, built by London based company ES Global, housed two full-sized, artificially turfed pitches, alongside an education and administration centre, and a sports medical centre. It closed in 2009. [3] Despite the millionaire player's backing, the London Academy's closure included redundancies among coaching and support staff, and deprived hundreds of children (including Beckham's niece and two nephews) from east and south-east London of their football training. [4]
The facility was subsequently known as The London Soccerdome and used for football coaching though run by a different organisation. It closed in October 2014, with the site to be redeveloped into housing, and the dome structure being dismantled and transported to Southend-on-Sea to be part of a training facility for Southend United Football Club. [5] However, ten years later (May 2024), the metal structures, bought by club chairman Ron Martin for £460,000, were lying unused, rusting away and covered in weeds and brambles around the perimeter of Southend's training ground. [6]
The Los Angeles Academy was based at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California, on the campus of California State University, Dominguez Hills, which is a $150 million multi-sport facility built on 125 acres (0.51 km2) of land (and home of Major League Soccer (MLS) team the Los Angeles Galaxy). The California branch also closed in late 2009. [7]
The London Academy provided seventeen, three- or five-day programmes for boys and girls aged 8–15 years. It also ran a schools programme that consisted of a training day linked with Key Stage 2 and 3 learning (up to 2009, over 10,000 children had taken part in this programme). An after-schools programme (the 7/23 Club) was provided on Saturday mornings for children aged 3–7, and on Monday and Thursday evenings for 8-15-year-olds. [8] The Los Angeles Academy ran a 7/23 Club on Saturday mornings for boys and girls aged 4–7 years, and three- and five-day courses during school holidays.
In early 2009, shortly before its closure, the 'David Beckham Academy' brand was extended to a range of books about football. [9]
David Robert Joseph Beckham is an English former professional footballer, the president and co-owner of Inter Miami CF and co-owner of Salford City. Primarily a right winger and known for his range of passing, crossing ability and free-kick taking, Beckham has been hailed as one of the greatest and most recognisable midfielders of his generation, as well as one of the best free-kick takers of all time. He won 19 major trophies in his career, and is the first English player to win league titles in four different countries: England, Spain, the United States and France.
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Carson Jones Daly is an American television host, radio personality, producer, and television personality. From 1998 to 2003, Daly was a VJ on MTV's Total Request Live (TRL), and a DJ for the Southern California-based radio station 106.7 KROQ-FM. In 2002, Daly joined NBC, where he hosted and produced the late night talk show Last Call with Carson Daly, and occasionally hosting special event programming for NBC, such as the Macy's Fourth of July fireworks show, and executive producing New Year's Eve with Carson Daly from Times Square beginning in 2003.
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Romeo James Beckham is an English footballer who plays as a forward for Brentford B. He is the second son of former footballer David Beckham and fashion designer and Spice Girls member, Victoria Beckham.
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The Greenwich Peninsula is an area of Greenwich in South East London, England. It is bounded on three sides by a loop of the Thames, between the Isle of Dogs to the west and Silvertown to the east. To the south is the rest of Greenwich, to the south-east is Charlton.
The Long Beach Unified School District is a school district headquartered in Long Beach, California, United States. Established in 1885, Long Beach Unified School District now educates 81,000 students in 84 public schools in the cities of Long Beach, Lakewood, Signal Hill, Carson, and Avalon on Catalina Island. The school district is the third largest in California and serves one of the most diverse large cities in the United States. The student population is 53.1 percent Hispanic, 15.6 percent African American, 15.2 percent white, 11.2 percent Asian, 3 percent multi-race, 1.7 percent Pacific Islander and 0.2 percent Native American. More than two-thirds of the student population come from lower-income households and qualify for free and reduced price meals. The school district employs more than 8,000 people, making it the largest employer in Long Beach.
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Parminder Kaur Nagra is a British actress. She is known for portraying Jess Bhamra in the film Bend It Like Beckham (2002) and Dr. Neela Rasgotra in the NBC medical drama ER (2003–2009). Her other television roles include Meera Malik in the first season of the NBC crime drama The Blacklist (2013–2014) and a recurring role in the ABC/Marvel series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2016–2017) as Ellen Nadeer for season four. More recently, Nagra has starred as the titular character of the ITV series DI Ray (2022).
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Harbor–UCLA Medical Center is a 570-bed public teaching hospital located at 1000 West Carson Street in West Carson, an unincorporated area within Los Angeles County, California. The hospital is owned by Los Angeles County and operated by the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, while doctors are faculty of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, who oversee the medical residents being trained at the facility.
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Kwei Jones Quartey is a Ghanaian–American detective fiction novelist and retired physician. For about 20 years, while practising medicine, he also worked as a writer. He balanced both activities by writing in the early mornings before going to his clinic.