David Beckham has showed off his sentimental side after revealing he’s held onto a souvenir from one of the his first times he met his wife, Victoria.

The pair – who celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary last year – first began dating back in 1997, when David was still playing for Manchester United, and Victoria was at the height of her Spice Girls success.

During an interview on Jimmy Fallon’s US talk show, the former footballer looked back on how they first came to meet, saying: “She came to watch me in a game in London with her manager at the time and one of the other Spice Girls, Sporty Spice.

“We knew of them, obviously, because they were pretty big at the time. And I was just establishing myself in the Manchester United team at the time. But we all had our favourite Spice Girl… she was obviously [mine], it might be a bit awkward if [she] wasn’t.”

David then revealed that Victoria travelled back to Manchester to meet him the following week, and admitted he still has a small memento from that time that he’s held onto.

“She’d had a couple of drinks so I decided why not, I’ll try and get her number,” he joked.

“We talked for about an hour in the players’ lounge. She actually got the train up that day so she wrote her number down on her train ticket, which I still have.”

Two years after meeting, David and Victoria tied the knot in a lavish ceremony, and have since had four children together.

Earlier this month, three of their four children were pictured in the front row of Victoria’s latest fashion show in London, alongside their father and Vogue editors Edward Enninful and Anna Wintour.