Beckham braced for emotional return

MANCHESTER - Eighteen years after graduating from Manchester United's youth academy as part of the celebrated 'class of 92', David Beckham returns to where it all started on Wednesday.

Back then, the midfielder was just one more member of Manchester United's FA Youth Cup winning squad and still 18 months away from scoring his first goal for the club where he was to make his name.

Fast forward the best part of two decades and the spring of 2010 finds him turning out for AC Milan in the late autumn of a career which has established him as a rival to Tiger Woods as the most famous sportsman on the planet.