David Beckham is not fit to wear a Spurs shirt

When my wife decided to indulge in some torture, purchasing my 1983 birthday present, she bought me 100 Tottenham shares. She knew the shares would perform badly but, more painfully, that my devotion to the BBC's impartiality ethos meant I would not even be able to go the annual general meeting and educate the board about the team's chronic inadequacies.

I could have given various managers and chairmen all kinds of useful insights. For instance, that when Ben Thatcher played full back between 2000–2003, we in the East Stand occupied ourselves by guessing whether he would be booked before or after the first occasion he hit a pass intentionally to another Tottenham player.

Or perhaps point out tactfully that Steffen Freund's failure to score a goal in 103 appearances was almost certainly not unrelated to his inability to shoot straight.

But I was muzzled by my frantic desire never to express any opinion in public that would upset the ghost of Lord Reith. Now I am free. So, in plain English: David Beckham's white and expensively sponsored boots should not be allowed anywhere near White Hart Lane.

I would be sanguine if Harry Redknapp signed him on loan to pick the winners in the raffle, or asked him to conduct meaningless half-time interviews with former players, or advise on haircuts, men's clothing or Victoria's singing technique.

But please, can we keep him away from the serious business of trying to win football matches? Because — deep breath — even many years ago when he was able to jog around the pitch, as opposed to his current brisk walk, he was not that good.

I found his BBC lifetime achievement award last month a trifle bewildering. His tackling is, one might say, almost (Ben) Thatcherite. He has not run past an opposing player, or even any on his own team, since he discovered that it was easier to fall over and hope the referee would award him a free kick rather than risk the wrath of those smitten with Beckham-mania.

What about Beckham's trademark free kicks? They dried up a long time ago. As did the goals from open play. Ah — you may retort — he could hit those lovely 50-yard raking passes on to Peter Crouch's head. But very few of those long passes get to their target — long balls rarely do. This is something that Arsène Wenger worked out a decade or two ago. That's why Arsenal don't have Peter Crouch and they are still better than us.

For the first time in about 25 years, Tottenham now have more players whom you can watch than giggle about. Beckham will slow it all down, get caught in possession, take free kicks that give the crowd catching practice, and miss the occasional penalty (but then all Tottenham players do that.)

However, Harry may have a cunning plan. With Beckham's propensity for disciplinary problems we could pick him in the hope that we end up playing with 10 against 11. This worked against Villa and Fulham before Christmas. But it is now my duty to tell the board — because they may not have thought of this — that it may not be quite so effective against Manchester United or Milan.

Mark Damazer is Master of St Peter's College Oxford and former controller of BBC Radio 4