Sport on TV: Philosopher Spice and Shameless Kev steal the show

The most remarkable moment of the sporting week wasn't 16 England footballers getting through an entire game close to the World Cup without a single broken metatarsal (just one imploding groin); it wasn't even those damned Sri Lankan tail-enders securing a draw in the first Test at Lord's last Monday. It was Posh Spice quoting Nietzsche.

This moment to savour came in yet another film about Mr Posh (David Beckham: A Footballer's Story, ITV1, Tuesday). They were driving home after a Real Madrid game and he was talking about the travails and vicissitudes of celebrity (no, he didn't actually use those words), when Mrs Posh piped up from the back. "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger," she told hubby, adding her own rider: "It's nearly killed you a few times."

Not even old Wilhelm Friedrich himself would have made such an imaginative leap ( but then he did die from syphilis, or a brain tumour, depending on who you believe). But what's next from Philosopher Spice? "God is dead - but Prada lives"? "Whereof we cannot speak thereof we must pass over in silence - so I ain't never gonna say nuffink else about Jordan, Jodie or Sir Alex bloody Ferguson"? "Man is born free, but everywhere he is in Gucci loafers"? Answers on the back of a microdot, please.

The film had already made the headlines with its mild revelations (leaked by someone on the camera crew) about Beckham's Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. But the fact that he only likes an even number of soft drinks cans in his fridge was much less interesting than his take on being dumped by Fergie.

He was talking about the last-minute free-kick against Greece that put England in the 2002 World Cup finals. The morning after, he turned up for training at Old Trafford. Did the boss congratulate him, the interviewer Tim Lovejoy asked? Beckham looked suddenly pensive and imitated a dismissive shrug.

"Ferguson" - he corrected himself - "Alex Ferguson said, 'OK, it's a goal'." I like that - "Ferguson - Alex Ferguson." I don't think he meant to be disrespectful, but that's clearly as polite as it gets in the Beckham household when Lord Hairdryer of the Govan comes up for discussion. Would you bet against him occupying a similar place in the minds of the Rooney household in a few years' time? I'm not sure I would.

The England Legends XI that provided the warm-up opposition on Tuesday for the England team that takes on the Rest of the World at Old Trafford tonight in the name of Soccer Aid (ITV1, all week), could have done with the presence of His Gorgeousness.

The England Soccer Aid side consists of celebrities like Robbie Williams, Jamie Theakston and the actor Damien Lewis (sorry, "the Ginger Prince", and possibly the first Old Etonian in an England shirt since the century before last), alongside old lags like Gazza, David Seaman, Tony Adams, John Barnes and Les Ferdinand. With a side that included the likes of Batty, Beardsley, Hoddle, Parker, Platt, Merson, Wilkins, Le Tissier (still doing that nearly-as-good-as-Maradona thing he used to do) - and, er, Warren Barton - you might have expected the Legends to have an easy time. In the event, everyone on the pitch - ex-pro, current pro, singer, actor- was overshadowed by Kev from Shameless.

I've no idea what level Dean Lennox Kelly has played to, but his repeated runs down the wing, cutting inside for a shot, had Paul Parker resorting to the kind of challenge you used to be able to get away with when he started playing - and it was Kelly's perfectly weighted cross to Jamie Redknapp that brought the only goal of the game.

The Soccer Aid team's all-round competence came as some surprise, given their pre-match ritual, which seemed to consist largely of John Barnes dancing like a geography teacher to a Robbie Williams rap that rhymed "Durex" with "Mandrax". But Kelly was their hero. As Peter Drury, commentating, put it: "Which is better? Playing from memory or playing according to your dreams?"