Who is Ryan McLaughlin and why was he so interesting to Posh Spice?

It certainly seemed that way for a period on Tuesday as Northern Ireland international Ryan McLaughlin took to social media to reveal he was the only person being followed by the former Spice Girls singer on the video sharing platform.

Unfortunately, Posh Spice unfollowed McLaughlin but there will always be the memories.

It wasn’t the first time there has been a link between the former England captain and Belfast-born Ryan.

Victoria, who rose to fame as Posh Spice then became one half of the Posh and Becks media frenzy, currently has over 830,000 followers on TikTok but followed only Ryan – a right back who most recently played for League One side Morecambe before departing the club in September.

But where does the link to David Beckham come from?

Turns out Ryan’s nickname during his days playing for Rochdale was ‘Becks’ after he jokingly compared himself to the former Manchester United star. He had the designer stubble, angular features too, though there’s no mention of ever wearing a sarong.

That was several years ago, when he was in his early 20s. But he had a slightly receding hairline and admitted himself he didn’t really look like Beckham at all.

During Ryan’s time at Oldham Athletic, Lee Croft was one of his team-mates and Croft — who formerly played for Manchester City — loved the craic as much as McLaughlin.

When Ryan joined Rochdale in 2019, Croft fired off a text message to senior striker Ian Henderson telling him that the club’s new signing only answered to people who call him “Becks”.

Ryan walked into an unfamiliar dressing room and from the first day said “everyone was calling me Becks”.

The only person who didn’t join in was his was manager, Keith Hill, who referred to him by his first name. Hill was under pressure at the time and when he was sacked, Brian Barry-Murphy, the first-team coach, was appointed as his replacement.

“By then, he’d been calling me Becks for a month or so, so he had to stick with it. There was no way back,” Ryan said.

During a League One match in October 2020, he would face his older brother, Conor, who was playing for Sunderland.

“After the game, Conor told me that the Sunderland players were talking in the dressing room about Becks,” said Ryan.

“They didn’t know who the Rochdale players were shouting at. Conor told them it was me and they were like, ‘What? He looks nothing like him!’”

The nickname Becks may not have given him the wealth and fortune of the real Beckham, but it has, at least, given him an ironic identity on the video game Call of Duty — which he sometimes plays online with England international and World Cup-bound Raheem Sterling, an old friend from his days in the youth team at Liverpool.

Ryan made quite a name for himself playing Call of Duty. It was in those early Liverpool days where an opportunity against Roma in Boston on a summer tour in 2012 to mark Francesco Totti culminated in a brush with James Bond.

He recalled: “My mouth was so dry. I needed some water. I was sitting in the dressing room and (Steven) Gerrard was to the right of me. I kept looking at him. Then Daniel Craig walks in (the James Bond actor grew up in Wirral and supports Liverpool). I was thinking to myself, ‘I can’t ask him for a photo — I have to look like I fit in’.”

Another chance for mixing with the stars passed him by, though. Stars Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, who took over Wrexham, embarked on a TikTok documentary and Ryan was approached about joining the club in 2020 but opted for Morecambe instead.