Superstar Beckhams ‘have become posher with age’

Linguistics students at the University of Manchester came to the conclusion after studying videos of his interviews on YouTube since 2007.

They discovered the former Manchester United and England midfielder was less prone to dropping his Hs or using Cockney-sounding vowel sounds.

In a separate video study, they found his fashion designer wife Victoria was posher than her “Posh” days in the Spice Girls as she was now more likely to pronounce the L at the end of words such as “all”.

The final year students are studying how changing circumstances affect the way we pronounce words, under the guidance of linguistics lecturer Dr Laurel MacKenzie.

Dr MacKenzie said: “The general assumption is that once we pass puberty our way of speaking is fixed. But recent research has revealed the extent to which we can be chameleons in the way we speak, even into adulthood.

“Factors such as social mobility and geographical location can have an impact on the way adults pronounce words because our peer groups and communities are influential on our language too.”

From the videos studied of Beckham – currently playing for French team Paris St Germain – he dropped his Hs 80 per cent of the time before his move to play football for LA Galaxy. After the relocation the figure slumped to 20 per cent, according to the research.