I earned £75k a year as the world’s best Beckham lookalike – partied with Rod Stewart but there was a dark side

ANDY Harmer, 45, runs a lookalike agency and lives in Eastbourne.

“Feeling despondent after seeing David Beckham sent off at the 1998 World Cup, I heard my phone ring and when I answered, a man’s voice said, ‘How does it feel to disgrace your country? You better be careful.

“Stunned, I told him he had called the wrong number and hung up.

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At just 19, I had been working as a David Beckham lookalike for about a year and couldn’t believe what had happened. How did they get my phone number? Did they think I was the real Beckham?

I chalked it up to the drunk men fooling around in the bar and thought nothing more of it. But a few days later, I discovered that my car was completely burned out.

Being young and not wanting to cause trouble, I did not report the incident and eventually the abuse stopped.

It was crazy – but, as I learned, there was never a dull moment impersonating one of the most famous football players on the planet.

At 18, I was working in a friend’s garage, looking after cars, when people started telling me and my then-girlfriend, Camilla Shadbolt, that we were the image of Posh and Becks.

We signed up with a lookalike agency, not thinking it would amount to much.

But within a few months I had to leave my job as we were getting a lot of bookings, doing photo shoots for newspapers and magazines, appearances and openings at VIP clubs.

Realizing I could make a lucrative career out of this, I began poring over photos to copy David’s ever-changing outfits and hairstyles.

I also watched hours of videos so I could adopt his mannerisms, like the slight raise of his eyebrows and the way he smiles.

And, of course, I perfected my football tricks, which people loved.

Within a year, Camilla and I split up, but we remained friends and remained Posh and Becks, spending the next 20 years traveling the world.

Since then, I’ve worked a number of high-profile jobs, acting as Beckham’s stand-in in adverts for Pepsi, Adidas, Vodafone and PlayStation, alongside some of the world’s best football players, including Zinedine Zidane and Roberto Carlos.

In 2001, I even met David himself while working on a Pepsi ad, where he shook my hand and said a quick hello.

I appeared in the film Bend It Like Beckham, where I met Keira Knightley before she became an A-lister, and I helped create the Channel 4 show Lookalikes, which was based on my lookalike agency, which I also worked for.

In 2003, a newspaper sent me to Madrid to spread rumors that the Beckhams might be moving there. I caused mass hysteria and appeared in newspapers all over the world!

On another assignment at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff for the 2006 FA Cup Final, Rod Stewart invited me to his private box.

He was so friendly – ​​I had to pinch myself because he wanted to meet me because I was a Becks lookalike!

Knowing that my time as David Beckham had a shelf life, I diversified over the years. In 2003, I became a hit in Japan with my band The Copycats. We released an album and we still keep in touch to this day.

In 2010, I appeared on Britain’s Got Talent with the celebrity group I created, The Chippendoubles, performing as Beckham and others including David Brent, Mr T, Gordon Ramsay, Simon Cowell, Daniel Craig and Will Smith.

Simon said that in some ways it was his favorite act and we went through to the semi-finals.

But it wasn’t all glitz and glamour.

In addition to the abuse after the 1998 World Cup, many women were only attracted to me because they loved Beckham and, obviously, I wasn’t really him.

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In May 2013, when he retired from football, I went from traveling the world to being hired for children’s parties, teaching them football tricks.

But I wasn’t bitter, because over the years I’ve had a lot of fun and made up to £75,000 a year from it.

I now run my own successful agency, Lookalikes, providing celebrity impersonators and tribute acts.

In May, Camilla and I came out of retirement to be Posh and Becks again in TK Maxx’s 30th birthday photos.

I also have a beautiful daughter, Scarlett-Rose, 10, who some say looks like Beckham’s daughter, Harper.

Maybe one day she will take my doppelgänger crown!”