Sheraton penalty box

Apparently, English soccer celeb David Beckham was appalled by the Sheraton Braintree Hotel when he stayed there a couple of years back. In a new book on the fancy boy’s first seasons with the Los Angeles Galaxy, the business-class hotel is derided as maybe “the worst Sheraton in America,’’ its clientele dismissed as “cubicle-dwellers from Syracuse in dandruff-speckled sport coats.’’

In “The Beckham Experiment,’’ by Sports Illustrated writer Grant Wahl, the castle-like hotel near Interstate 93 is a “horror show’’ that symbolizes the small-timeness of Major League Soccer: After all, the team that had drafted Becks in the hopes of attracting enough fans to launch American soccer into the zillion-dollar sports stratosphere was stuck at the Braintree hellhole. These pitiful hotel folk even dared to serve Beckham and his teammates fried chicken!

All of that decrepitude, and fried chicken? I had to see this place. So I gathered up my family and my courage and checked in.

On Thursday afternoon, tourists chatted happily on leather couches in the lobby. Families frolicked in the pool as a woman swam laps. Up on the Club floor, business travelers with no discernible dandruff watched CNN in a well-appointed lounge. The rooms were just fine: worn at the edges, for sure. There were none of the exhaust fumes the book had described, none of the rodents and mold I half-expected.

If the employees knew they were working in a hellhole, they didn’t let on. The busy desk clerk seemed awfully happy to see us.

When we got lost on the way to T.G.I. Friday’s, a concierge walked with us until we were in sight of the magical red sign. On Friday morning, I was greeted in the hallway by two delightfully cheery housekeepers. All of those dedicated workers had been super excited when Becks and his team came to stay. On Friday, Tom Chmura, general manager, said the superstar had been very gracious, signing autographs for his workers and guests.

“Our team members have been upset today because they feel they worked hard for a very important, high-profile guest and until now believed they had really delivered a great guest experience,’’ he said.

If you’re used to the Ritz, the Sheraton’s wood-paneled entrance, low-ceilinged hallways and drab carpet might not appeal. But to a lot of people, a place like this seems just fine: say, to the Galaxy players who are paid $12,900 a year while Becks earns an obscene $6.5 million; or to hard-working sales reps separated from their families for days on end; or to hotel employees paid peanuts for making other people comfortable.

But not all soccer players are prima donnas. On Thursday night, the Haitian and Honduran national teams happened to be staying at the Sheraton, which is not far from Gillette Stadium. They were in town for the CONCACAF Gold Cup, the biennial championship for national teams from North and Central America and the Caribbean. “It’s comfortable here,’’ said Edwin Banegas, press officer for the Honduran team. Banegas’s players are even less concerned than usual with their accommodations right now, given last month’s coup in their country.

“Each player, he is down,’’ he said, describing their feelings. “But whenever they start each game, they focus on the match.’’

What a novel idea. The Galaxy is scheduled to play the New England Revolution here on Aug. 8. Maybe this time, Beckham could spend some of his fortune putting his team up at a hotel better suited to his tastes.

I’m sure nobody in Braintree would mind.

Yvonne Abraham is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at abraham@globe.com.