Posh suffers chart failure

DJ Spiller and Sophie Ellis-Bextor say they deserved it

Posh Spice Victoria Beckham has lost out to rivals Spiller in the race for the coveted number one slot in the British charts.

The 26-year-old Spice Girl had made a determined effort to reach the top with promotional trips to Paignton in Devon, Glasgow, Cardiff, Manchester, Birmingham and even Ibiza to tap the nightclubbing world.

Posh Spice has to settle for second place

But the intense publicity campaign for her track Out of Your Mind was no match for Spiller's clubbing anthem Groovejet (If This Ain't Love).

Nevertheless, Beckham claimed to be delighted with the number two spot for the Truesteppers track, on which she shares vocals with Dane Bowers.

"I'm absolutely thrilled at the amount of records sold this week and the support I have had from fans," she said.

She was watching her husband David play for Manchester United against Newcastle at Old Trafford on Sunday afternoon and was planning to celebrate her arrival in the charts with a meal out in Manchester.

'We deserved it'

Spiller - the performing name of an Italian DJ - spent the afternoon performing at BBC Radio 1's One Big Sunday event in Plymouth.

Singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor wore a T-shirt with the word "Peckham" - as opposed to "Beckham" - written on it and told the crowd: "I'm absolutely thrilled, it's brilliant.

Ellis-Bextor of rival Spiller accused Beckham of an "underhand" campaign

"I'm reassured actually because all week there has been so much toing and froing with press things that I was getting a bit worried that the music was getting lost in it all.

"I think we deserved it actually."

Last week, the singer slammed Beckham's concerted promotion efforts as "underhand".

Speaking to BBC News Online, Ellis-Bextor said the Posh Spice camp had used every trick in the book and had only just stopped short of bulk-buying copies of Out Of Your Mind.

"For someone who is supposedly interested only in the music, she [Beckham] is doing an awful lot of promotion," she observed.

The tabloid press dismissed Beckham's publicity stunts as "desperate".

Top of the Pops snub

The BBC's Top of the Pops programme resisted the hype, using Spiller and not Beckham on the show.

Producer Lee Lodge said that she was his "key-stone celebrity".

"But that doesn't mean that I should necessarily have to fall in line with every other magazine and publication and put her on Top of the Pops," he said.

The battle between the two tracks added a rare element of genuine competition to the UK singles chart - which usually sees one new release each week all but guaranteed to go straight in at number one.

Spiller sold 202,591 copies of their single, achieving the highest weekly singles sale of the year so far.

The 180,584 copies of Out Of Your Mind sold would have been enough to clinch the number one slot most weeks, and it is the highest selling number two record this year.

Beckham is the last member of the Spice Girls to release a single without the rest of the group.

Mel C and Mel B have already notched up their own solo number ones as has former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell.

But Emma Bunton's release with Tin Tin Out failed to make the top slot, held off by Halliwell last November.