"Georgie, Georgie they called you
the Belfast Boy"
George Best 1946 - 2005
The Ranter
In the days and weeks after George Best finally passed away in
a Chelsea hospital the world of football has mourned a true great.
He died after a long and painful illness, beset with organ failure
brought on from years of excessive drinking that punished his body
to the limit. It wasn't an end fit for the original football celebrity,
and a genius in every sense.
Best leaves one son, Callum, four sisters, one brother, his father
and two ex-wives. Adored on the pitch, lionised off it, Best was
truly one of the very best to have played the game and a bone-fide
Manchester United legend.
From the twinkling feet to the fantastic goal ratio for a winger,
his amazing strength for a slight man, and his great heading ability
- George Best will remain in the hearts of millions of football
fans of all persuasions as a genuine hero. The player Pele described
as the greatest of all time.
In retrospect George was a player of his time and the controversy
that marked his career and life little more than the swinging '60s
in a goldfish bowl.
He made his Manchester United debut just a year before regular
television highlights began, thrusting him into the limelight of
the media age. This much was obvious in the wake of Best's death
– the hundreds of scarves lined the fences around Old Trafford
betrayed the reverence in which he become held.
Moreover that they came from all nations and clubs from Manchester
to Liverpool to Belgrade to Belfast demonstrated his global appear.
Silences were observed with (almost) universal good nature around
Britain and Ireland.
He first came to United's attention - famously - as a 15-year-old
playing for Cregagh Boys team against older players in Belfast.
His slight frame no bar to competing with bigger and stronger players.
The club had been tipped off about Best's talent and scout Bob Bishop
attended a match in which Best starred. Bob famously declared that
he'd "found a genius" and demanded that Sir Matt sign
him up.
But Best wasn't born into superstardom; he came from far humbler
surroundings than that. Born in Belfast just after the war, George
grew up on the working class Protestant Cregagh Estate. The football
mad Best attended one of the local Primary Schools and was bright
enough to pass the 11+ Grammar School entrance exam and be sent
to a senior school that didn't allow football!
It wasn't long before Best rebelled - a pattern set early in his
life – by attending a local boys club and bunking off lessons
to play football instead. Lisnasharragh Secondary and the Cregagh
Boy's Club came to the rescue - it was the start of something special.
Best's introduction to United wasn't smooth either - within his
first two weeks at the club he'd fled back 'home' to Belfast, home
sick and mystified by the world he's been moved to.
Sir Matt wasn't going to allow that and Best was dragged back to
Manchester soon enough! Fortunately he remained at the club for
the next decade, making his debut against West Brom on September
14th, 1963 aged just 17. He scored in his second game and kept his
place in the forward line with Law and Charlton for the remainder
of the season.
That was just the beginning of the "Holy Trinity". By the end of
the decade all three of them would have made the European Footballer
of the Year trophy their own; no other team has ever matched this
feat.
Aside from the controversy - the booze, the girls, and the fast
cars - two playing achievements stand out in Best's career. The
first came in the Quarter Final of the European Cup, 1966, against
Benfica in which he took apart the team of the great Eusebio, scoring
a stunning hat-trick. He returned - "El Beatle" - to national
acclaim.
His fame was set, a million girls in love with the man, an advertiser's
dream. Perhaps that was the night it all went wrong for George,
aged just 20. Better was to come of course against the same opposition
in the final of the European Cup at Wembley two years later.
It was Best's goal in extra time that pushed United on their way
that night to a famous 4-1 win. It's a measure of the man that he
has played a pivotal role in two of the four biggest occasions in
the Manchester United's history.
If '68 was seen as the pinnacle of his career in many quarters
it's because that was the point at which a great team began to break
up. Within a year Sir Matt had stepped down as manager, his dream
of winning the European Cup for all those who had died in Munich
ten years earlier fulfilled.
Best would never be the same either - at aged just 23 his mentor
had gone and the Belfast Boy was on his own. George Best played
out the next four years in increasing frustration - surrounded by
inferior players as the 60s gave way to the new decade.
Then by 1973 Tommy Docherty was handed the United job and the upstart
from Chelsea was never to George's liking. At aged 28 in January
1974 Best left his club – frustrated and unwanted by the manager.
He should have been at United for another decade and Manchester
United fans had been robbed of the "genius" that Bob Bishop
had found all those years previously.
Best, of course, played on for a number of years after he left
United - first in the US and then back in the UK at a number of
lower division sides. There were always the flashes of genius but
the love of the game had gone to be replaced, increasingly, by booze
and bedding Miss World winners. It is fair to say that the lothario
in the man increasingly came to the fore.
Depression, perhaps clinical, set in and Best found himself in
trouble with the authorities more than once as alcohol took over
his life. His first marriage to Angie – the mother of his
son Callum - collapsed and it was only later in his life when he
met the former air hostess Alex that he seemed to have found some
happiness.
Yet even that relationship was rocky - troubled by George's alcoholism.
He would eventually split from Alex amid rumours of physical abuse,
albeit unsubstantiated. It wouldn't push the boundaries to say that
was the point at which George probably decided to drink himself
to death.
In 2002 Best received a liver transplant, promising to give up
the booze for good. It wasn't the first time he'd tried and it wasn't
the first time he failed to cut out the bottle. But George has always
lived life to the full.
Manchester United supporters can regret the decade lost at the
club, left wondering what could have been achieved had the great
man had kept away from alcohol and Tommy Docherty's wrath. However,
most of all supports of all clubs should be grateful for the decade
he gave to Manchester United and the years to the world of football.
Truly, the beautiful game when George was on the pitch.
He lived his life through the media and perhaps football fans
believe that they knew the man better than they really did. It's
all too easy to eulogise in clichés – "the flawed genius,
the booze, the blondes". And there is an irony in that it is those
tabloids who recounted his life in every sensationalist detail that
are now so quick to proclaim his genius. Such is the modern cult
of celebrity.
But all those clichés have some measure of truth. Genius
is an overused term, but not where it comes to Best. He truly was.
I hope that Best died knowing that the world of football will mourn
his loss. A true one-of-a-kind. The original football superstar.
George's Record
Manchester United, 465 games, 180 goals
Stockport County, 3, 2
Cork Celtic, 3, 0
Fulham, 47, 10
Hibernian, 22, 3
AFC Bournmouth, 5, 0
Brisbane Lions, 4, 0
Los Angeles Aztecs, 61, 29
Fort Lauderdale Strikers, 33, 7
San Jose Earthquakes, 56, 21
George Best also played in a number of non-competitive, charity
and showpiece matches for a number of different clubs.
Related Links
Manchester
United Books & DVDs
|
