George Best with Roy Collins: Blessed

By TERRY MADDAFORD

On the jacket of George Best's autobiography are tributes from two of soccer's greatest. Sir Alex Ferguson wrote simply, "Unquestionably the greatest". Dennis Law tagged Best "The complete player".

But perhaps the best is attributed to Best himself. He sees it this way: "It all went wrong with football, the thing I loved most of all, and from there my life slowly fell apart."

Best splits his 54 years into two periods. "The first 27 years were sheer bliss, the last 27 have been a disaster."

That second period, when football came mainly in half-hearted and rarely successful, comebacks, was dominated by booze and Best's battle with alcoholism.

For 13 years Best, virtually plucked from the streets of Belfast, ruled at Old Trafford as a star at Manchester United. His on-field exploits are well-documented - a video of 100 of football's greatest goals includes many of the best from Best.

But this story tells less of Best the footballer and much more of Best the battler. It gives an insight into the life of a genuine flawed genius. It is a story rarely told with such feeling by a fading star.

Best's is a fascinating story, typical of the poor little rich kid made good - and bad.

His life has been hit by tragedy. He speaks affectionately of his mother, whom he had to bury at 54, when the alcohol she had turned to as she struggled to cope with her son's fame killed her.

But Best recalls, with genuine pride, a poll that marked the end of the sporting millennium. That poll, in the Sun, saw Best voted - by a mile - the greatest British sportsperson of all time, ahead of, among others, Lester Piggott, Stirling Moss and Nigel Mansell, boxers Henry Cooper and Lennox Lewis, and other footballing greats, such as Stanley Matthews, Tom Finney and Best's close friend, Bobby Moore.

"I'm lucky that, despite all the bad press I've had over the years, the public still seems to like me," he writes.

That recognition came at a time Best was fighting to make some sense of a life that for years had lurched from one disaster to another.

He was into everything: sex, alcohol, rock and roll, wild and not-so-wild women, broken marriages, gambling, failed business ventures. You name it, Best had tried it. Everything, that is, except drugs - but even that temptation was there. Having earned the kind of money most only dream about, most of the time he had nothing to show for it.

His footballing exploits - and it must be remembered he never tasted the glory of playing in an FA Cup final with United or the World Cup with his beloved Northern Ireland - have been well documented.

Best, as they often said, could make a football talk. He was the maestro, and football his stage.

But he was, without doubt a rebel with a cause. Growing up in the Beatles era, Best, who thumbed his nose at the conservative world football then was, grew his hair. He was El Beatle - the fifth Beatle.

His on-field magic set him apart - he was a star. Yet the first time he was invited to United to try his luck, he could not hack it and scuttled back to the family home in Burren Way in Belfast's Cregagh Estate.

Best was not always a Manchester United fan. In his days at Grosvenor High he played rugby - the school's sport - and was a useful first five-eighth. But the oval ball never held the fascination he found through watching his favourite club, Wolverhampton Wanderers, on television.

He was, in his own words, "a shy, insecure kid and though I would have to learn to be a bit more outgoing, I don't think I ever really changed. I didn't believe I could make it in the big time."

But he more than made it - after eventually returning to Manchester United and the start of a career of great highs and lows, Best was the big time.

Off the field he dated two Miss Worlds, had a string of women, a broken engagement and a failed marriage. Even now, remarried, he claims life is a battle.

Behind all those problems was his battle with the bottle. He tried everything but struggled with the help offered by Alcoholics Anonymous.

"The doctors told me that I would have to attend AA sessions for the rest of my life," said Best. "It wasn't even that I was not ashamed about some of the things I'd done. It's just that I'm not comfortable talking about myself. Sadly, AA is not for me."

Best tried everything to beat the booze: operations, pills and even contemplated suicide, but it took taken over his life, ruined his liver and landed him in prison. It also contributed to him being declared bankrupt.

But Best remained popular, always in demand. He picked up work as a television commentator - a job that gave him an incentive to give up, or at least try to control, his drinking. He was unsuccessful.

Through it all, his prowess as a footballer always shone. Even at 37 - 10 years after he had left United with a string of honours including, as a 22-year-old (the youngest ever), European Footballer of the Year - Best was courted by United manager Ron Atkinson.

He thought long and hard but in the end gave Big Ron a polite "thanks, but no thanks". Instead, he found solace at third division Bournemouth where he turned up and "did a few tricks", which earned the club money it could previously only dream about.

His story also reveals a side of Best that others easily relate to, such as the time in Australia when he was able to relate to a shy girl at a school for physically and mentally handicapped children. That was Best at his best. But much of this story is of Best at his worst.



Just how someone so talented allowed his life to slip away is a story in itself. How someone facing such an inner battle could continue to produce moments of pure magic surely remains one of sport's great unanswered questions.

* Terry Maddaford is the Herald soccer writer.

Random House

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