Footballing genius died too broke to pay his hospital bills

Fans pay final respects to football hero. Picture / Reuters

LONDON - The sad truth behind George Best's final days is apparent with news that the flawed footballing genius was given free medical treatment at the London hospital where he died because he was bankrupt and unable to pay his bills.

The 59-year-old's death on Saturday has prompted grief on a scale not seen in Britain since the death of the Princess of Wales eight years ago.

In Belfast and at Old Trafford, the home ground of his main club Manchester United, flowers and spontaneous tributes built up. Half a million people are expected to line the streets of his home town - which he left for Manchester aged just 15 - for his funeral on Friday.

Hundreds of thousands of football fans fell silent at weekend matches as they paid their respects to a man whose artistry made him a legend and whose battle with the booze made him all too human. Some fans burst into a minute's spontaneous applause, instead of observing the silence.

Queues built up outside Belfast City Hall as young and old alike waited patiently to sign books of condolence opened by the Lord Mayor. Flags flew at half-mast and will remain there until the local boy is laid to rest, as he wished, beside his mother. She died at 54, after her own fight against alcoholism.

Legends of the game, including team-mates in the great Manchester United side that lifted the European Cup in 1968, are expected to fly to Belfast to pay their final respects as are former wives Alex and Angie.

Among those signing the Old Trafford books of condolence for football's first celebrity was Tony Gormley, 48. "It's just sad," he said. "He was ill for such a long time, you knew it was coming, but it's still a blow now that he's gone."

He joined calls from other fans for a fixed memorial to their hero. "It would be nice if they named a stand after him, or built a statue."

It is hard to think of Best as a statue, although his speed left many a defender looking like one in his heyday.

But by the time he checked into hospital for the last time, he was reduced to a shambling, shuffling shadow of himself, multiple organ failure claiming his life and making the organs he wanted to donate, including his transplanted liver, unfit for others to use.

Medical experts estimate that Best's treatment at the Cromwell Hospital, one of Britain's leading private hospitals, would have amounted to well over 100,000, since he was admitted on October 1, battling infections and internal bleeding.

Best died virtually penniless. Illness meant he had little opportunity in his last few years to earn income from his usual sources: after-dinner speaking and guest TV commentating.

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