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Tormented football star George Best played in the top leagues of England, Scotland and America during his hell-raising career.
And it can be revealed he would have also played for a New Zealand National League club if not for a contract wrangle as he sought lucrative paydays at a time when headlines about his alcohol abuse dominated those about his sporting prowess.
The Northern Irish legend - who became a global sensation during his time at Manchester United between 1963-74 - had agreed a contract to play for Christchurch Mogal United in the early 1980s.
The deal was to cover a short-term stay after Best, then aged 36, had played a series of club and exhibition matches in Australia in 1983.
But a new book, George Best Down Under, has revealed the deal was torn up after Best and his agent decided to blacklist New Zealand media from any contact with the football legend, who in his pomp was known as the “fifth Beatle”.
It came after Best and his agent at the time, Bill McMurdo, had been unhappy with media questions during his earlier time across the Tasman.
“Best had obviously had enough,” George Best Down Under author Lucas Gillard wrote.
As well as being a footballer, George Best was a lover of both alcohol and the adoration of his female fans.
“Bill McMurdo had arranged a three-match deal with Christchurch Mogal United in New Zealand after the Australian tour, but then sought to introduce a ‘no media contact’ clause into the deal or else threatened not to honour it.
Former Manchester United soccer player George Best, pictured attending a soccer match in Portsmouth in 2004, about a year before his death. Picture / Reuters
George Best Down Under covers three trips Best made to Australia during his playing career.
It was Manchester United’s first promotional tour overseas since the tragic 1958 Munich plane crash which killed 23 people, including eight of the club’s players.
“Best was still a slip of a man aged 21 in 1967, but he was already being canonised as a legend,” Gillard wrote of the player at the time of his trip here.
“He had debuted four years earlier and had steadily wowed fans as he left defenders in his wake.”
Gillard also wrote how players in that Manchester United team – including Best – believed the tour to New Zealand and Australia laid the foundation for their 1968 European Cup triumph.
While Best’s hoped-for appearance for a New Zealand National League side never happened, he wasn’t finished playing against Kiwi opposition.
In 1984 he, along with fellow great Martin Peters, were guest players for English club Reading in a game against the All Whites.
Flowers and dedications are left for former Manchester United and Northern Ireland footballer George Best at the Cromwell Hospital in west London in 2005. Picture / Reuters
It was part of an overseas tour the New Zealand national team made, with the side winning 2-1.
“It was one of Best’s first games of football after being released from Pentonville Prison,” Gillard writes in George Best Down Under.
“He served 56 days for drink-driving offences and assaulting a policeman who had been sent to ensure he appeared in court.
“When he was sentenced, Best famously remarked, ‘Well, I suppose the knighthood’s f***ed.”
Neil Reid is a Napier-based senior reporter who covers general news, features and sport. He joined the Herald in 2014 and has 30 years of newsroom experience.
