George Best (22 May 1946 – 25 November 2005) was a Northern Irish professional footballer who played as a winger, spending most of his club career at Manchester United. A skillful dribbler, he is considered one of the greatest players of all time. He was named European Footballer of the Year in 1968 and came fifth in the FIFA Player of the Century vote. Best received plaudits for his playing style, which combined pace, skill, balance, feints, goalscoring and the ability to get past defenders. His style of play captured the public’s imagination, and in 1999 he was on the six-man short-list for the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Century. He was also an inaugural inductee into the English Football Hall of Fame in 2002.
Born in Belfast, Best began his club career in England with Manchester United, with the scout who had spotted his talent at the age of 15 sending a telegram to manager Matt Busby which read: “I think I’ve found you a genius”. After making his debut at age 17, he scored 179 goals in 470 appearances over 11 years and was the club’s top goalscorer in the league for five consecutive seasons.[5] He won two League titles, two Charity Shields and the European Cup with the club. He was an immediate sensation, scoring acrobatic goals and helping United to a league title in his second season. He led the club to another league championship during the 1966–67 season. In 1968 he helped United become the first English club to win the European Cup. Best scored a total of 178 goals in his 466 career games with United.
In international football, Best was capped 37 times for Northern Ireland between 1964 and 1977. A combination of the team’s performance and his lack of fitness in 1982 meant that he never played in the finals of a major tournament. He considered his international career as being “recreational football”, with the expectations placed on a smaller nation in Northern Ireland being much less than with his club. He is regarded as one of the greatest players never to have played at a World Cup. The Irish Football Association described him as the “greatest player to ever pull on the green shirt of Northern Ireland”.
Called the “Fifth Beatle,” the handsome Best had long hair that was an anomaly among footballers but was reminiscent of the “mop tops” of England’s preeminent rock and rollers, the Beatles. Like them, Best was a colossal celebrity. His fame transcended the football world—Best was the first of many footballers to become a regular subject of the British tabloids—but it also helped foster a drinking problem that would prove to be his undoing. After a bitter departure from United in 1974, he played for numerous lesser teams in Britain, Spain, Australia, and the United States until 1983. His drinking continued to affect his play, however, and he became as well known for his squandered talent as for his undeniable brilliance. Best underwent a liver transplant in 2002 but ultimately was unable to overcome his alcoholism, and he died from a series of transplant-related infections that his compromised immune system could not combat.
Are you enjoying Stair Wars? If so, you might like some of my other products. Visit the shop here.
This is how I scored George Best. Was I fair? Have your say and, as site members, your vote will be incorporated into the next print run of Stair Wars.
more of a ‘force for good’
Less of a ‘force for good’
Comments