Bye George
I was living alone after my first wife had taken our 2 small children and returned to her mum. I was depressed and only had a small monochrome TV for amusement after thieves broke into the flat and pinched my prize possessions, my stereo tuner and my portable stereo tape recorder. I had no friends to call round, no 'phone and frankly, no life.
The only time of the week when I could feel a flicker of interest in the outside world was Saturday night, BBC 1 and "Match Of The Day." I wasn't a great football supporter and in truth my "favourite" team was Liverpool, mainly because I had recently been working in that city. But when Manchester United were playing, just watching the sheer magic of George Best could make me forget EVERYTHING for a short while. That's how good a footballer the man was.
We know all about his tempestuous marriages, his brushes with the law, his long slow decline into footballing mediocrity and most of all, his battle against the booze. Although it's probably fair to say that for a lot of the time, George didn't battle too strongly and the booze didn't have too difficult a time winning. For all that, I'm going to do what George wanted us to do. He requested that we remember him for his football, not the rest.
That's exactly what I'm going to do. And that's why there's a tear prickling in my eye as I write this.
posted by Eddie @ 8:54 pm
1 Comments:
Never have been, never will be a Manchester United fan. My Dad is City through and through.
But whenever I watched George Best, I knew he was talent incarnate. Some of the things he could do with a football were just magical, and some of the goals he scored were just unbelievable. Perhaps the flaws in his character were what made hime the great footballer he truely was, and for me, it is the memories of what he did on the pitch, - particularly to Man City, that live in my mind.
Rest in peace, George.
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