Growing up in Manchester, something about Best was never right

Published on Sunday 30 October 2005 00:22

EVERY newspaper office has what we in the trade cruelly label "the dead box". This is the electronic archive of obituaries, written in advance, stored in order of subject's likely longevity - or not - and ready for instant use on the fateful day.

The old Queen Mum was top of the pop-offs for almost 30 years; Maggie Thatcher, although she may not appreciate this, not far behind. Someone, somewhere, is undoubtedly working on the life and times of one or more of the Rolling Stones - my money is on Charlie - even now.

That's the price of getting on a bit. That's the price of being an ageing celeb.

George Best, who as I write this is still at death's door in a private London hospital hadn't even got out of his 40s before he made it on to this bizarre hit list. Surely some sort of record. But that's George; even when he had a starring role in the glorious game he trailed a distinct air of impermanence.

If Jeffrey Barnard wrote the longest suicide note ever in the Spectator, then the former footballer - and fellow alcoholic - has acted out, in full public gaze, the longest-running suicide soap opera.

So, tell me, Mr Best, where did it all go wrong?

For many of us who grew up in the Manchester of the 60s, things never really went right. Oh, we worshipped his talent, we cheered his goals and we marvelled at his gifts, but looking back now even then his destiny appeared demonised. Even before he stepped on the self-indulgent, self-destructive merry-go-round of birds and booze, bankruptcy and jail. The fact that his meaningful career - and I don't count his pitiful sojourns at Dunstable Town, Cork Celtic, Brisbane Lions or even Hibernian - lasted only six years is proof enough of that. As is the likelihood that, as things stand, he is unlikely to make it past the age of 60.

He was, it must be said, hard to love for my generation of United supporters, despite the fact that he carried an ageing team to unimagined glories culminating in the European Cup triumph at Wembley in 1968 - and his genius was incandescent at times. But, arriving at Old Trafford as he did post-Munich and with the laceration of one of the greatest club sides ever still fresh in minds, his shenanigans were a bit hard to take for those of us weaned on the dignity and professionalism - that word had different sporting connotations in those days - of the Busby Babes' upright captain Roger Byrne, the saintly Liam Whelan and the princely man-child, Duncan Edwards.

The destruction of the Babes seemed to symbolise our own lost youth and innocence; we didn't need George Best to show us how to lose both those virtues in a very public manner. And it just didn't seem right - and I swear there is not a shred of envy here - to arrive in Deno's or Mr Smith's on a Friday night and find a glassy-eyed famous footballer being pursued round the gaming tables by a string of blondes. As Tommy Docherty, one of the small army of football managers, who tried and failed to keep Best on the rails, was to put it: "George was a fantastic player and he would have been even better if he'd been able to pass night clubs the way he passed the ball."

Best was 25 when his career at Old Trafford ended and the last 30 years have simply endorsed the opinion offered by my father all those years ago. His last team was Ford Open Prison FC. You really couldn't make it up.

This is not a sermon, for there but for the grace of God... And if this is beginning to sound like a Daily Mail-type tut-tut then I apologise, but to be honest I can't raise much in the way of sympathy for dear George. This is not to gloat in the very British manner that demands that we see all our heroes debased and humiliated. I would be sorry to see him go, but only in the manner that most of us would regret any passing of anyone famous.

And the regret would come suffused in relief. The suffering, his and ours, has gone on long enough. His travails have become a bit of a bore. It is time the curtain came down on this soap opera.

And what is left if he does pull through? Another book? Another appearance on Parky? Another liver?

The worst thing that could happen to George Best could actually be survival. As one of his former Manchester United colleagues told me on Friday night: "You know what would, literally, be a fate worse than death for George? To wake up and hear a doctor tell him that he can never drink again."

Some epitaph, that.