George Best
Nicknames: The Fifth Beatle, The Belfast Boy, El Beatle
Northern Irish
Date of birth: May 22, 1946 in Belfast, Northern Ireland
Date of death: November 25, 2005 in London, England
1963-1974 Manchester United - 361 apps, 137 goals
1975 Stockport County - 3 apps, 2 goals
1975-1976 Cork Celtic - 3 apps, 0 goals
1976,1977,1978 Los Angeles Aztecs - 61 apps, 29 goals
1976-1977 Fulham - 47 apps, 10 goals
1979,1980 Fort Lauderdale Strikers - 33 apps, 7 goals
1979-1980 Hibernian - 22 apps, 3 goals
1979,1980,1981 San Jose Earthquakes - 86 apps, 34 goals
1983 Bournemouth - 5 apps, 0 goals
1983 Brisbane Lions - 4 apps, 0 goals
1984 Tobermore United - 1 app, 0 goals
1964-1978 Northern Ireland - 37 apps, 9 goals
Manchester United
Football League Championship winners medal - 1965 & 1967
European Cup winners medal - 1968
Personal Honours
European Footballer of the Year - 1968
Football Writers' Association Footballer of the Year - 1968
Bursting onto the English football stage at the age of only 17 for Manchester United, George Best was to go onto become one of the most glorious players of any generation and the poster boy for a divine talent cruelly wasted. Plucked from the obscurity of the backstreets of Belfast in Northern Ireland, Best established himself as one of the front runners of a new breed of Busby Babe at Old Trafford as Manchester United finally recovered from the devastation of the 1958 Munich Air Disaster and manager Matt Busby fashioned a free flowing attacking side to bring the glory so cruelly snatched from his previous charges.
George Best was a prodigious talent, skilful with either foot, slight in build yet strong under the attention of some vicious challenges from opposition defenders intent on kicking him out of games and with a devastating eye for goal from long range, short range and in the air. He won an English league title with Manchester United in his second season in the first team and was christened "El Beatle" in 1966 for his matchwinning performance against European maestros Benfica on their Portuguese hometurf.
Best's good looks and charisma off the field were in as much demand as his enigmatic talents on the pitch and he was to become the first of a new breed of footballer who transcended the barriers between sport and 1960s pop culture celebrity. Best's penchant for beautiful women and nightclubs was to become as important a part of his persona as his goals for Manchester United but a predilection for alcohol was to become the ruin of his career and ultimately his life.
George Best's greatest footballing achievement came in 1968 as he helped Manchester United become the first English team to win the European Cup with a 4-1 win over old foes Benfica at Wembley Stadium. Things were never to reach those heights again in a footballing sense for George Best as his off-field activities began to eat into his footballing career and ultimately he drifted from top level football in the mid 1970s to numerous short lived spells at lower level British clubs and a new challenge in the United States as part of the burgeoning North American Soccer League.
Best's love affair with the game was now bitter-sweet as his alcohol addiction began to take over his life and as he wasted the latter years of his playing career, his personal life was also in turmoil. A broken marriage to model Angela MacDonald-James was followed some years later by another broken marriage to Alex Pursey and despite lurid tabloid tales of Best bedding numerous Miss World's, the one time pin up idol of millions of screaming women found himself unable to defeat his alcoholism and rescue his personal relationships.
George Best died in November 2005 of multiple organ failure at a London hospital following a short illness. His lifetime of alcohol abuse left him a tragic figure, robbed of his once brilliant athleticism and striking good looks and brought a sad end to what had at one time been life that brought a small piece of genius into the lives of thousands of football fans privileged enough to see George Best with a football at his magical feet.
