Fourteen months sober, it’s time we talk about my favorite footballer, George Best — and I don’t even like football. Actually, it’s well overdue. Among hundreds of gems, he coined my favorite quote - ever.
In 1969 I gave up women and alcohol — it was the worst 20 minutes of my life.
George Best
And that’s not it. That’s not even my second favorite.
A North Irish Protestant — his cousin killed in Belfast supporting Ulster — Best spent most of his youth in snooker halls and on football fields before he was spotted, aged fifteen, by a scout. Joining Manchester United as a winger at seventeen, he was believed too slight to be a threat, but he splashed the tabloid covers within two years. During 11 seasons with Manchester he made 474 appearances for the team and scored 181 goals. It would have been double that if...
Top league goalscorer five consecutive seasons, Best won two League titles and the European Cup with the club before a sad two decade run of drunkenness, embarrassments, money troubles and arrests.
With feet as sensitive as a pickpocket's hands, his control of the ball under the most violent pressure was astonishing. The bewildering repertoire of feints and swerves... and balance that would have made Isaac Newton decide to eat the apple.
Sports writer Hugh McIlvanney
His headline shine fed by mischievousness coupled with his play - long before Beckham, there was Best - he pioneered the trade of sportsman turned flamboyant idol in tandem with Mohammad Ali. Signing in 1963, he appeared on Top of the Pops, typically reserved for rock stars, two years later. The next year, aged 19, he earned the nickname “o Quinto Beatle” from the Portuguese press for the mop-top haircut displayed while he thrashed Benfica 5-1 at home in the European Cup quarter-final. Returning to Britain, he exited the team jet and strode the tarmac in a sombrero. “El Beatle” is how British press reported it.
![I spent a lot of money on booze, birds & fast cars, the rest I just squandered" - George Best [1946-2005] : r/OldSchoolCool](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!SFp7!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F226bdf14-ee6e-46b9-a968-913fe7971361_960x656.jpeg "I spent a lot of money on booze, birds & fast cars, the rest I just squandered\" - George Best [1946-2005] : r/OldSchoolCool")
Green eyed and always sun bronzed, he scored both goals in the team’s 2-0 win over bitter rival Liverpool in 1967 and produced a hat-trick over Newcastle United. In 1968 he was named FWA Footballer of the Year, the youngest ever to win the award.
Two years on, he was invited to No. 10 Downing for scoring six goals against Northampton Town, an FA Cup record. His sixth one found him one-up with the goalkeeper, whom he juked, causing his opponent to slip to the ground, and allowing Best to walk the goal.
He’s just too good for me.
Northampton Town goalkeeper (Kim Book)
By 1971 Best was dating celebrity actress Sinéac Cusack, who later married Jeremy Irons, while he racked-up two hat-tricks — against West Ham United and Southampton — as well as one goal against Sheffield United that saw him, alone, beating four defenders. However, that season, he was also fined thrice by Football Association for misconduct and suspended for two weeks by United for missing the train to a game because he spent the weekend elsewhere with his famous girlfriend.
After that, again, he failed to turn up to training for a week while cavorting with another lady - this time Miss Great Britain, Carolyn Moore. By 1973, Best was going missing for weeks - partying like Prince Andrew at London nightclubs. He was suspended and listed available for free-agency at a transfer value of £300,000. No one took him. Best opened a nightclub himself that year.
Best's last game with Manchester was New Year’s Day, 1974, against Queens Park Rangers. They lost 0-3. Then he failed to turn up for training three days later and, after a decade with the team, he was cut from the roster.
Later that year he was charged with stealing a fur coat, passport, and cheque book from Marjorie Wallace, Miss World. He failed to mention that part in his bragging.
If I had to choose between dribbling past five players and scoring from 40 yards at Anfield or shagging Miss World, it'd be a hard choice. Thankfully, I've done both.
George Best
After Manchester, Best moved to South Africa where he played a stint for Jewish Guild, lasting five games before he was dropped for failing to show for training.
Returning to Europe, Best bobbled around the second and fourth tiers — playing for Stockport County, Cork Celtic, Fulham and Hibernian — for a few years, usually being cut after failing to appear for matches. In 1977 he dated Mary Stavin, another Miss World. In 1978 he married a Playboy Bunny in Vegas.
After the marriage, he moved to the US, wearing four different jerseys in four years - Los Angeles Aztecs, Fort Lauderdale Strikers, San Jose Earthquakes, and Detroit Express - which, at the time, this was a good run for him. However, in 1981, he was arrested again for taking money from a woman’s handbag to pay for drinking.
Next, he returned to Europe, again, to play for Hibernian, again. Visibly older and fatter, he got canned after just 22 days for going on a bender with the French rugby team in Edinburgh. After that, Scone Thistle offered him a pay-for-play contract. He took the field for just 20 minutes against Scone Amateurs and used the appearance fee to settle an overdue income tax bill.
Aged 36, he signed with AFC Bournemouth, but that didn’t last long so he switched to Newry Town, but that didn’t last long, so, finally, the 1983 season, he moved to Australia and played four games for the Brisbane Lions before he retired some 20 years after signing with Manchester.
Things didn’t improve. He spent his first Christmas retired - 1984 - as an inmate at HM Ford Prison for drunk driving, assaulting a police officer and failing to answer bail. His financial problems mounting, he had a brief run as a football commentator before appearing wasted on the BBC1 Television program Wogan.
I was ill and everyone could see it but me.
George Best
By 2000 he needed a liver transplant, which he got, but sometime after he resumed drinking, being photographed with a cocktail in hand in 2003, getting a divorce from his second wife of 9 years in 2004, and getting another DUI that same year. Below he can be seen in those years, his skin yellowed by the effects of liver disease and jaundice.
On 3 October 2005, Best was admitted to Cromwell Hospital for a kidney infection that flourished as a side-effect of immuno-suppression drugs and his drinking. 20 November 2005 Best appeared on the tabloid covers one last time looking as ill as Freddie Mercury.
George Best died five days later, aged 59.
Don’t die like me.
George Best
A few lessons come to mind looking at him, not least of which is: George Best was awesome, if only for his unrepentant attitude, but also for his play, flamboyance, and zeal. That occasional promise tempted sixteen teams to take a chance on him over just nine seasons post Manchester United. Not to mention, Manchester put up with 10 times more shit during his eleven seasons than they would have for any other player. And, if he had tucked it in, there would have been another 5 seasons and 150 points on the board.
Asked what he did with all his cash, he uttered my single favorite quote of all-time.
I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars – the rest I just wasted.
George Best
George Best is also a reminder. He is the alternative. Sobriety is a gift. Every day is better than the last. Every morning is better than any night out. I’m actually - real talk - deeply grateful everything went wrong because that’s what got me here - dance with the girl that brung ya, they say, and I’ve never been happier. Below, there I am, day one sober, cleaning houses with my best friend’s wife, Karla, who's an inspiration, and a bigger legend than George Best if that’s even possible.
It stands out to me that it’s just as bad to love yourself as it is to hate yourself. Thankfully, I’m too old for either now. I just hear the clock, and with each tick it says “do it now and not next time.” Good on George Best, though, for always taking a swing, even when he couldn’t stand.
And, finally, perhaps the most important point - if you don’t think smartphones are ruining your kids’ brains faster than processed foods are fattening their bellies, then consider this: that, above, was a teen idol in 1977 and that, below, is one now.
Ed. Note: we did it, fam. Not a coincidence this happened on the day I hit 14 months sober.
