"I was the one who took football off the back pages and put it on to page one," George Best once bragged. This was good for football but bad for George Best. Scandal and crime, not sport, reigns on page one. Best was David Beckham before David Beckham. Except instead of Posh Spice at his side, picture Best with all five Spice Girls--and, of course, he played soccer, as his name indicates, better than Beckham. Pelé, who knows something about soccer, called Best the greatest player he ever saw. In turn the playboy Best jested, "If I had been born ugly, you would never have heard of Pelé."
I had only vaguely heard of Manchester United star George Best before his death this weekend. Blame Pelé, or if you must, Best's good looks. Best was one of those characters who manage to make self-destruction seem amusing. He once quipped, "I spent a lot of money on booze, birds, and fast cars. The rest I just squandered." Best loved life too much to love his own life. He destroyed two marriages and one liver. The blood transfusions following his liver transplant inspired this Bestism: "I was in for 10 hours and had 40 pints--beating my previous record by 20 minutes." Despite the new liver, Best couldn't shake old habits. He kept on drinking that which had curtailed his soccer career, landed him in jail, shrunk his bank account, destroyed his health, and ended his marriages. "George, where did it all go wrong?," a bellboy famously asked Best upon seeing him in bed with Miss World, twenty-thousand pounds in gambling chips, and a bottle of champagne. Looking back on George Best's life since that moment in a hotel bed, we better understand the bellboy's once-derided perspective. But instead of asking that saddest of all questions--What might have been?--soccer fans are rightfully remembering what was. "What was" was a man of common vices and uncommon talents. George Best, rest in peace.
Nicely done Dan. Although an avid football fan and rabid hockey fan, soccer is a great sport and those who excel at it should be considered among the world's best athletes and sportsmen.
So it was so for Best.
RIP indeed.
