George Best | My Camden

George Best

Profession: Professional Football Player
Place/Date of Birth: Belfast, 22 May 2020
Date of Death: 25 November 2020
Associated with: Calum Best

Student cartoonist Paula Shapland said that she met 57 year old George at his local, The Chequers. She claims that he tried to chat her up, and pursued her ’relentlessly’ by offering her nights in hotels and celebrity lunches. She denies a full sexual relationship with him. Paula has now flown to Portugal, with her cabbie boyfriend boasting that the nice pair will ’get a house out of all this’.

Meanwhile Alex has flown home from the holiday she was sharing in Malta with George, leaving sad George behind, no doubt reflecting on his mistakes.

Should Alex and George kiss and make up?Talk about this on our message board

Best is back on booze - 14/07/03
Belfast born George Best is back on the booze only a year after having a life-saving liver transplant.

His long suffering wife Alex is said to have had enough after 57-year-old Best never came home from a weekend drinking binge.

Best is said to have fallen off the wagon while on holiday on Corfu recently, and enjoyed a five-day binge last week that ended with him being arrested for tussling with a photographer.

After being released from his local cell he headed straight for a seven-hour stretch at his local pub, before being driven away.

George Best to receive special award - 03/12/02
George Best is to receive a special award at the BBC’s annual Sports Personality of the Year show. The Belfast born star star will be presented with a lifetime achievement award.

Best’s close friend and biographer Michael Parkinson will present a filmed tribute to the soccer legend during the show.

Best told The Mail On Sunday’s Night and Day supplement: "I couldn’t believe it when they rang and told me. "The only other person who has received the award is Sir Alex Ferguson, and what he has done for British football doesn’t need explaining."

George Best admits to violent rows with wife - 11/10/02
George Best says he had drunken rows with his wife Alex with one incident leaving her with a broken arm. He says she tripped during a violent row over his drinking, and had to be taken to hospital.

But the former soccer star says the rows are over now he has beaten alcohol. His wife says Best has never hit her, and even claims to have given him a black eye.

The former footballer makes the comments in a BBC1 interview to be shown this Friday at 7pm. In his first TV appearance since his liver transplant, the 56-year-old vows never to touch another drop. Complications for Best - 23/08/02
George Best is back in hospital, recovering from a second operation because of complications after he underwent a liver transplant operation.

The 56-year-old footballing star is reported to be ’doing well’ at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, where surgeons have treated him for infection problems with the bile duct connected to his new liver.

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Biography

'I think I've found you a genius' read the telegram from Manchester United scout Bob Bishop to manager Matt Busby on spotting fifteen year old footballer George Best, who had been recently rejected by local club Glentoran. Given a trial and signed up Best made his debut for United at the age of seventeen in 1963 and just two weeks later he scored his first goal for the club.

The first Celebrity Footballer, Best was not only noticed for his style and flair on the pitch but his showmanship and fashion-sense. His hairstyle saw Best dubbed the 'fifth Beatle' and he was even invited to appear on Top of the Pops. In the 1966-67 season Best scored in the European Cup Final against Benefica and consequently was named European Footballer of the Year and Football Writers Association Player of the Year.

However the glamour of stardom had seduced Best. In the late sixties he opened two nightclubs, Oscar's and Slack Alice's and invested in clothes shops in partnership with Manchester City's Mike Summerbee. However the lifestyle led to gambling, drinking and womanising and in 1974 Best was sacked from Manchester United for failing to attend training and matches and persistent boozing. He played his last game for the team on New Year's Day.

Despite a brief resurgence in 1976-77, playing for Fulham FC, Best drifted around football clubs in the UK, America and Australia never regaining the promise he had shown in the sixties. Now considered one of history's greatest players, placed eleventh in the IFFHS European Player of the Century listing and spoke of in Northern Ireland as the finest player to have graced the pitch; 'Pele good, Maradona better, George Best'.

In 1984 Best was sentenced to three months in prison for drink driving, failing to answer bail and assaulting a Police Officer, it was clear that the problem that had lost the footballer his career was destined to rule his life. He continued to drink throughout the rest of his life and it was this that dominated headlines - from his drunken appearance on Wogan to reported physical abuse of his wife Alex in 2004.

In 2002 Best underwent a liver transplant but nonetheless continued to drink much to the disgust of press and public. Three years later Best was admitted to hospital with kidney problems - a side effect of the drugs which stopped his body from rejecting his new liver. Close to death Best requested a picture of him be printed in the News of the World with the message 'Don't Die Like Me'. He survived for longer than doctors expected but in the early hours of November 25 2005 his treatment was withdrawn and Best died.

A huge public outpouring of grief commenced, the pinnacle of which was a massive state funeral in Belfast. In addition Belfast airport was renamed George Best Belfast City Airport and commemorative five pound notes were produced.

Married twice, his first wife Angela Macdonald-James, mother of Best's son Calum, died in 1986. Alex Pursey divorced Best in 2004 amid claims of adultery and physical abuse.

March 2007