George Best is rightly considered one of the most talented and charismatic football players of the 20th century. In 1968, he won the Golden Ball Award. However, Best was remembered not only for a fantastic game, but also for his extravagant way of life outside the field.
Childhood and first successes in football
George Best appeared in 1946 in the Irish Belfast in an ordinary working-class family - his father was a turner, and his mother worked in the tobacco industry.
Once, a maternal grandfather gave little George a ball, after which football became his main hobby. George drove this ball almost around the clock in the yard, using his father’s garage as a goal.
Soon, the boy began to play for various Belfast teams. It is interesting that even then Best excelled many of his peers in technique.
Ultimately, he was attracted to the scout by Manchester United (Man. United), and this led to the fact that the fifteen-year-old Best was taken to the youth team of the famous British club.
Professional club career
On September 14, 1963, the talented Irishman made his debut in the main team of Manchester United - he was released on the field in a match against West Brom. This game was successful for “Manchester”, the team won with a minimal margin - 1: 0. And Best in this match looked pretty good. He even earned praise from his coach, Matt Busby.
However, then Best returned to the “youth team” and was in its composition for another three months. Matt Busby decided to re-attract the talented Irishman to the main team only in December 1963 (a whole series of annoying defeats prompted the trainer to be updated).
On December 29, 1963, Manchester United met with the Burnley team at the Old Trafford home stadium. Best not only participated in this match, but also scored his first goal for Manchester, thanks to which he was able to claim his place in the squad. In total for the season 1963/1964 Best became the author of 6 goals in 26 matches. By the way, in one of the matches - against the club “Bolton Wanderers” - he even made a double. At the end of the season, Manchester United took second place in the Championship of England, gaining only 4 points less than Liverpool.
In the 1964/1965 season, Best was already a true favorite of Old Trafford. And he really had many virtues as a player. He worked brilliantly with the ball, saw the field perfectly, had a high starting speed. He had a magnificent dribbling and a delivered blow from both the right and left legs.
In the 1964-1965 season, Manchester (and Best, who was then 21 years old) won the regular English championship. A couple of years later, in the 1966/1967 season, this success was repeated.
In the same 1967, in the quarter finals of the European Cup, Best at the very beginning of the first half scored two goals against the Portuguese “Benfica”. The game ended with a crushing score of 5: 1 in favor of “Manchester”.
In 1968, Manchester met again with Benfica, but not in the quarterfinals, but in the final of the European Cup. This match turned out to be very intense. The main time here ended in a draw - 1: 1. And at the beginning of the extra half, Best, having beaten a pair of opponents with beautiful feints, became the author of the second goal. And this, in fact, predetermined the victory of the British. Then, “Benfica” conceded two more goals and as a result the total score was 4: 1.
In the same 1968, Best became the top scorer of the English championship, for the season he chalked up 28 goals. In addition, in 1968 he was awarded the Golden Ball award as the best player in the Old World.
Football successes were followed by financial ones. Large advertisers began to contract with Best. Soon he began to earn money on his own behalf: he opened his own restaurant, two nightclubs, a travel agency, a fashion house.
Of course, the talented football player had many fans. And the number of his novels in the sixties and seventies was really large (the press constantly wrote about these novels). On top of that, he was addicted to drinking: first he drank beer, then switched to stronger drinks.
Many are sure that Best could not stand the test of "copper pipes", that is, fame and big money. His alcoholism progressed quite quickly. In a drunken state he was unrestrained and unpredictable, easily got involved in a fight, could be rude. The result was logical: at the age of 27, the football player left Manchester United. This happened in early January 1974. The then coach Tommy Doherty did not tell George for the next match due to the fact that he missed the training. In response, the footballer decided to say goodbye to Manchester United.
In total, from 1963 to 1974, Best played 474 matches for Manchester United and scored 179 goals. At the same time, he was the team's top scorer for several years in a row (from 1968 to 1972).
Subsequently, George Best became, in his own words, a "soccer mercenary." For ten years, he played in about 20 clubs, never staying longer than more than one season. And he had a chance to play, and not only in England and Ireland, but also in Scotland, in the USA, in South Africa, in Australia and in Hong Kong. We could not speak about serious titles here, but at times Best showed the game as in his best years.
Team appearances
For the team of Northern Ireland, George Best played only 37 matches, scoring 9 goals in them. However, with his team, he never managed to get to the World Cup or the European Championship.
The team was closest to getting to the mundial in 1970. Then Northern Ireland at the qualifying stage seriously vied for reaching the final of the World Cup with the team of the Soviet Union. The decisive match, on which the outcome of this rivalry depended, took place in Moscow, but Best did not take part in it. And without their main star, the Northern Irish suffered a defeat - 0: 2. It is also worth noting that for his absence on the field in that match, Best was severely criticized at home.
In 1982, the Northern Ireland team finally won a ticket to the world championship. And Best could really go as part of this team to Spain (it was there that the championship was held that year). However, at that time he was already thirty-six years old, for a long time he had no decent game practice, but he had problems with alcohol. As a result, they decided not to take it into the composition.
Best after retirement
Best played his last match in February 1984 for the modest North Irish Tobermore United team.
But even after this Best remained true to his loose lifestyle - he devoted a significant part of his time to drinking and girls. And because of alcohol, he repeatedly got into unpleasant stories. For example, in November 1984, Besta was deprived of a driver’s license for driving a drunk car and assaulting a police officer and sent to prison for three months.
He earned in the mid-eighties and nineties, mainly on TV and radio - he commented on football games and starred in popular television shows.
Personal life
Best had many novels with the most beautiful women. He himself said that he slept with four Miss Worlds. So, for example, in 1974 he met with "Miss World 1973" Marjorie Wallace.
And his first official wife was Angela MacDonald-Janes. Their acquaintance took place in California. Angela was then 23 years old, and George was already 29. She worked as a fitness instructor, adhered to a healthy lifestyle, which George liked very much. He cheated on her, but she reacted to his novels "on the side" surprisingly calmly. They were in a marital relationship from 1978 to 1986. In addition, Angela gave birth to a boy from Best - he was given the name Kalum.
It is also known that from 1984 to 1987, George had an affair with fashion model Angie Lynn. In 1986, when Lynn became pregnant, Best even considered getting married. However, then she had a miscarriage. Ultimately, after many violent scandals and drunken antics of Best, they parted.
From 1987 to 1995, a Northern Irish football player met with a woman named Mary Shatila.
Then, from 1995 to 2004, the footballer was in a marriage with stewardess Alex Persie (later on she became one of the most famous English models). They first saw each other in a nightclub, and Best was much older than her - he was 48 then, and she was only 22 years old.
Their divorce was officially filed in 2004, although in fact their relationship ended in the fall of 2003 after the appearance in the media of materials that described Best's betrayals.
