Time flies eh
It's been 2 years since Georgie passed away
R.I.P George
It's been 2 years since Georgie passed away
R.I.P George
George Best - R.I.P
- Thread starter pert
- Start date
RIP Manchester United Legend
still can't believe it.
never saw him play, but his legend is so great that you didn't have to, spoken of so highly by my dad and my grand-dad.
I felt numb when i found out...i found it strange but i guess thats how much United means to me.
never saw him play, but his legend is so great that you didn't have to, spoken of so highly by my dad and my grand-dad.
I felt numb when i found out...i found it strange but i guess thats how much United means to me.
Rest In Peace George Best.
Anyone know anything about a proposed new movie they were going to do after his death that was probably going to have his son, Callum, play Georgie?
They did do a film seven or eight years ago starring John Lynch who was far too old and who looked feck all like Best except for the fact he’s Northern Irish that even George said was rubbish.
Stick a black wig on him and it’s Georgie! Apparently he wasn’t a bad footballer himself but never wanted to get into it.
They did do a film seven or eight years ago starring John Lynch who was far too old and who looked feck all like Best except for the fact he’s Northern Irish that even George said was rubbish.
Stick a black wig on him and it’s Georgie! Apparently he wasn’t a bad footballer himself but never wanted to get into it.
R.i.p Legend
2 Years?!
Christ. I remember exactly where I was when I heard and all.
Christ. I remember exactly where I was when I heard and all.
god only takes the BEST r.i.p. georgie boy.
Legend, the great goal he scored for San Jose Earthquakes is certainly one of the best goals ever scored on North America, I give him even extra respect for the fact he played in the US
R.I.P Georgie best.
RIP Georgie
You got to be kidding me,today's my grandpa's second death anniversery too.
R.I.P Georgie and Grandpa.
R.I.P Georgie and Grandpa.
There was never a player like him before, and never will be again.
RIP El Beatle.
RIP El Beatle.
Gone but never forgotten. At his peak the greatest footballer to have graced a pitch. I am privileged to have seen him play.
I hope he isn`t resting in peace .. I hope wherever he is the rum tusk is tearing up a storm & having a ball! God bless you George, thanks for the memories!!
I hope he isn`t resting in peace .. I hope wherever he is the rum tusk is tearing up a storm & having a ball! God bless you George, thanks for the memories!!
Can't believe it's been 2 years, RIP George!
RIP George
Once I read on a few threads here after George passed away, about an airport and a football stadium in Belfast, named as George Best Airport and George Best Stadium.
Any news on this?
Any news on this?
There's only the airport.
It is named as George Best Airport right now?
There's only the airport.
Pele's good, Maradona's better, George Best.
R.I.P
R.I.P
Rip George Best
A few years back my father (a librarian) came home from work with an envelope he found in a returned book, it contained various United memorabilia, Replica FA programme from 1968 European Cup final, Team sheet from a fa cup match and best of all a letter sent from Dickie Best to I think the News of the World thanking them for thier "kind words" about George after he made his United debut. I seriously nearly fell over when I was handed this. Had to wait a few months before I could claim ownership. When he passed I could barely look at his father in light of the above letter. I felt and still feel privileged to have read such a letter. RIP Georgie and my thoughts and best wishes to rest of the family.
The old king Pert is back!
George Best - Fondly remembered
Nice one MUM, where's that from?
Oh and pert, what was the flag that was hung from the Stormont hotel on the day of his funeral. It was feckin massive.
The greatest footballer in the world ever. A one off that will never be repeated R.I.P George Best - we love you !
RIP. Although i thought it was the 25th of November that he died.
R.I.P I love you.
I took the photo from the shirts and tributes that were laid outside Old Trafford on Georgie's death.
I still have the single ( Record, thats a flat circular bit of black plastic for you MP3 generation ) Georgie the Belfast boy
Heres an article I found today thats worth a read............
From childhood friends to celebrities, Belfast honours its hero
TOM ENGLISH
IN BELFAST
JUST after 12.30pm George Best began his final journey. His coffin, draped in the flag of Northern Ireland, was carried to the doors of the Parliament Buildings at Stormont and down the 60 steps to where the masses gathered. A lone piper played a last lament for a favourite son and this day of days entered its last moments. The funeral cortege inched forward, moving round Lord Carson's statue and down Prince of Wales Avenue, a distance of a mile but one that took an age to complete.
The tributes rained down every inch of the way; all the shirts, flags, scarves and footballs in Belfast were seemingly flung at the hearse as it passed. Flowers came in great numbers and rested on the bonnet. Pictures of Best in his prime were held to the dark skies and there were tears. Plenty of them.
What you noticed most of all, though, was the applause. It began in the grounds of Stormont, continued when the procession made its way on to Upper Newtonards Road and lasted all the way to Roselawn Cemetery where Best was laid to rest beside his mother, Ann.
They arrived from first light, 30,000 people pouring in the gates and tens of thousands more lining the streets outside. Among them, millionaires and paupers, celebrities and has-beens and never-weres. George was at ease in all company, a man whose adoration spanned the great divide in Ulster. Genius can do that. So all sorts paid homage yesterday. People from all communities, from all classes, from all cities and countries. So many had stories to tell.
There is the one about the woman who travelled over from Kilmarnock on Thursday. Imre Rewcastle is writing a book about destiny and said: "George has unfolded into my story over the last few weeks. I had to be here." Just down the line from where the budding author stood there were six likely lads from Manchester looking the worse for wear, Simon Smith the only one among them in a fit state to speak.
The six of them had been drinking in the Northern Ireland football supporters' club in Belfast until three in the morning. Inside, they met Alex Higgins, the untamed genius of the snooker table. Higgins was being himself - drinking and betting and drawing attention. The lads joined him. Before they knew it, it was mid-morning and they had a decision to make. Go back to their digs and get some sleep or start their pilgrimage to Stormont. They walked. Or staggered. Or crawled. But they got there. At about 4am they set up camp outside the giant gates of the Parliament Buildings and waited for them to open. Tired, dishevelled and smelling of booze, Best would have approved, they reckoned.
When the heavens opened around 10am, three sisters huddled together under an umbrella near the giant screen that replayed classic moments from Best's career to a series of poignant soundtracks. Margaret Millan, Sally Thompson and Fay Gogarty had grown up on the same Cregagh estate as Best. Fay knew him well. Truth be told, she fancied him and this formidable lady of east Belfast wasn't shy in telling him.
"We were born the same year, 1946. He was May, I was September. Oh, I loved him, so I did. There was me and Pat Brown and Bell McKeown, God rest her soul. We were a group, about 14 years old at the time. George was so shy as a boy. He always liked his football more than he liked the girls. We'd say 'George, are you gonna walk us home?' He'd go 'aye, sure' but you'd always be standing there waiting. He never did in the end."
As the baby of the family, Margaret is too young to remember her famous neighbour but she had her own tale. One time she happened to be drinking in the same Manchester bar as him. He overheard her talking and came over. "Are you Belfast?" he asked. "Am I Belfast?" she replied. "Not only am I Belfast, George, but I'm Cregagh and you used to hang around with my sister when you were just a skinny wee thing of 14. He was great. He bought us drinks for the night. 'You're Fay's sister! God almighty. Small world, eh?' It was a great night."
Margaret spoke for a lot of people when telling of Best's legacy. "He done more for Northern Ireland than anybody. He always had a smile. He united the communities even in the worst of times. When it was horrible here, really, really dark and when nobody could see a way out, George had a smile for everyone. He'd cheer us up. Catholic or Protestant. Didn't matter. He was just George. Our Georgie Best."
For Sally, the eldest of the three, this was a day of added sadness, of terrible memories of her own past that mirrored the horror of what Dickie Best, George's father, is going through. "I had a son," she says, quietly. "Frankie James Thompson was his name. He was 14. A football nut. You couldn't get the ball away from his feet, so you couldn't. He'd bring it into bed with him. Well, he's buried above in Roselawn, where Ann Best is and where George is going now. This is a very sad day for me. I look at poor George's father and I think of Frankie. No parent should have to bury their child, should they?"
There was much to get emotional about yesterday. The haunting music of Brian Kennedy and Peter Corry, the moving words of Calum Best, his son, Barbara McNarry - George's sister - and Bobby McAlinden, the Scot who became one of Best's closest friends. Recently Calum was sent a poem by a member of the public. It was entitled 'Farewell Our Friend But Not Goodbye'. It moved him so much he decided to read it at the service then broke down midway through.
Barbara McNarry broke down, too. McAlinden soldiered through but you didn't need to see his face to know that the words were a struggle. "He made me his room-mate, team-mate, his partner in a desirable property [when they played football together in America] - he was the greatest friend I ever had."
Big names were everywhere. Sir Alex Ferguson, Sven Goran Eriksson, Martin O'Neill, Denis Law. A celebrity cast of hundreds. But the eye was constantly drawn to Best's father, Dickie. A tiny man in a grey overcoat, the heart went out to him most of all.
Dickie Best has lived in the same modest terraced house on the same working-class estate for the past 50 years. He raised six children, one of whom happened to be the most famous Northern Irishman in history and one of the greatest footballers the world has ever known. But Dickie has had a hard life, harder than most people could imagine.
He's 86 now but still has the hardness of features that comes with a life spent working at the shipyards of Harland & Wolff. But underneath it all, Dickie is a pussycat, a real nice fellow, who passed some of the same human qualities on to his son. Yesterday he buried his boy, 27 years after burying his wife. Drink claimed them both.
Ann Best never touched a drop of alcohol until she was past 40. She died at 54, five years fewer than George managed. "Dickie, I don't want to live any more," she told her husband one October night in 1978. The following morning Dickie brought her up a cup of tea and found her dead in the bed.
It is said that for all these years Dickie has carried some guilt with him about not moving the family to Manchester when he had the chance. At the height of George's fame, Manchester United advised the Best family to move closer to their son, to watch over him and, hopefully, prevent him from falling into some of the traps they could see him heading for.
Dickie declined the offer because by then his wife was drinking hard and he didn't want mother influencing son and son influencing mother. For their own good, they had to be kept apart. It apparently broke his heart, as it would any man.
The old guy was so dignified yesterday that your own heart almost broke. He didn't show much emotion from what we could see, no tears but no smiles either despite Law's best attempts in the first tribute of the day. He told a nice story about the two of them camping overnight at London's Cromwell hospital when Best's health had taken a decisive turn for the worst and he had only hours to live. There was a big couch and a little couch in the waiting room at the Cromwell. Law turned his back for a moment and when he did Dickie hopped cheekily into the larger of the two. "Look at him!" Law said, in a moment of gently mocking humour. "He's the size of nothing."
The 300 invited guests in the Great Hall at Stormont broke into momentary laughter but Dickie didn't join them. You could tell, somehow, that he wanted to. But he didn't.
An hour later they took his boy away. They drove the four miles to Roselawn, the route lined with tributes and applause, and when they reached the burial ground they closed the gates behind them. The Bests, at last, were alone. The most public funeral the province has ever seen - or ever will see - had a private ending. Just Dickie and his family and friends and his Belfast Boy - his fragile, flawed genius of a son who is now gone but who will never, ever be forgotten.
From childhood friends to celebrities, Belfast honours its hero
TOM ENGLISH
IN BELFAST
JUST after 12.30pm George Best began his final journey. His coffin, draped in the flag of Northern Ireland, was carried to the doors of the Parliament Buildings at Stormont and down the 60 steps to where the masses gathered. A lone piper played a last lament for a favourite son and this day of days entered its last moments. The funeral cortege inched forward, moving round Lord Carson's statue and down Prince of Wales Avenue, a distance of a mile but one that took an age to complete.
The tributes rained down every inch of the way; all the shirts, flags, scarves and footballs in Belfast were seemingly flung at the hearse as it passed. Flowers came in great numbers and rested on the bonnet. Pictures of Best in his prime were held to the dark skies and there were tears. Plenty of them.
What you noticed most of all, though, was the applause. It began in the grounds of Stormont, continued when the procession made its way on to Upper Newtonards Road and lasted all the way to Roselawn Cemetery where Best was laid to rest beside his mother, Ann.
They arrived from first light, 30,000 people pouring in the gates and tens of thousands more lining the streets outside. Among them, millionaires and paupers, celebrities and has-beens and never-weres. George was at ease in all company, a man whose adoration spanned the great divide in Ulster. Genius can do that. So all sorts paid homage yesterday. People from all communities, from all classes, from all cities and countries. So many had stories to tell.
There is the one about the woman who travelled over from Kilmarnock on Thursday. Imre Rewcastle is writing a book about destiny and said: "George has unfolded into my story over the last few weeks. I had to be here." Just down the line from where the budding author stood there were six likely lads from Manchester looking the worse for wear, Simon Smith the only one among them in a fit state to speak.
The six of them had been drinking in the Northern Ireland football supporters' club in Belfast until three in the morning. Inside, they met Alex Higgins, the untamed genius of the snooker table. Higgins was being himself - drinking and betting and drawing attention. The lads joined him. Before they knew it, it was mid-morning and they had a decision to make. Go back to their digs and get some sleep or start their pilgrimage to Stormont. They walked. Or staggered. Or crawled. But they got there. At about 4am they set up camp outside the giant gates of the Parliament Buildings and waited for them to open. Tired, dishevelled and smelling of booze, Best would have approved, they reckoned.
When the heavens opened around 10am, three sisters huddled together under an umbrella near the giant screen that replayed classic moments from Best's career to a series of poignant soundtracks. Margaret Millan, Sally Thompson and Fay Gogarty had grown up on the same Cregagh estate as Best. Fay knew him well. Truth be told, she fancied him and this formidable lady of east Belfast wasn't shy in telling him.
"We were born the same year, 1946. He was May, I was September. Oh, I loved him, so I did. There was me and Pat Brown and Bell McKeown, God rest her soul. We were a group, about 14 years old at the time. George was so shy as a boy. He always liked his football more than he liked the girls. We'd say 'George, are you gonna walk us home?' He'd go 'aye, sure' but you'd always be standing there waiting. He never did in the end."
As the baby of the family, Margaret is too young to remember her famous neighbour but she had her own tale. One time she happened to be drinking in the same Manchester bar as him. He overheard her talking and came over. "Are you Belfast?" he asked. "Am I Belfast?" she replied. "Not only am I Belfast, George, but I'm Cregagh and you used to hang around with my sister when you were just a skinny wee thing of 14. He was great. He bought us drinks for the night. 'You're Fay's sister! God almighty. Small world, eh?' It was a great night."
Margaret spoke for a lot of people when telling of Best's legacy. "He done more for Northern Ireland than anybody. He always had a smile. He united the communities even in the worst of times. When it was horrible here, really, really dark and when nobody could see a way out, George had a smile for everyone. He'd cheer us up. Catholic or Protestant. Didn't matter. He was just George. Our Georgie Best."
For Sally, the eldest of the three, this was a day of added sadness, of terrible memories of her own past that mirrored the horror of what Dickie Best, George's father, is going through. "I had a son," she says, quietly. "Frankie James Thompson was his name. He was 14. A football nut. You couldn't get the ball away from his feet, so you couldn't. He'd bring it into bed with him. Well, he's buried above in Roselawn, where Ann Best is and where George is going now. This is a very sad day for me. I look at poor George's father and I think of Frankie. No parent should have to bury their child, should they?"
There was much to get emotional about yesterday. The haunting music of Brian Kennedy and Peter Corry, the moving words of Calum Best, his son, Barbara McNarry - George's sister - and Bobby McAlinden, the Scot who became one of Best's closest friends. Recently Calum was sent a poem by a member of the public. It was entitled 'Farewell Our Friend But Not Goodbye'. It moved him so much he decided to read it at the service then broke down midway through.
Barbara McNarry broke down, too. McAlinden soldiered through but you didn't need to see his face to know that the words were a struggle. "He made me his room-mate, team-mate, his partner in a desirable property [when they played football together in America] - he was the greatest friend I ever had."
Big names were everywhere. Sir Alex Ferguson, Sven Goran Eriksson, Martin O'Neill, Denis Law. A celebrity cast of hundreds. But the eye was constantly drawn to Best's father, Dickie. A tiny man in a grey overcoat, the heart went out to him most of all.
Dickie Best has lived in the same modest terraced house on the same working-class estate for the past 50 years. He raised six children, one of whom happened to be the most famous Northern Irishman in history and one of the greatest footballers the world has ever known. But Dickie has had a hard life, harder than most people could imagine.
He's 86 now but still has the hardness of features that comes with a life spent working at the shipyards of Harland & Wolff. But underneath it all, Dickie is a pussycat, a real nice fellow, who passed some of the same human qualities on to his son. Yesterday he buried his boy, 27 years after burying his wife. Drink claimed them both.
Ann Best never touched a drop of alcohol until she was past 40. She died at 54, five years fewer than George managed. "Dickie, I don't want to live any more," she told her husband one October night in 1978. The following morning Dickie brought her up a cup of tea and found her dead in the bed.
It is said that for all these years Dickie has carried some guilt with him about not moving the family to Manchester when he had the chance. At the height of George's fame, Manchester United advised the Best family to move closer to their son, to watch over him and, hopefully, prevent him from falling into some of the traps they could see him heading for.
Dickie declined the offer because by then his wife was drinking hard and he didn't want mother influencing son and son influencing mother. For their own good, they had to be kept apart. It apparently broke his heart, as it would any man.
The old guy was so dignified yesterday that your own heart almost broke. He didn't show much emotion from what we could see, no tears but no smiles either despite Law's best attempts in the first tribute of the day. He told a nice story about the two of them camping overnight at London's Cromwell hospital when Best's health had taken a decisive turn for the worst and he had only hours to live. There was a big couch and a little couch in the waiting room at the Cromwell. Law turned his back for a moment and when he did Dickie hopped cheekily into the larger of the two. "Look at him!" Law said, in a moment of gently mocking humour. "He's the size of nothing."
The 300 invited guests in the Great Hall at Stormont broke into momentary laughter but Dickie didn't join them. You could tell, somehow, that he wanted to. But he didn't.
An hour later they took his boy away. They drove the four miles to Roselawn, the route lined with tributes and applause, and when they reached the burial ground they closed the gates behind them. The Bests, at last, were alone. The most public funeral the province has ever seen - or ever will see - had a private ending. Just Dickie and his family and friends and his Belfast Boy - his fragile, flawed genius of a son who is now gone but who will never, ever be forgotten.
Nice read that Decotron, thanks for finding it.
Here is an old article by some bitch.
What do women know about football
What do women know about football
why did you even bother posting that?
Yeah thats a good point.
I dont think folk should give him any grief about it though, i'm sure he just wanted us to see the crap that some people write, so forgive and forget eh.
Something even more depressing my mate handed me last week was a Christian / Jehovah leaflet with Georgie on the front in his United kit during a match. It looked pretty sweet til I realised what it was and what they were doing using Georgies picture.
It was pretty negative stuff about dont do this and dont do that or you'll turn out like Bestie. They really went to town on him. It was heart-wrenching to see Georgie being used in this way.
They forgot to mention that Georgie gave so much pleasure to so many people all over the world and he still does through the fantastic memories he left us.
He never judged himself better than anyone else, apart from Pele of course, which is fair enough, as Pele said it himself.
I've still got that leaflet in the house and I plan to give them some grief about it, either by email or ringing the feckers up. Isnt it any wonder folk have drifted away from Religion over the years.
They say you only need four people to carry your coffin and that might suggest you may well have run out of friends at the end!
Well, Georgie Best had over a hundred thousand friends carrying his coffin and millions more around the world and I'm proud to have been one of them!