#80, November 25, 2005

The Best There Was

I remember seeing George Best play live on one occasion and I hated him. Manchester United were playing Chelsea at Stamford Bridge and it was (evidently – since I have refreshed my memory by looking at the stats from that year) fairly early in the 1966-67 season (in fact, it was Saturday 5^th of November).

I was a confirmed Chelsea supporter, even if I was still only 8 years old, and even if the first game I had seen, at the end of that August had been a wonderful game between Fulham and Sheffield Wednesday, in which the legendary Johnny Haynes led a Fulham recovery and stymied Jim McCalliog in a 4-2 come-from-behind victory for the home team. But Haynes (who also died a few weeks ago) was a man of the past by this time, and Fulham were spinning into the doldrums; so the fact that Craven Cottage was the closest team to my house in Putney, wasn’t important to me. Besides, Chelsea had Charlie Cooke, Peter Osgood, and a few other exciting players – like Bobby Tambling and Tommy Baldwin (not sure he was in the same class as the others!).

Chelsea started off that season unbeaten for their first ten games with Tambling scoring 8 and Osgood 6. But then things began to go south pretty quickly. Osgood, the young phenomenon broke his leg and so was out for the season. From that moment on Chelsea were pretty much out of the running – though they would pull it together for a fine FA cup run during the early months of 1967 (losing to Totenham 2-1 in the final).

It was quite a pleasant surprise to be at the game against Man U. I had been to one or two Chelsea games with my older friend, Roy Eddy, and on those occasions I had stood near to the Shed, the stand where the nastiest Chelsea supporters stood. It was a little before skinheads, but these were some pretty nasty people, and being a nice middle-class kid it was definitely a frightening experience, though since I was only a child most of the supporters were actually pretty accommodating and thoughtful. How much of each game I saw, was anyone’s guess, but the games made an impression on me anyway.

For the Man U game there were 56,452 fans in attendance, so if I had been in the Shed I would have missed the whole game. Fortunately, a doctor friend of my father was a Chelsea supporter and had season tickets. As such, he was in a very different category from Roy Eddy and all those on the terraces, and he sat in comfort along the side. I had already played for my U-11 primary school team and had made myself known as an avid fan during that summer’s World Cup, so Dennis, the doctor friend, decided to take me. I remember, though, feeling awkward in the seats and even thinking that I was missing something in the game by not being on the terraces, and not having to queue for hours before the game, even while I was getting a better view than I had ever had at a match (and would for many years to come).

The game was a crushing defeat for Chelsea and this was largely because of the work of George Best. I do not think that he scored that day, but I do know that he made Denis Law and Bobby Charlton, the probable goal scorers, look exceptionally good owing to the passes he set up. I certainly remember cursing him for the way that he cruised through and around the Chelsea defense, with dribbling skills that left even Charlie Cooke in the dust. Chelsea lost 3-1 (John Hollins scored for Chelsea), and I didn’t feel what many are supposed to have felt (according to the obituaries), a sense of awe and pleasure at seeing the great man at work. I just hated him for destroying my team. And, actually, I have trouble believing that many enjoyed seeing Best when he was playing for the opposing team. British supporters are very clannish, as Fever Pitch, made very clear, and even while they might go and beat up fans from another country in the name of the Union Jack, they always put their own team’s players first. A Chelsea supporter would love to see Best make fools of Tottenham, the Arsenal, or West Ham, but not his own team. That no doubt has changed as the game has become increasingly gentrified.

So I loved Best on other days, but not that one. I actually enjoyed seeing him beat up England for Northern Ireland, and, was incensed when he stole the ball almost out of the Gordon Banks’ grasp and was called for a foul. It was never! I saw him score six goals against Northampton on TV in 1970, but we all knew by then that he was passed his prime. It was sad to see him on the slide, but he was just one of the many who went in that direction, partying and drinking their way into oblivion. In fact, the Chelsea team that went on to success in the early seventies behind Osgood, Hutchinson, Hudson, Cooke, Webb, Harris, Bonetti, and so forth, also saw a number of players (Osgood and Hudson, in particular) falling by the wayside and not achieving the greatness predicted of them. Fulham Road, amidst all those Sloane Rangers, was just too alluring.

And Best was the best of the drinkers and partiers also. He was the fifth Beatle, as we have been reminded in his obituaries, but he outstripped even the Beatles in a number of departments – sex mainly. Like McCartney and Lennon, too, he was conquering all and sundry in the English world, while hailing from the provinces. It has been noted that he sided with Denis Law (the Scot) against Bobby Charlton (the upright Englishman) in United’s locker room squabbles. It was the Celtic fringe fighting back against the Metropole. McCartney and Lennon were Liverpudlians, but their parents or grandparents probably hailed from Ulster, as George Best did. It would be an interesting question, though, whether Best was Protestant or Catholic in his upbringing, though one suspects Protestant. This is seldom mentioned (I have never heard either way), even though it would have been a major issue for many at the time. But, if he was Protestant, as I would guess that Law was also (and McCartney and Lennon too), it makes him more compelling in some ways, and more tragic – if that is possible. For, unlike many Ulster Protestants, he didn’t celebrate the association with the United Kingdom and he wasn’t an anti-Catholic bigot. Of course, if he was Catholic and was able to get thousands of youths in Northern Ireland to cheer for him, then that is interesting too.

What doesn’t seem to have been considered in all the discussion of his boozing and carousing is that it must have been incredibly difficult going to Manchester to acquire fame and fortune, while at the same moment the troubles in Ulster were beginning to escalate into the virtual civil war of the early 1970s. This was a young man who had returned to Ulster homesick when he first went to Old Trafford to play in the youth squad.

Another soccer legend gone. I remember his autobiography, which I read in 1970. By then I had forgiven him for what he had done to Chelsea, and he was just someone to know about if one wanted also to become a footballer, which I certainly did at the time – in spite of my middle-class background. Comparing it now to Beckham’s autobiography, there was certainly a lot more color in those pages, a lot more to read between the lines. And that’s a real shame.