George Best (born May 22, 1946) is a former Northern Irish footballer, born in Belfast. He is best known for playing for Manchester United F.C. between 1963 and 1973, where he wore the famous number 7 shirt. He made 361 appearances for the club, and was a top goalscorer, scoring 137 goals. He was capped 37 times for Northern Ireland, scoring 9 goals. Best is widely considered, at least in the U.K., to be one of the most skilful players ever to have played the game. His talent would almost certainly have been recognised more on the world stage had his national team not been a relative "minnow". Best's greatest achievement was during the 1968 European Cup campaign that Manchester United eventually won.

Along with Paul Gascoigne, Best is held up by UK football fans as an example of the dark side of the game where a prodigous playing talent is squandered by a management and agent system often too quick to ignore personal problems of the players. Best himself often quotes a story that in the early seventies a young bellboy had entered his hotel room with breakfast - seeing the drunk Best in bed with the current Miss World, a magnum of champagne and several thousand pounds of cash won from a nights gambling the youth exclaims 'George where did it all go wrong'.

In 1973, the 27-year-old George Best was sacked by Manchester United for excessive drinking and persistent failure to attend training and matches. Over the next decade, Best drifted between several clubs including Fulham, Stockport County, Hibernian, Los Angeles Aztecs and finally Bournemouth until he retired from the game in 1983 at the age of 37.

In 1990 he appeared on a Prime-Time BBC chat show in which the clearly drunk Best swore. He later apologised and said this was one of the worst episodes of his alcoholism.

Today he features in the media as a result of his struggle with alcoholism - he has had many relapses. In 2000 he had a liver transplant. In 2003 he was the focus of much criticism when, despite his transplant, he openly drank white wine spritzers and was accused of being selfish and having no regard for other people's feelings. His wife appeared as a contestant in a 2003 reality television programme making allegations about the relationship.

On 3 January 2004, George Best was convicted of a drink driving offence and banned from driving for 20 months. 19 years earlier, Best had received a 3-month prison sentence for drink driving, assaulting a police officer and failing to answer bail. He spent Christmas 1984 behind bars and turned out as a player for Ford Open Prison.

In November 2004 Best agreed to join FA Premier League club Portsmouth F.C. as youth coach, citing his desire to get involved in football again.

George Best was named the best footballer ever in pele's 2004 FIFA 100 list.

External links

• George Best: A career profile with pictures from manutdzone.com http://www.manutdzone.com/legends/GeorgeBest.htm