George Best would have been 75 today

[KeanoMagicHat]

Happy birthday George Best. A nice article tribute to him.

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/so...e-show-s-still-going-on-without-you-1.4570652

“Sometimes I feel as if I’m a one-man zoo” - the level of attention Best got must have been so overwhelming. He was the youngest ever winner of the Ballon d'Or and remained so until Ronaldo in 1997. Not everybody can deal with that kind of scrutiny. But he certainly did sparkle when he did play. The most talented player to ever play for United?

 

[Maticmaker]

Happy birthday George Best. A nice article tribute to him.

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/so...e-show-s-still-going-on-without-you-1.4570652

“Sometimes I feel as if I’m a one-man zoo” - the level of attention Best got must have been so overwhelming. He was the youngest ever winner of the Ballon d'Or and remained so until Ronaldo in 1997. Not everybody can deal with that kind of scrutiny. But he certainly did sparkle when he did play. The most talented player to ever play for United?

That reference in the article to staying on his feet whilst 'chopper Harris' continued to try to bring him down, (3 attempts) is something burned into my memory. I witnessed that and would claim it was the greatest testimony to Best's toughness as well as his speed, balance and ball skills. Very few players withstood one challenge from Harris, let alone two or three.

 

[Red_toad]

Wish I gotten to see him play live. Old mate of mine who had the pleasure of watching him play for United is adamant he's unrivaled as a player.

 

[Gary_Walsh_Nou_Camp_Hell]

Great player, shit person.

 

[cyberman]

Great player, shit person.

Why was he a shit person? Because he suffered from alcoholism?

 

[harms]

Why was he a shit person? Because he suffered from alcoholism?

Wife beating would be a more likely reason, I think

 

[Adisa]

Wife beating would be a more likely reason, I think

Read an article about it recently. Wasn't even a slap or something he beat her up. Horrible.

 

[UnrelatedPsuedo]

BBC Link

Imagine. 28 years old. Dunstable. As a European Cup winner. As a European Footballer of the Year. Dunstable.

 

[UnrelatedPsuedo]

Great player, shit person.

“Great player, did some shitty things’ is a healthier and more accurate thing to say. If you really need to go there.

Do better. It’s easy.

 

[FreddieTheReddie]

“Great player, did some shitty things’ is a healthier and more accurate thing to say. If you really need to go there.

Do better. It’s easy.

Why can’t we simply call a woman abuser shit person? He was a shit person. I don’t like the club’s insta post either.

 

[Chabon]

Genuinely think he’s in the argument for second best player of all time, but a combination of burning out early and playing for a tiny national team means he doesn’t get the recognition he deserves.

 

[UnrelatedPsuedo]

Why can’t we simply call a woman abuser shit person? He was a shit person. I don’t like the club’s insta post either.

People can. I just think it’s wholly unnecessary to do it like that. It’s just spewed out and achieves nothing.

Some of his behaviour was unquestionably garbage. Rolling out “Great player, shit person” as if it’s some hot take, in a thread like this... It’s just so self defeating.

To be clear, I wouldn’t have a problem with a 40 page thread debating his flaws and crimes. But the constant injection of pointless hostility is just exhausting. Adds nothing. No good comes from it.

 

[17Larsson]

Why can’t we simply call a woman abuser shit person? He was a shit person. I don’t like the club’s insta post either.

What was wrong with the club's instagram post?

 

[Gary_Walsh_Nou_Camp_Hell]

“Great player, did some shitty things’ is a healthier and more accurate thing to say. If you really need to go there.

Do better. It’s easy.

Yes Best could have done better. It is easy not to kick the shit out of women if you don't want to.

Yes I'll 'go there'. Just as i'd 'go there' in a Giggs thread. Or when talking about anyone that treats people like shit and is a violent coward.

 

[Gary_Walsh_Nou_Camp_Hell]

Why was he a shit person? Because he suffered from alcoholism?

Nah, addiction is an illness. It's the other stuff.

 

[Josh 76]

Genuinely think he’s in the argument for second best player of all time, but a combination of burning out early and playing for a tiny national team means he doesn’t get the recognition he deserves.

I wasn’t alive when he was playing. How many years did he actually play at the level of being the best in the world ?

 

[djembatheking]

Yes Best could have done better. It is easy not to kick the shit out of women if you don't want to.

Yes I'll 'go there'. Just as i'd 'go there' in a Giggs thread. Or when talking about anyone that treats people like shit and is a violent coward.

They always said a young Giggs was the next George Best.

 

[UnrelatedPsuedo]

Yes Best could have done better. It is easy not to kick the shit out of women if you don't want to.

Yes I'll 'go there'. Just as i'd 'go there' in a Giggs thread. Or when talking about anyone that treats people like shit and is a violent coward.

Honestly mate, you do you. I think it’s silly. Hearing these throwaway lines routinely probably diminishes their impact.

You’d be better off doing it properly if you really want to have an impact.

As it is, you look like the kind of human that turns Smooth Criminal up when it comes in the radio, and bellows “Mental that he was a kiddy fiddler” as you moonwalk across the kitchen floor. It’s all a bit basic.

 

[Badunk]

The greatest player of all time. He's who I'd want on my team above anyone else. RIP

 

[Gary_Walsh_Nou_Camp_Hell]

Honestly mate, you do you. I think it’s silly. Hearing these throwaway lines routinely probably diminishes their impact.

You’d be better off doing it properly if you really want to have an impact.

As it is, you look like the kind of human that turns Smooth Criminal up when it comes in the radio, and bellows “Mental that he was a kiddy fiddler” as you moonwalk across the kitchen floor. It’s all a bit basic.

Seems like I touched a nerve by mentioning the wife beating stuff, interesting that.

 

[Poltophagy]

The difference between Giggs and Best is that the former seems like a shit person overall, while the latter was mostly an asshole due to living in the bottle. Best is tragic, Giggs is just pathetic.

 

[harms]

I wasn’t alive when he was playing. How many years did he actually play at the level of being the best in the world ?

About 5 or 6 years, from 1967-ish to 1972-ish. Surprisingly long, considering how early he began to decline, but he was one of the most impressive teenagers of all-time (somewhere close to L. Ronaldo).

 

[acnumber9]

The difference between Giggs and Best is that the former seems like a shit person overall, while the latter was mostly an asshole due to living in the bottle. Best is tragic, Giggs is just pathetic.

The difference in perception is time.

 

[The Cat]

Seems like I touched a nerve by mentioning the wife beating stuff, interesting that.

Seems you love the attention though.

 

[UnrelatedPsuedo]

Seems like I touched a nerve by mentioning the wife beating stuff, interesting that.

This is not how conversation works mate. That’s a godawful response.

 

[pacifictheme]

Despite him being retired long before I could ever watch him I hold this guy as the best player who ever played for us and one of the best players of all time. Yeah he definitely was not a great human but playing football this man was a god.

 

[Gehrman]

I have a older Man Utd mate who was a match going fan during the Best years and still maintains he's the best he's ever seen.

 

[Foxbatt]

I became a United fan when I was a kid due to Best. He got kicked a lot. These days he would be a lot more protected. He is the best I have seen and that includes Diego, Pele and Cruijff. Ronaldo is no where up to Best as a player. Best was different from Giggs. Best was violent when he was drunk. Yes he should have been prosecuted for that.

 

[Sultan]

I had the pleasure of watching Best play live. He was one of the big reasons why I started supporting United as a child.

I sometimes wonder with his talent how good he would have been in today's environment and conditions. He played on awful grassless muddy pitches. Defenders were given licences to play as wrestlers, boxers, and rugby players dressed as footballers. The footballs were horrible compared to today's and weighed a ton when wet. Little wonder a number of older player suffer from Alzheimer's.

 

[NFM]

George Best was the best footballer in the world in an era when there were some brilliant players , including Pele and his Brasillian mates, Eusebio etc.
This was a time of hard men, and hard footballs, and hard pitches. Today he would have seemed like a God.
You see Pele, Cruyff, Zidane, Messi, even Cristiano on TV or occasionally live; we used to see Georgie at least once a fortnight. The only player who remotely comes near him is Maradona, a player who combined great skill with the personal ability to change the 'reality'.
I have great difficulty wondering how United supporters don't recognise that the greatest player of all time played for THEIR team.
Its a bit sad.
But ask just about anyone of a 'certain age' and with some knowledge of football, and the vast majority will repeat the same words 'Pele was the greatest player in the world, but George was made in heaven'.
RIP George, you will never, ever be forgotten.

 

[Sultan]

There are some characters who make you fall in love with their respective sports. These are one-off generational geniuses admittedly not always PC and mostly complex characters.

These geniuses get you interested in their particular sports. George Best got me interested in football. I wouldn't have ever been interested in watching snooker had it not been for Alex Higgins and now Ronnie O'Sullivan. Similar characters in cricket. I haven't been interested in boxing since Muhammad Ali retired.

 

[Foxbatt]

There are some characters who make you fall in love with their respective sports. These are one-off generational geniuses admittedly not always PC and mostly complex characters.

These geniuses get you interested in their particular sports. George Best got me interested in football. I wouldn't have ever been interested in watching snooker had it not been for Alex Higgins and now Ronnie O'Sullivan. Similar characters in cricket. I haven't been interested in boxing since Muhammad Ali retired.

He went and played for Dunstable because Barry Fry was the manager and he helped Best when he was a kid. When sober they say he was one of the nicest blokes.

 

[Oranges038]

Great player, shit person.

Best was a great player. But I've watched his documentary a couple of times and he was a complete ass in his personal life.

I read some of the responses to your comment. A guy wanted to fight me one day in a bar after mentioning this while watching a game, he was waxing lyrical about Best and was moaning about Ronaldo. I agreed he was a great player but that I had zero respect for him because of his abuse towards his wife.

Feel the same about Giggs now.

 

[Stack]

I wasn’t alive when he was playing. How many years did he actually play at the level of being the best in the world ?

He had a period at Utd where he was top scorer for 5 out of 6 seasons, all done while playing out wide and not as a striker.

 

[MoskvaRed]

Can we not separate the player from the man? I never saw him but have heard enough from my father to believe he was United‘s best ever player. And, if we do put aside the personal failings, the flipside is not telling laddish jokes about “where did it all go wrong, George” when he is on the bed with Miss World and the casino winnings. Same with Oliver Reed, Alex Higgins etc.

 

[Stack]

Seems like I touched a nerve by mentioning the wife beating stuff, interesting that.

That response says more about you than it does about UnrelatedPseudo.

Best was my hero when he played. I was lucky enough to see him live, he was the reason i became a Utd fan. I even met him once. He was a huge icon when he played, far more than just the football.
He also had a dark side, he got aggressive and angry when drunk. His attitudes and manner when drunk were appalling. That side of him deserves to be discussed and dissected.
As UnrelatedPseudo said a thread on that side of his life wouldnt be a problem and would be a long thread, deservedly so but I do agree with UnrelatedPseudo in that the constant injection of hostility into these types of threads is exhausting. Its the same sort of thing in womens football threads where some feel the need to pop in and say " womens football is shit" then never appear in the thread again
Thats all you have done, a throw away bit of hostility to make yourself feel superior.

What would be good is if you actually started a thread discussing Bests flaws, aggressive tendencies when drunk and take part in it. The comparison to Giggs is worth exploring.
My money is on you lacking the ability or integrity to do just that.

 

[Cascarino]

...

Considering that there are plenty of Manchester United fans wholly unaware about some of Best’s actions (some literally in this thread) I don’t see the problem with someone commenting on them in a thread about George Best.

 

[Stack]

Considering that there are plenty of Manchester United fans wholly unaware about some of Best’s actions (some literally in this thread) I don’t see the problem with someone commenting on them in a thread about George Best.

People commenting on Bests dark history isnt a problem. Create a thread about it. Its worth a hefty discussion, he was appalling with his drunk actions.

The issue is with the injections of this sort of thing into any and every thread on Best.
As I mentioned every womens football thread has random people who will pop in and say "womens football is shit" then never appear again in the thread. I bet it will happen often in the next womens worlkd cup thread. Its unneccesary in those threads.

Time and place for everything.
Garywalshnoucamphell will disappear from this thread even though he apparently feels strongly about it. What he wont do is create a thread about Bests dark side and dissect it there. He is a hit and run merchant. Thats the issue.

 

[Jeppers7]

The best player to ever play for our club....never learned to handle the fame and adulation his talent and looks brought him, which tragically led to his death. His family and ex wives hold him dearly.

what a player.

some absolute cocks in this thread, I hate the internet. It makes non-United fans feel like they are United fans.

No.1 was Georgie Best and no.2 was Georgie Best....We all live in a Georgie Best world.

 

[Jeppers7]

George Best was the best footballer in the world in an era when there were some brilliant players , including Pele and his Brasillian mates, Eusebio etc.
This was a time of hard men, and hard footballs, and hard pitches. Today he would have seemed like a God.
You see Pele, Cruyff, Zidane, Messi, even Cristiano on TV or occasionally live; we used to see Georgie at least once a fortnight. The only player who remotely comes near him is Maradona, a player who combined great skill with the personal ability to change the 'reality'.
I have great difficulty wondering how United supporters don't recognise that the greatest player of all time played for THEIR team.
Its a bit sad.
But ask just about anyone of a 'certain age' and with some knowledge of football, and the vast majority will repeat the same words 'Pele was the greatest player in the world, but George was made in heaven'.
RIP George, you will never, ever be forgotten.

Nice.