Not just the surname of our greatest ever player but also an apt description of the Irishman in his pomp five decades ago. On the 12th anniversary of his death, we revisit Georgie’s finest season in football…
In 1967/68, arguably the most gilded, fulfilling and ultimately redemptive campaign in the history of Manchester United, there was no finer footballer on the planet than George Best.
True, such stellar names as Pele and Eusebio, Johan Cruyff and Franz Beckenbauer, could be advanced as legitimate rivals for that accolade.
But those blessed to witness the Irish dazzler regularly and at first hand as Matt Busby’s Reds finally attained their holy grail of the European Cup and went agonisingly close to retaining the League championship, there was not the merest scintilla of doubt – for that term, at least, Best knew no peer, operating in an exalted category that was entirely his own.