“I know what to expect from George Best.”
Some statements are just destined to make their speaker look foolish from the moment they leave their lips. On September 4, 1976, it was the turn of Lindsay Parsons to find that out. Bristol Rovers’ stalwart full-back was speaking to the press ahead of his side’s Second Division fixture against Fulham at a packed Craven Cottage – more than 21,000, double the average gate, would cram in to witness the debut of the former Ballon d’Or winner.
“I’ve played against him before against Manchester United,” Parsons went on. “I’ve never had a complex about him and I’m not going to start now. I’ll mark him out of the game. There will be no dream debut for George Best.”
It took just 71 seconds for Fulham’s new star man to make his brash man-marker look silly, curling an exquisite free-kick around the Rovers wall and into the net with effortless class, as spectators still made their way through the turnstiles.
It would be the only goal of the game, but for the remaining 89 minutes, Best made Parsons and his team-mates dance to his tune, as if to highlight just how misplaced the defender’s arrogance had been. A drop of the shoulder would send them one way, a stepover the other, a feint of a pass bringing them back again, all against a backdrop of ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ from Cottagers who couldn’t quite believe their luck.
Best’s performance raised a glaring question that dominated the backpages of the tabloids the next day. How could this footballing icon, one of the greatest players in the world, be playing in the Second Division?
The simple answer lay in direct opposition to Parsons’ claims: after he left Manchester United, you never really knew what to expect from George Best.
“Damn those electric curtains!”
When people recall the magic of the Manchester United great, they remember him in the iconic number seven shirt, just as he remains in statue form outside Old Trafford. Most likely, they remember his stratospheric rise to global stardom, and his goal against Benfica in the 1968 European Cup final, in the year he was crowned the continent’s finest player. They might also remember him scoring six goals in a single game, during an 8-2 FA Cup thrashing of Northampton Town.
For the most part, they remember Best of the 60s, but that was merely part one. Throughout the 70s and early 80s, the second part of Best’s career was as bizarre and chaotic as the first was miraculous.
Over the course of a decade, Best turned out for a plethora of different clubs across the globe, was sacked by some, walked out on others, was taken to court by one, and was served a worldwide playing ban by FIFA. It was a cyclical tale of brilliance, hope and self-sabotage that few could take their eyes off.
“He was never late for training. Never missed it. And he was a great trainer, too,” said former Manchester United team-mate Willie Morgan. “His downfall started when he had that bloody house built.”
In July 1970, Best moved out of his humble room and board at Mary Fullaway’s house in the Manchester suburb of Chorlton-cum-Hardy. He’d stayed with the maternal figure since moving to the club at the age of 15, and throughout his rise to the top, but was now settling into his first own home – one much more befitting to his level of celebrity.
The purpose-built luxury bachelor pad, which he named Que Sera, was packed with smart-home gadgets far ahead of their time and was said to be one of the most famous modernist designs in the country. It was also credited as the catalyst of its owner’s unravelling.
With little to no security and a design of floor-to-ceiling windows all around, Best found himself living in a £35,000 goldfish bowl, as crowds of people would form outside the building. The problem, compounded by the fact that regular planes on the Manchester Airport path would set off the automated curtains and give the tourists a good look at Manchester United’s top scorer in his bedroom, made him seek an escape. As he sought refuge from his own home in the city’s bars and nightclubs, a spiral of missed training sessions, disciplinaries and public criticism began.
“I just don’t know what’s wrong with the lad,” his boss Matt Busby told reporters after the first such incident. There would be many more under successors Frank O’Farrell and Tommy Docherty – by New Year’s Day in 1974, Best was playing his last game for the club, an unbefitting 3-0 defeat at QPR.
He was just 27 years old, but as time moved on from that fixture at Loftus Road, doting fans grew doubtful of ever seeing him on a football pitch again. For nearly two years, one of the world’s most talented sportsmen spent his prime living the life of a retired footballer in Spain, insisting he was done for good. The only football he played came in the form of a handful of games for Jewish Guild in South Africa for an £11,000 payday, and two friendlies for non-league Dunstable Town.
Throughout it all, Best remained registered to Manchester United, and needed the club’s permission to play. His sustained attachment left some hope of a return to Old Trafford, although not much expectation. What nobody could have possibly expected, however, was what happened next.
The friendlies at Dunstable – a favour for their manager Barry Fry, his former team-mate in the Manchester United youth system – had lit a fire in Best, and he announced to the world that he was making a comeback. It wouldn’t be with the Red Devils – instead, the superstar decided to officially sever ties with the club and sign for fourth-tier Stockport County.
“I want to harden up,” he said. “I want a bit of kicking from eager youngsters in the Fourth Division to keep me on my toes, to keep me moving. But I’m after the big time and I’m determined to make it.”
Playing only in Stockport’s home games, he set about getting himself into shape and dodging the temptations of his vices by checking himself into a health farm. He was determined for it to be the beginning of a rise back to the top. Where better to start than the bottom?
“He’s the greatest player I have seen,” Stoke City forward Jimmy Greenhoff declared after a friendly match between his First Division side and Stockport on November 10, 1975. “No-one else could have come back after two years and played as he did.”
The crowds were drawn in – Stockport’s attendances tripled for a glimpse of Best on the pitch. They got what they came for. The Northern Irishman scored his side’s only goal in a 1-1 draw, but was unlucky not to bag a debut hat-trick, hitting the crossbar twice.
Over the next 47 days, Best played three league matches for the club, starring in all of them, scoring two goals, inspiring two wins and a draw. Having suffered defeat in seven of the previous 11 matches before the shock signing, Stockport now looked like a side who couldn’t lose. Suddenly, every club wanted a piece of George Best – his outlandish plan to use the Fourth Division as a way of putting himself in the shop window seemed to be working.
“I’ll give some team at least three good years if they give me a good contract,” the 29-year-old declared in one of many ‘come and get me’ pleas. “If I can get to Spain to sign for Real Madrid, who’ve come in for me, I could make a fortune. No woman, no taste of high life, is going to take that chance away from me.”
Handcuffed to a model
Best had a brief spell in Ireland with Cork Celtic – on the other side of the Atlantic though, the burgeoning North American Soccer League (NASL) was going all out for his signature. Los Angeles Aztecs were so desperate to stave off the competition that they agreed to Best’s request for them to also sign his pal – gambling buddy, Bobby McAlinden. George made the case to the Aztecs general manager John Chaffetz by describing McAlinden as a “good little midfield player” who’d “played for Manchester City”.
“That satisfied him,” Best recalled. “I simply neglected to say that Bobby only played once for the City first team, before being transferred to Port Vale and then Stockport.” At the latter, McAlinden had only played for the reserves, before quitting to become a roofer – before his move to Los Angeles, he was more used to five-a-sides at the local YMCA.
A smug Best thought he’d tricked his new club, and perhaps he had. But the willingness to bend to their star player’s will was a sign of things to come. Chaffetz realised the way to deal with the reputation of his new signing, as well as the media circus that tagged along, was to lean into it. He met Best at the airport and immediately handcuffed him to a young model he’d brought along for the occasion, telling everyone who’d come to welcome the star that the stunt was to “make sure he doesn’t go anywhere”.
The club’s head coach Terry Fisher also understood the assignment. “There was going to be one set of rules for George and another set for the other internationals on my team,” he said. “Once you understood it wasn’t about trying to get George to conform to anything, it was more going to be about trying to understand what George wanted from coming to America, you could form a partnership.”
The approach was a welcome change for Best, who found glittering form, armed with a point to prove. Previously he’d ducked out of an agreement to join New York Cosmos from Manchester United – the NASL side instead signed Pele and general manager Clive Toye, still reeling from being stood up at Manchester Airport, teased: “Why sign George Best when you can sign the best?”
Just like a certain Second Division full-back later found out, words like that tended to stay ringing in the ears of the former Ballon d’Or winner. “I’m better than Pele,” Best told reporters after arriving in the NASL. “In fact, I think I’m better right now than Pele was in his prime.”
During his time there, Best lit up the league, named in the division’s all-star team alongside Pele, Franz Beckenbauer and Gordon Banks. “For me, America offered a fresh start,” Best wrote in his autobiography, Blessed. “It took me out of the goldfish bowl at home and the drinking, gambling routine which I knew I had to stop. It also allowed me to play football without the massive pressure that had been on me when I played for United. I was training like a lunatic at the beginning… I drastically cut down on my drinking too and for a time, at least, I kept the demons at bay.”
Two other names to feature in the NASL’s all-star line-up were Rodney Marsh, of the Tampa Bay Rowdies, and Bobby Moore, who’d joined San Antonio Thunder on loan from Fulham. Once the NASL campaign finished in late August 1976, the trio all headed to Craven Cottage.
Best’s dream debut against Bristol Rovers was followed by one of his greatest showings since the glory days, in a 2-1 League Cup win over Peterborough. With Best operating on one wing and Marsh on the other, the two played as though the rest of their team-mates were front-row spectators, seeking each other out every time one of them received the ball. Towards the end of the first half, Best broke the deadlock with what one newspaper reporter described as “one of the finest goals I have ever seen”. Taking the ball from Marsh, the long-haired and bearded No.7 casually flicked it up into the air and volleyed a looping shot from 30 yards, which dipped into the top corner.
While Manchester United gave Best his greatest memories on a football pitch, Fulham provided him with the most fun he’d ever experienced on one. That Peterborough victory was the start of a partnership that brought entertainment back into English football, during a time when it was criticised for being dull and defensive. On occasion, Best would even run over to the opposite wing and tackle his own team-mate, as an audacious party trick.
“We had celebrities coming to watch us every week,” remembered Tony Gale, a youngster at the club back then. “Anyone and everyone wanted to come and watch Fulham play in the Second Division. Rodney and Mooro brought a certain glamour, but George is the man I still regard as the best I played with. Goodness knows what he was like in his pomp. Every day in training, we watched him do things with the ball that I never saw anyone do again throughout my career.”
Behind bars
It may not have been the return to the top that Best felt he was destined for, but those years in the white of the Aztecs and Fulham, rather than Real Madrid, remain celebrated. Sadly, his association with both soon turned sour as he admitted later that he began to “wake up in the mornings needing a drink”.
A drink-driving car crash outside Harrods in London catapulted Best through the windscreen, fracturing his shoulder and leaving him needing 57 stitches in his face. After heading back to LA for the 1977 NASL campaign, he returned to Fulham that autumn, but made just 10 more appearances, fleeing back to America to open a beach bar and become his own most loyal customer. “I decided I’d had enough and went back to LA,” Best wrote in his book. “It was the off-season of course, but there was no off-season as far as drinking and women were concerned.”
Fulham were furious. Following Best’s appearances in the 1978 NASL, he didn’t return to Craven Cottage at all, instead heading off on a European friendly tour with Detroit Express. The Cottagers took him to court, prompting FIFA to issue a worldwide playing ban that remained in place for six months.
By then, Best had already left Los Angeles, too. A new owner had taken over the Aztecs and planned to tap into a new supporter demographic by filling the squad with players from Mexico, resulting in a fast decline in the standard. “I followed the familiar pattern of drinking to forget the football and managing it so well that I even forgot to turn up for training,” Best said. “In the end, I told them I didn’t want to play for them any more – they packed me off to Fort Lauderdale Strikers.”
With the “demons well and truly returned”, as Best put it, he played on for another six years, although that was broken up by his fight against the ban, two spells in a rehab centre and a three-month prison sentence for drink-driving and assaulting a police officer. He had spells at Hibernian, San Jose Earthquakes, Bournemouth, Brisbane Lions and Northern Ireland’s Tobermore United, as well as making guest appearances for Hong Kong duo Sea Bee and Rangers, Newry Town, Australian club Dee Why, and Reading for a friendly against New Zealand at Elm Park in October 1984, by which time he was 38.
Despite Best’s struggles, there remained moments of mind-boggling brilliance. His Fort Lauderdale debut had seen him score with his first touch, finding the back of the net again from “an almost impossible angle” in a 5-3 thriller. So great were some of his performances for the San Jose Earthquakes that Manchester United manager Ron Atkinson arranged to meet the 35-year-old in London to discuss a shock return. Just like the Cosmos boss at Manchester Airport, Atkinson was left waiting on a no-show.
Asked years later what his biggest regret in life was, Best responded without hesitation: “Leaving United.” Finally given the opportunity to return though, he’d instead signed for Bournemouth – at the Third Division club, a notice reading “George Best will not be playing today” was a more common sight than the man himself. You never really knew what to expect from George Best.