My wife broke her arm during our drunken family row, says Best

GEORGE Best revealed yesterday how his wife Alex fell and broke her arm during a drunken row at their home.

In last night’s BBC1 programme, George Best: Me and My Liver, the football legend and his wife admit they used to have drunken brawls.

The 56-year-old Best said: “I never really hurt anybody. But Alex and I, we had fights. Actually, she did have to go hospital once. She fell and broke her arm.”

Explaining the event, which happened during a time when George was drinking, Alex said: “That was a little fall-out, that was my fault, I tripped over.

“It was a little scuffle and George didn’t push me, but I did fall over, so that was another trip to the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.”

Alex denied George ever hit her: “He didn’t beat me up. We lashed out at each other.

“It was probably more a case of me hitting him. I mean, it was George who used to have the black eye and everyone used to think it was quite a joke. But I used to get so frustrated.”

In the programme, George appears drawn and tired but claims his addiction to alcohol “is totally gone”.

“I can honestly say that I will never, ever drink again. It doesn’t cross my mind.

“Maybe a glass of water or a milkshake but, in all honesty, this is the first time in my life when it is not in the back of my mind that one day I will have another drink.”

Speaking from their home in Surrey, George recalled how he nearly died from a post-operative infection and talked about the moral issue of undergoing a liver transplant.

Asked whether, because his liver disease was a direct result of alcohol abuse, he deserved a transplant, George said: “I can see that point of view, but if the medical world has no qualms about it and they’re the ones who do it and decide who does and who doesn’t need the operations, then that’s fine.”

The couple described how their lives have changed since the operation and the 15 tablets he is required to take every day.

They told how George is no longer able to sunbathe thanks to the anti-rejection drugs which have left him susceptible to skin cancer.

But, George said: “I feel now like I felt when I was 15. And every day I’m around it’s like two fingers up.”