Best’s ex-wife set to remarry

ALEX Best, ex-wife of soccer legend George Best, is to remarry.

The 34-year-old became engaged to businessman Howard Kruger on New Year’s Day, but the couple have yet to set a date.

Alex, who was 26 years younger than Mr Best, was married to him for nine years.

They divorced in 2004 but remained in contact until his death in November 2005.

She said Mr Best would “always be the love of my life,” but “there comes a time when you can’t live in the past any more.”

“If you live in the past you go backwards rather than forwards,” she said.

She wanted children “as soon as possible,” she added.

Mr Kruger — who proposed as Alex tried to phone her mother from a telephone box — met Alex at a New Year’s Day party in 2004 and the couple have had an on-off relationship.

Mr Kruger, described by Alex as her “best friend” and “a really lovely guy”, supported her during her divorce from Mr Best, while she stuck by him after he was jailed in 2005 for indecently assaulting a girl.

Alex, who visited him weekly in prison, was always convinced of his innocence, and the conviction was overturned last March.

“I would not have stuck by him unless I absolutely knew for a fact that he was innocent. He is such a lovely, sweet, kind, generous man that it was heartbreaking. I was absolutely devastated,” she said.

“We have always been through everything together.”