Family to meet Best's coffin

George Best’s coffin will be brought to Northern Ireland tomorrow by a private plane.

Arrangements have been made for his family to meet it when the small charter aircraft arrives at RAF Aldergrove, Co.Antrim at noon.

His son Callum and agent Phil Hughes will be on the plane.

The coffin will then be taken by hearse and driven with a police escort 20 miles to Belfast where it will be kept overnight at the home of his father Dickie, 87, in advance of Saturday’s funeral.

Only close family relatives are being allowed into RAF Aldergrove.

His father, sisters Carol and Barbara, twin sisters Julie and Grace along with their husbands, Alan McPherson, Norman McNarry, Peter Nixon and David Campbell, will be among the few people present.

Best’s brother Ian who lives in Poole, Dorset, is due to travel to Belfast tomorrow as well.

With hundreds of thousands of people expected to line the funeral route, police tonight finalised arrangements for a funeral which is set to be like no other.

Mr McNarry: “I think Dickie will be relieved to have George home at last.

“He has been bearing up reasonably well. Like the rest of us, he has his good days, and bad. At times, some of us feel completely drained.”

After a funeral service in the Great Hall at Parliament Buildings, Stormont, Best will be buried beside his mother Ann at Roselawn Cemetery on the eastern outskirts of the city.

The ceremony will be a family affair only.

Mr McNarry added: “There has been so much devotion shown for George, and we would be grateful if the public respect our wishes and allow us the space, and privacy, to be on our own at the graveside.”