A womaniser with a penchant for Miss Worlds

GEORGE BEST was as famous for his taste in women as he was for his football skills.

Often seen leaving nightclubs with beautiful blondes on his arm, he boasted he had slept with thousands during his hellraising years.

Best’s addiction to womanising started at 16, with a girl from a local bakery he met as a Manchester United apprentice.

With both fame and his blue-eyed charm on his side, he said that during one 24-hour spell in Manchester he bedded seven different women.

His first serious affair was with blonde Danish beauty Eva Haraldsted, who dated George in 1969 but sued him for breach of promise when he broke off their engagement.

The next was Joan Dekuyper, who was seen with him in the hot-spots of the early ‘70s, when his career began to slide.

The first of his Miss World flings was Marjorie Wallace, though he later denied in his autobiography, The Good, The Bad And The Bubbly, that he had sex with seven of the beauty pageant winners.

He said: “I didn’t - it was only four. I didn’t turn up for the other three.”

Best married his first wife Angie in 1978, in Las Vegas, and the couple moved to America where they had a son, Calum.

But she left him six years later when she discovered he was having an affair with the then Miss World, Mary Stavin.

Years later at a charity dinner, he joked he had once been asked whether he would rather score the winning goal in the European Cup Final or sleep with Miss World - and replied that he had not had to make the choice.

Best finally found a measure of stability with his young wife Alex - for whom he left his lover of eight years, Mary Shatila.

He married Alex in 1995 and said the former Virgin air hostess was the only person to whom he had ever been faithful.

But in July 2003, Best went on a very public drinking binge at a pub near the luxury cottage he shared with Alex in Reigate, Surrey.

It culminated in his arrest on suspicion of assault but he was later released.

The following month reports claimed that Best had been having an affair with blonde Paula Shapland.

In September 2003, Alex announced that she was separating from Best.

Two months later Best was reported to have smashed up Alex’s car after flying into a jealous rage.

They were granted a “quickie” divorce in April 2004.

Best hooked up with Gina Devivo whom he met at the Chequers Pub in Walton-on-the-Hill, Surrey. But she later said she regretted ever meeting him.

In June this year, Best was questioned by police over an allegation that he punched a woman friend of hers outside Gina’s home.

During the same period, Best’s new lover was cautioned by police for an alleged assault on him.