Belfast boy lives forever in our hearts

THERE’S always been a good Old Trafford indicator of how much a player is loved: music. Naturally, George was honoured by plenty of terrace songs - still is, in fact.

Every month or so, awayday Reds will drop into a Georgie tune; legends live forever at United. The greatest record ever to come out of the footie/pop interface was all about George too: ‘Belfast Boy’ by Don Fardon, a funky, evocative, guaranteed spirit-lifter at 2.55pm on the tannoy.

Only the best for Best, aptly enough.

But a song I remember from when I started going to OT in 1974 rang so true at the time: “We All Live In A Georgie Best World.” He’d only just left United, driven out by a Tommy Docherty at his most poisonous - even if he was necessarily ruthless - and the whiff of sulphur, tinged with whisky or white wine, hung heavy in the air. A dozen weeks after Best walked out of the stadium, United were finally relegated (George’s timing impeccable as ever).

And so began that curious afterlife, which exactly paralleled that of the other great Sixties phenomenon with which George was always bracketed: The Beatles. For a decade after 1970, reunion mania dogged the Fab Four’s every move; similarly, from 1974 until well into the Eighties, every sighting of Besty anywhere near the North of England was a guaranteed tabloid splash.

As a child, it was hard to appreciate at first - until I’d learned the history and watched the tapes - why these grown men around me in G-stand, including my father, would girlishly quiver at the merest whisper that George and United might be reunited. It was like the Sword In The Stone, this mystical wait for salvation. Which never came, of course. He left us wanting more, just like the Fabs, and so a legend endures, unsullied by second coming let-downs.

He still is, in the mind’s eye, a James Dean figure; so young in footballing terms, forever a devilishly brooding sexy 27-year-old in red and white.

You’ll hear a lot of guff about George in the next few days. There’ll be talk of the “waste” of his early retirement. It will also be suggested his private life will detract from or overshadow his professional career. Doubtless some know-nowt harridans will cast aspersions about his intelligence or his devotion to duty. Much of this can be dismissed with the Wagner Argument: consider the work, not the life.

But much of the chatter is absurd. A waste? Lord knows we’d have loved a few extra years but the man was an English and European Champion, voted the continent’s greatest player in 1968 and regularly cited as the game’s greatest talent ever. Some waste!

At Old Trafford he stands at the summit, the key figure in United’s two greatest nights, Lisbon 1966 and Wembley 1968, the latter featuring a Best moment that counts as the most important juncture in United’s history as he slalomed home the second goal.

Scandals overshadowing successes? Rubbish: we’ve already forgotten 90% of his naughtiness as each day’s tabloids turn to fish ‘n’ chip paper - but no one will forget the goals, the magic, the majesty.

A lazy fool? That’s the worst libel of all: George sailed through his 11 plus, had probably the highest IQ at the club and provided fascinating intellectual company; universally regarded as the ultimate trainer, endlessly honing his techniques and the winner of every sprint and long-haul run at The Cliff.

His legacy to the staff at Old Trafford is at first painfully obvious - that every hot new young talent will have to live with ‘the new George Best?’ tag sooner or later and that no veering-off-the-rails mid-twentysomething wants to be accused of being ‘the new Best’ in that context either.

But what really matters is that George helped sanctify certain values at United for all of us, staff and fans alike - the primacy of style and flair, the glory of allowing precocious youth free reign, the joy of the unexpectedly instinctive defeating tactical routine. Above all, like his Number 7 successor Cantona, he taught us this: football can simultaneously be a beautiful art form as well as a sport. And the goal is to create indelible memories of being thrilled, not merely prosaically to stick the ball into the net.

George only won three top medals, yet will be feted for as long as football exists, whilst so many tedious trophy-laden drones are long forgotten. We could all drink to that, no?

* Richard Kurt, author of ‘United!: Despatches From Old Trafford’