Best's coffin arrives at family home

George Best was finally back home in Belfast today.

More than 40 years after he set off as a teenager to seek fame and fortune with Manchester United, his coffin was taken back to his father’s home in the Cregagh area of east Belfast.

A policeman saluted as the hearse pulled up outside the terraced house in Burren Way at exactly 1.15pm.

Moments later, his coffin, draped in a red Manchester United flag, was wheeled into the house where the blinds in all the windows were closed.

Best’s father, Dickie and his grandson Calum, together with all of Best’s brothers and sisters, had driven from RAF Aldergrove in a small convoy escorted by police motorbike outriders.

Both ends of the 200 yard long street were sealed by police but neighbours from the houses in the street gathered opposite the Best house and stood silently in pouring rain as the coffin was taken inside.

Dickie Best stood in the front garden with grandson Calum for several minutes, showing him the shrine of wreaths, flowers and football shirts and scarves which has built up in the week since the football legend died.

Just moments before the cortege arrived at the house, police allowed a teenager through the cordon to place one more wreath outside the house.

Several hundred fans stood at the end of the street paying their respects to their footballing hero but most adhered to the request from the Best family to stay away.

The coffin, bearing Best’s body, will remain in his father’s house overnight before a private service in the house followed by a more public service of celebration of his life at Stormont.

Massive crowds are expected to line the route as the coffin is taken from the house the few miles to Stormont – crowds within the grounds are to be limited to 30,000 on safety grounds.

By lunchtime tomorrow, Best will have been buried beside his mother, Ann, in a hilltop cemetery above the east Belfast streets where he grew up and developed the footballing skills that made him a soccer legend.

Such is the interest in the funeral, that the cemetery will be closed two hours before the internment and will remain closed for the rest of the day once the Best family have left.