George Best

[Nitetime Neil]

I'm going to have to check my programme collection to see if I ever saw Best play - I know I saw Northern Ireland play England at Wembley and Fulham play at Bolton with my dad in the early 70's but cannot recall him in action. Maybe he had a rare quiet day ! Even for those much younger than me who've only seen the classic TV clips it's obvious he was a phenomenal talent and quite rightly should be remembered for that.

 

However, the obscene amount of coverage on TV and in the press (my paper had two six page specials on Saturday - front AND back !) whilst not ignoring his drink problems, was completely out of proportion with the waste that he made of his life after hitting the bottle and sends out all the wrong signals to young people today, especially at this time of longer drinking hours and binge drinking concerns. To me, it is sending out a message saying "if you are a superstar for a few short years of your life, then it doesn't matter if you are a drunk for the remaining 30 odd, coz everyone will love and forgive you, whatever you do or whoever you hurt in the process". I have no problem with us not having the tribute minute at New Lodge on Saturday as Best never played for or even against Ricay, and maybe didn't even know we existed - if we had a minute's silence/applause everytime someone famous died or there was a disaster somewhere in the world, we'd have to have 89 minutes "respects" and one minute's soccer each time ! Let's keep the pre-match tributes for someone who actually played or worked for the club - Len Dewson, yes. George Best, no.

 

One good thing to come out of all this though is the minute's applause idea - it obviously doesn't work for major tragedies, i.e. 9/11, but it is much better idea to honour heroes. It has always been too easy for one idiot with a big mouth to ruin a minute's silence, whereas the same person keeping quiet when everyone else is applauding wouldn't even be noticed !