Ronaldo
25-11-2005, 02:15 PM
This is sincerely one of the worst days I've ever had in terms of football. I am genuinely lost for words. He was one of my boyhood heroes, probably my greatest football hero. He was the greatest British player of all time. He had faults but he inspired a whole generation to play the game as a challenge ro make your opponent surprised or left spinning and bewildered as you left them dead. Every kid tried it whether they could do it or not and that kind of role model in attacking brave football led to a generation of great football in the 1970's.
I'm shattered.
Here he is in the twighlight of his career playing in America (the video is on a slow server so let it download and then replay it) Click (http://media.putfile.com/George-Part-1)
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From the Telegraph a month ago -
No one has fired barbs at Best better than George himself
By Robert Philip
(Filed: 28/10/2005)
George Best makes a greater appeal to the senses than Tom Finney or Stan Matthews did. His movements are quicker, lighter, more balletic.
George offers grander surprises to the mind and the eye, he has the more refined, unexpected range. And with it all, there is his utter disregard of physical danger. He has timing and balance in his feet, ice in his veins and warmth in his heart - Danny Blanchflower.
As George Best fights for life, an old man long before his time, it is sad to close your eyes and picture him as he was 40 years ago, a carefree, cocky, cheeky kid who could set the pulses racing for all manner of reasons.
For those of you too young to remember Best in his pomp, a dip of the shoulder would send defenders spinning every which way; a swivel of those slim hips and a million television viewers watching Match Of The Day would fall out their armchairs trying to fathom his intentions; a shake of the flowing locks and a generation of teenage girls would swoon and sigh.
George Best was far, far more than a mere football superstar; like Sergeant Pepper, Carnaby Street and 'Ban The Bomb' badges, he was an icon of the Swinging Sixties. It befell the besotted fans of Benfica, after one stunning virtuoso performance in Lisbon's Stadium of Light, to bestow the most fitting appellation upon their hirsute hero: El Beatle.
Let us rewind even further, to the Charity Shield match of 1963 which left Matt Busby an angry man. So angry that, within days of Manchester United's 4-0 humiliation by Everton at Wembley, the guv'nor began ripping asunder the team that had walloped Leicester City in the FA Cup final just three months earlier.
First to leave Old Trafford was the mercurial Irish winger Johnny Giles (with whom Busby had never seen eye-to-eye), dispatched for a ludicrously generous
I'm shattered.
Here he is in the twighlight of his career playing in America (the video is on a slow server so let it download and then replay it) Click (http://media.putfile.com/George-Part-1)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From the Telegraph a month ago -
No one has fired barbs at Best better than George himself
By Robert Philip
(Filed: 28/10/2005)
George Best makes a greater appeal to the senses than Tom Finney or Stan Matthews did. His movements are quicker, lighter, more balletic.
George offers grander surprises to the mind and the eye, he has the more refined, unexpected range. And with it all, there is his utter disregard of physical danger. He has timing and balance in his feet, ice in his veins and warmth in his heart - Danny Blanchflower.
As George Best fights for life, an old man long before his time, it is sad to close your eyes and picture him as he was 40 years ago, a carefree, cocky, cheeky kid who could set the pulses racing for all manner of reasons.
For those of you too young to remember Best in his pomp, a dip of the shoulder would send defenders spinning every which way; a swivel of those slim hips and a million television viewers watching Match Of The Day would fall out their armchairs trying to fathom his intentions; a shake of the flowing locks and a generation of teenage girls would swoon and sigh.
George Best was far, far more than a mere football superstar; like Sergeant Pepper, Carnaby Street and 'Ban The Bomb' badges, he was an icon of the Swinging Sixties. It befell the besotted fans of Benfica, after one stunning virtuoso performance in Lisbon's Stadium of Light, to bestow the most fitting appellation upon their hirsute hero: El Beatle.
Let us rewind even further, to the Charity Shield match of 1963 which left Matt Busby an angry man. So angry that, within days of Manchester United's 4-0 humiliation by Everton at Wembley, the guv'nor began ripping asunder the team that had walloped Leicester City in the FA Cup final just three months earlier.
First to leave Old Trafford was the mercurial Irish winger Johnny Giles (with whom Busby had never seen eye-to-eye), dispatched for a ludicrously generous