Every manager goes through life looking for one great player, praying he’ll find one. Just one. I was more lucky than most. I found two – Big Duncan and George.
Manchester United’s glorious history has been created by people like George Best. Anyone who witnessed what George could do on the pitch wished they could do the same.
Best makes a greater appeal to the senses than Finney and Matthews. His movements are quicker, lighter, more balletic. He offers the greater surprise to the mind and eye, he has the more refined, unexpected range. And with it all there is his utter disregard of physical danger. He has ice in his veins, warmth in his heart and timing and balance in his feet.
The thing I remember, apart from his talent, was his courage. I can see him flying down the wing riding tackles from people like Ron Harris, Tommy Smith and Norman Hunter. They were serious guys – you didn’t mess with them – and it was a time when you needed to be struck down by a tomahawk just to get booked, yet he rode all that. Every time he went down he got up again and just said `Give me the ball’. That will stick in my mind forever.
I know there is a lot of publicity surrounding him over the reason why he was ill, but football people know what he was about and those of us who were lucky enough to see him would know a little bit more. People like George Best, with ability like that, come along once upon a time – and we were lucky enough to see him and not a lot of people can say that.
I am sure, though, that George would much prefer me and everyone else to remember him as the good-looking, freshfaced boyo who took our game by storm one frenzied night in Lisbon.
