The Magnificent Sevens. Frank Worrall
campaign would prove to be the zenith of George’s career. After narrowly overcoming Real Madrid 4-3 on aggregate in the European Cup semi-finals, George and United once again faced Benfica, this time in the final, taking on the two-times winners at Wembley. It was all-square at 1-1 after 90 minutes, with the match heading into extra time after Graca cancelled out a Bobby Charlton header.
Later, George would claim he knew United would win as Busby and his assistant Jimmy Murphy came on the pitch to boost morale at the end of full-time. George said, ‘I still felt fresh and full of running. Looking at our players and glancing across at theirs, I knew we had it.’ His instinct was correct – now George Best would come into his own, leaving an indelible footprint on world football. Two minutes into extra-time, he used his tremendous pace to leave Benfica captain Mario Coluna in his wake to put United ahead again, majestically slipping the ball around the keeper and gently tapping it over the line. He danced away in triumph, his blue shirt – a special one-off kit for the final – hanging loose over his blue shorts. Two more United goals, the first from 19-year-old Brian Kidd and the other from skipper Charlton, taking the final score to 4-1, followed his moment of personal joy.
Ten years after the Munich air crash, which killed eight of Busby’s young team, United and George Best had reached the pinnacle of European football that had been the object of the manager’s dreams and ambitions. The Red Devils had become the first English team to win the European Cup and Busby revelled in the moment, triumphant that his own holy grail had now been put to bed. With tears in his eyes, Busby said, ‘The players have done us all proud. After Munich, they came back with all their hearts to show everyone what Manchester United are made of. This is the most wonderful thing in my life and I am the proudest man in England. The European Cup has been the ambition of everyone at the club … now we have it, at last.’
George had been United’s star player on the night and, just a fortnight after being chosen as the football writers’ Footballer of the Year, he was also named European Footballer of the Year. Later, he would almost purr with pride as he spoke of the magical evening in north London. ‘That night at Wembley we knocked it about as well as any of the great sides I’ve ever seen. That night, at least, we were as good as the Real Madrid of the Fifties, the Spurs double team … anyone you care to mention.’
Truly, in May 1968, Best and Busby had the world at their feet … but, amazingly, this would be the last footballing honour either man would ever win. At 22, it should have been just the start for an avalanche of further honours for George, not the end of it all. Many years later, Busby would admit how special George was to him, but also how much more he thought he should have achieved. ‘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. I suppose in their own ways, they both died, didn’t they?’
Fair enough, but after 1968, Busby himself should surely have gone on to claim another European triumph? But, just as their glory years were intertwined, so was their decline. Busby seemed exhausted by it all – the despair of Munich, the rebuilding, the false European dawn of 1966, the final crowning glory of 1968. He had nothing more left to give; he was finished and so – although you would never have guessed on that wonderful, captivating Wembley night – was Georgie Best.
By 1972, George had announced his retirement from the game – although he returned to United a year later – and by early 1974 he had left Old Trafford for good. Twenty-nine years later he would even sell off those precious European Footballer of the Year and Footballer of the Year trophies at auction.
So, with the world at your feet, exactly where, why and how did it all go wrong after 1968, Mr Best?
Past His Best – George’s Lost Years
(1969-83)
‘Getting knocked out of the European Cup feels like the end of the world. You just want to crawl into a corner and die.’
GEORGE BEST, 1969
‘The first 27 years were sheer bliss and the last 27 have been a disaster.’
GEORGE BEST, 2000
The decline kicked in quickly after the European Cup Final victory of 1968. There had been signs that Best was living a hectic life during the previous months but it was as if the club’s – and his own – success kept him in check. As soon as their joint fortunes began to ebb quickly away, so did George’s willpower and desire to maintain his particular level of genius. As we have already noted, the relative decline of United, the Busby empire and George Best shows the strength of the link between all three, a link that was beyond the power or skill of any one man to break.
In later life, George would admit that he had no fond memories of the celebratory events that followed the final, because he drank himself into oblivion. He said, ‘I went out and got drunk … to be quite honest I don’t remember very much about the victory night. I was celebrating and I had every reason to. The skinny, shy little boy who came off the ferry from Belfast seven years before had done his job … and more. If you look at the results leading up to the game at Wembley, at the goals that were scored, and who scored them, at the final itself, you will see the contribution I made.’
Now no one is arguing against the idea that George deserved to celebrate – even if he ended up completely wasted – after such a night. Most footballers would. But there is a certain hard-to-like arrogance and overblown ego that accompanies his comments that, once again, highlight his problem. As my psychoanalyst friend says, ‘An addict – whether it be drugs, alcohol or whatever – has two sides to them. The lovable, almost humble side – the one that is never bloated with ego; and the other rather more unpleasant edge, the one that is ego-ridden, the one that sees the addict blowing his or her own trumpet with rather an unpleasant, “look-at-me” approach. It is a mix of on one side the low self-esteem of the addict, on the other the massive ego, that makes him or her want to prove they are the best.’
I can understand what she is saying in terms of George’s state of mind the night of the European Cup Final. He would go on to say, ‘It adds up to one thing – if I hadn’t been playing for them, I don’t think Manchester United would have won the European Cup.’ There is a stark difference between George Best and Roy Keane – Roy survived the anguish of not playing in United’s European Cup-winning side of 1999. He reconstructed himself and, essentially, he became the very essence of a team player.
George Best, on the other hand, imploded after the 1968 triumph, and it was his immature personality and distorted view of himself and his team-mates that sped him down that road to destruction. Is he right that United would not have won the European Cup in 1968 without him? He scored one goal; Charlton grabbed two. OK, George was the star, but United won it without Denis Law that night – just as they won it without Keano in 1999, playing with a midfield that lacked balance and penetration. No, I think there is every chance United would still have won that night at Wembley.
Georgie-boy was rapidly becoming too big for his boots. And the tragedy for him and United was that Busby was too tired and burnt out to keep him on the straight and narrow any more. After 1968, Busby seemed to see him like a prodigal son, as someone whom he knew was riddled with faults, but someone he loved like no other. He turned a blind eye when Best went AWOL or when he didn’t cut it in training. Why?
Despite his undoubted craft and inner resilience – what you might term his toughness – at heart, Sir Matt Busby was a cerebral man. When he was made a Freeman of the City of Manchester in 1967, he said this in his thank-you speech: ‘Football’s great occasions for me are unequalled in the world of sport. I feel a sense of romance, wonder and mystery, a sense of beauty and poetry. The game becomes larger than life. It has something of the timeless magical quality of legend.’ It is not difficult to extend that love of ‘the timeless magical quality of legend’ also to include his