Best and The Beautiful Game

-

George Best, 22 May 1946 – 25 November 2005

Sometimes it feels slightly bizarre to live in the only country on the entire planet whose menfolk don't live and die by their allegiance to a football club, like living life in a parallel universe, one that worships different gods as part of a very different religion. It's definitely worth reading Nick Hornby's autobiographical Fever Pitch about the author's undying love for Arsenal F.C. to get an idea of how intrinsically essential the game is to understanding British culture. It's not that I care so much about The Beautiful Game itself, back in my day, it was a boys-only affair. I went to an all-girls' school and played vicious games of netball (a sort of basketball) and hockey (on a field) during the winter months. Added to the fact that my local team, Northampton Town, (nicknamed The Cobblers), were notorious for two reasons. The first was for going from the 4th to the 1st division and back down to the 4th in consecutive seasons. The second was for being beaten by Manchester United 8-2 in an early round of the F.A. Cup. This happened 40 years ago in 1970, but people still remember. Mostly because 6 of the goals were scored by George Best. Before David Beckham, there was George. A devastatingly handsome lady's man from Northern Ireland with a drinking problem as big as his immense talent for playing football.


Angie Best's Autobiography, 2001

He even had his own "Posh", his wife, Angie who now lives and works in California as a fitness guru. Their son Callum, a model and reality-TV celebrity, follows in his father's footsteps as a glamorous playboy having dated Lyndsey Lohan, Kate Moss and Lizzy Jagger, amongst others.


Calum Best

When George died in 2005, 100,000 people lined the streets of Belfast, (a city with a population of 260,000), for the funeral. Shorty afterwards the city's second airport, Belfast City Airport, was re-named George Best Belfast City Airport.


Crowds at George Best's Funeral, 2005

Once every four years I get into the spirit of the game and follow England's progress through The World Cup. I'll be watching tomorrow along with 2 billion other people as my team plays The USA!

Comments

  1. AnonymousJune 17, 2010 at 5:53 PM

    What a great player and a tragic waste of talent.
    Your country play in my home city Friday night. I don't have tickets but will be supporting along with the rest of the fans filling up Cape town right now!
    The soccer world cup vibe in Cape Town is just unbelievable!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Streisand Effect

-
Image
It's not that Barbra Streisand had actually gone away anywhere but she had been kind of quiet in recent years. All that changed recently. First, in the September 2010 issue of Harper's Bazaar an editorial story entitled, "A Star is Re-Born" featured Jennifer Aniston in an homage to the mega-star shot by Mark Seliger. This photo reminds me of a very similar pose struck by Isabella Rossellini, made up to look like Barbra by the late, great Kevyn Aucoin. My Dec/Jan copy of House Beautiful arrives with a feature on Streisand's first-ever book, My Passion for Design in which she "shares the intimate story behind her obsession with home" plus the cover of the August 1974 edition of the magazine which included a feature about her Hollywood home. As if this wasn't enough to convince me that Streisand's star was back in the firmament, along comes another magazine, another story on Streisand's home. This time, December's Harper's Bazaar, photog
Read more

The apple of My i

-
Image
Japanese ad for iMac, 1998 iMac in 5 colors 1999 My obsession with Apple began in 1999 when I bought my first i-Mac. I don't mind admitting that the main reason I bought it was because of the way it looked.The ergonomic shape was both futuristic yet comforting and who could resist those fresh and juicy colors? Mine was blueberry but you could also have strawberry, lime, tangerine and grape. It was a eureka moment for me, that first realization that computers and electronics don't have to be beige and boring or worse still frightening and hard to use. It's quaint to think about it now but my hesitation about buying it was based on the fact that it was a hard drive and monitor "all-in-one". Based on the comments of the few computer buffs I knew back then, this could prove to be a problem later on if the hard drive broke down but the monitor was still good or vice versa. Well form won out over possible malfunction, I bought my first Apple product and I have never l
Read more

The Divine Decadence of Helmut Newton

-
Image
As I mentioned recently, the current fascination amongst certain runway designers and celebrities with racy lingerie looks often brings to mind Helmut Newton 's style of photography. If only he were still alive, what a moment he'd be having. Unfortunately he died in a macabre accident when his car hit a wall in the driveway of Chateau Marmont which had for several years served as his L.A. residence. It has been speculated that Newton suffered a heart attack in the moments before the collision. Newton favorite Nadja Auermann appeared in many of his portraits including these photos taken for American Vogue in 1994. Newton was born in Berlin in 1920. The 1972 movie Cabaret based on a novel written by British author Christopher Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin evokes the air of danger and desperation prevalent during the years of the Weimar Republic as Hitler rose to power and Jews were increasingly discriminated against. Seemingly the spirit of smoke-filled, pre-WW2 German night-clu
Read more