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Belfast mourns its favorite son George Best
(AP)
Updated: 2005-12-04 10:25
In death as in his life, George Best stirred the passions and unified the
people of his native Belfast in a triumphant farewell of tears, humor and pride.
More than 100,000 mourners, Protestant and Catholic alike, applauded as the
hearse bearing Best's body drove down Belfast streets Saturday for a state-style
funeral inside Stormont Parliamentary Building, Northern Ireland's hilltop
center of government overlooking the city.
Northern Ireland has seen more than 3,000 funerals over its past 35 years of
sectarian conflict _ but nothing so large in scale, nor as surprisingly
cathartic, as this.
Best, 59, was the world's first soccer superstar. He delighted fans with
fantastic ball-handling skills and attracted others with his dark good looks.
But in recent years he became an increasingly tragic figure, unable to defeat
his toughest opponent _ alcoholism _ despite a 2002 liver transplant.
Tears flowed freely in the state-style funeral service, televised live
throughout Britain and Ireland, as Best's only child, Calum, read poems that
compared his father to a heavenly star called home too quickly by God.
"The golden days, they went so fast. The precious times, why can't they
last?" Calum Best said in one of many moments when emotions overflowed at the
speaker's podium beside Best's casket.
Outside, mourners who stood for hours in the rain for their moment tossed
bouquets and soccer scarves into the path of the slow-passing hearse. Police
stood to attention and saluted it all the way to Roselawn Cemetery on the
Belfast outskirts, where Best was buried alongside his mother, Ann, in a private
ceremony.
But at Stormont, laughter and happy memories cut into the grief. In his
coffin-side testimonial, former Manchester United teammate Denis Law reminisced
about Best's feckless failure to keep appointments or to show up sober _ a
reputation so ingrained that one Belfast bookmaker had offered 7-to-1 odds on
whether Best would miss his own funeral.
"I can't count the number of times he let me down. He didn't turn up, or he
did turn up _ and wasn't on this planet," Law said from a podium overlooking the
casket, which was draped in a green Northern Ireland soccer flag.
Law said Best's legendary charm would win him over even at that moment of
disappointment. During one vacation together, Law said he found Best in the
hotel bar the next morning.
"There he was sitting in the bar, with a cheeky smile on his face, glass in
hand. Before I could say anything, he'd said: 'Hey little man, I've just ordered
you a nice pot of tea'," Law recounted.
Best's career peaked in 1968 when, combining up front with Law and Bobby
Charlton, Manchester United won the European Champions Cup. Best was crowned
European Footballer of the Year.
Best, who died on November 25 in a London hospital, had joined Man United at
17 and became a phenomenon with pace, dribbling and guile that left defenders
lunging in his wake.
But blessed also with matinee-idol looks and a hearty appetite for women and
booze, Best walked away from the game in 1972 to run nightclubs, fashion shops
and other ill-fated business ventures.
"I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars," he once said. "The
rest I just squandered."
He returned to soccer, largely to regain the money he'd partied away,
pursuing assignments in the now-defunct North American Soccer League and with
Hibernian in Scotland. He lost the Hibernian job after missing two games because
of hangovers.
Ordinary fans and top-flight soccer figures alike voiced regrets Saturday
that Best never played in a World Cup or European Championship. He played 37
times for a Northern Ireland that had too few other talented players.
England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson, Manchester United boss Alex Ferguson,
Northern Ireland coach Lawrie Sanchez and Man United player Ole Gunnar
Solkskjaer were among approximately 300 family members, friends and dignitaries
allowed into the funeral ceremony in Stormont's Grand Hall.
"I have never been to a funeral like that before," Eriksson said. "It was
beautiful and George and his family got the respect he deserved. I shed a few
tears myself."
Also there were Ireland's former world featherweight boxing champion, Barry
McGuigan, and Belfast snooker ace Alex Higgins. Rival political leaders from the
British Protestant and Irish Catholic factions of this long-divided community
sat side-by-side.
"Whatever our politics, whatever our religion, George Best has helped us find
our common humanity," said Peter Hain, the British secretary of state for
Northern Ireland.
Hain recalled marveling at Best's seemingly effortless grace as he tore
through the defense of his team, Chelsea, in the 1960s. "Even though I was a
(Chelsea) fan, a fanatic, you actually wanted to see him do it _ you clapped him
as he destroyed your team," he said.
Those outside on a typically chilly and wet Belfast winter's day followed the
ceremony on three giant TV screens. Many mourners had traveled overnight from
England and Ireland.
"Since I was a knee-high little boy, I watched his life," said Stanley Neill,
45, a railway operator who was born in Northern Ireland but lives in England.
Neill arrived about 9 p.m. Friday and was first inside Stormont's gates.
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