::: George Best Tribute :::

I had been invited to Belfast to do a show for Ulster TV by David Donnaghy. After checking into my hotel, David casually remarked that there was an award ceremony taking place that evening. It was for the Northern Ireland Sports Personality of the year. He told me there were several notables in for the evening and amongst the special guests was George Best.
My reaction to this throw away statement must have hinted at my admiration for this footballer because it made David laugh out loud.
He suggested we go down stairs and mingle uninvited with the sporting celebrities.
I should emphasise that this is NOT my style but you don’t get the opportunity to be in the company of super heroes very often so I agreed.
Until the birth of my first son and his coming of age to be able to go to football matches as a little boy. I had little or no interest in Football. My mates at school were fanatical but I was more interested in a smoke behind the bike sheds than hurtling about the play ground after a tiny ball. Indeed when I left school to join the army I still had my kit from the first year including a vintage pair of solid leather football boots from the 1930’s. When the world cup final was on in 1966 I was a general cleaner and part time musician in a holiday camp and was actually scrubbing floors and sinks in the men’s toilets when the England Germany final was on, but I did see the final Geoff Hurst goal.
It was a friend from Croydon who managed to get tickets to see Crystal Palace play Man United at Selhurst Park and I went along and saw Manchester win 3.0 I think and on that occasion I witnessed the artistry of young Georgie for the first time live. Music and Georgie Best were somehow linked and his face and attitude were in line with current pop trends. His rises and falls were in parallel too.
My family moved to Putney and it coincided with the wonderful F.A. Cup run of Fulham F.C. and my young son Sam and I began our weekly pilgrImages to Craven Cottage.
We lost the Cup final to West Ham but undaunted we faithfully supported the club through thick and thin as their slow decline commenced. This of course was alleviated by the arrival at the club of George Best and along with Rodney Marsh two of the most entertaing years began for us.
On Georgie’s first appearance at the club we arrived at our usual time but barely managed to get through the turnstiles before kick off, so great was the queue and instead of my usual thirty square feet of space the old stands were packed with NEW fans. Many of them girls. As I recall the match between us and Bristol Rovers commenced and George scored the only goal within two minutes of the game starting.
You get the picture.
Fast forward to that evening in Belfast.
I wandered downstairs to the bar and ordered a drink for David and me and whilst we were waiting for the Guiness to settle, David wandered off. When I looked around he was walking back to me with Mr Best. George greeted me warmly with a
“Hello Ralph so you’re a Fulham fan?”
Whatever I managed to reply must have confirmed this and for the next three hours or so I spent in his company he talked with huge affection for Fulham F.C. and indeed had recently been back to the club with the old chairman Ernie Clay. I do not know what he was drinking and of course I knew of his alcohol problems but here I was at the bar of an Irish hotel with the greatest Football player to ever grace the grounds of Britain and Ireland,
"George, can I buy you a drink?” I managed in the end and he asked for a vodka and tonic
I bought him a large one. All the time we were talking I noticed a slight tremor in his hands but he did not seem agitated or anxious for drink at all and several drinks later although I noticed no change in his manner, the slight tremor of the hands had stopped.
He talked about music and the possibility of a concert being put together in his honour at the RAH. He invited me to play at it. I accepted and swapped phone numbers etc.
Pat Jennings the great N Ireland goalkeeper joined us for a while and later George began a story, which I had never heard before but which he subsequently famously told on a Parkinson show. In case you may not have heard it went something like this.
George began…
I was over in the states and I was in Vegas. I was dating Mary Stavin the 1977 Miss World at the time and she was gorgeous, I mean really gorgeous. I had been down on the gaming tables and it was one of those nights,
By the end of the evening I was up $15000 (it may have been $30,000) and Mary was getting a little tired. I decided to cash in my chips and go up to the room. I got a cab to our hotel with fifteen thousand/thirty thousand dollars in cash on me and as I went past the desk clerk I ordered a magnum of champagne from the night porter.
“Jesus it’s yourself” the night porter said to me (He was a little Paddy) George explained.
“I’ll be right up Mr best with your Champagne.”
George continued….
We took the elevator and Mary went for a shower to get ready for bed. I took out all the cash and spread it all over the bed.
A few minutes later the little Irish guy taps on the door and I let him in. His eyes nearly popped out of his head when he saw all that money on the bed. As he put the champagne on the table Miss World came into the room in a lovely see-thru baby doll nightdress and the little Irish guy’s eyes were now on stalks.
I poured him out a glass of champagne as well as one for Mary Stavin and me.
We toasted each other and when he had finished his glass I put two hundred dollars on his tray and he said goodnight and thanks.
As he was about to leave the room, he looked back at MissWorld in her negligee and then at all the money on the bed, and then back at me and shook his head slowly from side to side. Before he slipped out the door, he put down his empty glass and he gave me one more sort of pitying look and said.
“Where did it all go wrong Georgie, where did it all go wrong?
Thinking about it now, George must have told this tale several times already, so polished was the telling. The little group around George including me laughed long and loud at the night porter’s sense of priority.
On reflection and with hindsight the story has gained a poignancy that was not apparent at the time. George always had the ability to laugh at himself and he was not just a great player but also a very intelligent and funny man. In a sense I wonder now if he was sort of asking us if we agreed that he had got his priorities right, the laughter only partly reassured him and that is why the story was so often repeated. This only occurred to me during these last tragic weeks since his readmission to hospital.
Any way at the time, I had been among a select few, that had been privy to the most wonderful evening with one of the greatest footballers of all time. We had shared stories and laughed together. We had bought each other a few drinks and become friends.It was now about 2a.m. and I made my excuses and left the bar so as to be ready and “fresh” for my TV appearance with an eight thirty start. .
I was told later that George was still entertaining everyone at 6.30 a.m.