Excuse me guys..whatever it is, nothing stop me from posting articles that i found useful for any united fan knowledge so here's another...
Young George was just trying to find his way in life[glow=red,2,300]In the final exclusive extracts, Sir Bobby Charlton talks about Denis Law’s Scottishness and a different side to George Best[/glow]
I will always be proud to have been part of the Big Three, to have my name linked forever with George Best and Denis Law, and that was the overwhelming feeling I know Denis and I shared when we all came together one last time in the hospital room in London shortly before George died at the end of 2005.
We went about our football in contrasting ways, Denis sending sparks and flames up around him, George going on his amazing runs with trickery and courage that just welled out of him, me with my liking for the bold pass and the big, swirling shot. We had one abiding thing in common – we loved to score goals.
About the town and the country, you had the growing sense that football fans had a feeling that they just had to see us play. If they did not, they might miss George finding a full back to his liking, or Denis producing flashes of lightning or me profiting again from Jimmy Murphy’s advice to hit the ball hard and early when I felt I was in scoring range. We brought different qualities to the field, separate abilities, but as each game passed they seemed to become more complementary. Of course, there were times when George disappeared on his own flight of fancy, when somebody might scream fruitlessly for him to pass, but then the chances were that when he was in that vein he would do something unforgettable.
What the fans loved most about Denis was his aggression and self-belief. He seemed to define urgency on a football field – all that some of his interventions lacked were puffs of smoke – and always there was the gleam in his eye, and the courage. They never made a centre half who could induce in Denis even a flicker of apprehension.
There was a period around the mid1960s when Denis was free from injury and then we saw the full scale of his brilliance. He was an awesome sight as he went into the dangerous places, daring a centre half or a goalkeeper to blink. He got up to incredible heights and when he did so, the defenders knew that they could not afford half a mistake. The semblance of a slip was all he needed. The ball would be in the back of the net and his arm would be shooting skywards.
One result was that if I found space on the right or the left, I always knew what I had to do: get the ball to the near post; never the back one because Denis would not be there. If I could get the ball to the near post, Denis was guaranteed to sneak half a yard and the result was inevitable.
If I had to pick a dominating aspect of his character, apart from the tremendous commitment that marked his play, it would be his sheer Scottishness. When Nobby Stiles and I were helping England to win the World Cup, Denis made a point of playing golf. Whenever we played Scotland, Denis made sure to kick us both and call us “English bastards”, within the first minute or so of the match. It was as though he had been obliged to make a statement and, having done so, he could get on with the game.
George, of course, kept so much of his mystery right up to the end, when Denis and I sorrowfully boarded that train to London on a cold, grey day in November 2005. I had met Denis at Stockport station after calling him to discuss George’s situation against the background of reports that he was unlikely to survive his latest health crisis. Denis had made one visit and warned me that George was at a low ebb. It was unlikely that he would be able to take much in.
It was as Denis said it would be. George, surrounded by his family, had slipped into something close to a coma. One of his sisters said that he might be able to hear me and I spoke to him with the greatest sadness. I whispered to him as I had to Duncan Edwards and Matt Busby all those years before in Munich, but I felt that so much of my old teammate’s life had been, and was still, set apart from my experience and understanding.
Our relationship had grown warmer in later years and the pain and frustration of the premature ending of the most beautiful and natural talent I had seen was tempered by the fact that we had shared moments that would have brought pride and joy to any footballer who had played the game.
To be honest, his first performance for the team, in a league match against West Bromwich Albion at Old Trafford in September 1963, does not linger in my mind. It was when he returned to the team a few months later, against Burnley at Old Trafford, that you began to see all that he would be. We had been beaten badly away to Burnley a couple of days earlier and the Old Man was determined to shake up the team. Bringing back 17-year-old George was his boldest stroke and it paid off gloriously. I felt pity for my friend John Angus, the Burnley right back. He was not so much overwhelmed as tortured.
Going down to London with Denis, I could not help but recall an earlier train journey, one I made with George from Cardiff after we had played in a Uefa representative match, at the time when his reputation – and his celebrity – had reached a peak. This was at the beginning of the phase when the main topic of conversation at Old Trafford often concerned George’s whereabouts the night before – and at roughly what time that night had ended and in whose company.
On that train journey, I remembered that Norma and the girls were away and I asked George if he would like to come to my house for supper. Norma had told me that there was a bag of frozen scampi in the fridge and I had the idea – it turned out to be a little optimistic – that I could make a decent meal out of it for George and me. To be honest, I was a little shocked when George said yes.
It was a strange and, in some ways, poignant evening. George was taken with our dog, a chow, and he was full of questions about what it was like being married, about having a dog and domestic life in general. For some reason, I formed the idea that he was intrigued by the possibility of getting married, that it might represent another way of life that could offer him something he maybe was not getting in his endless whirl of clubs and pubs and parties; that not least, perhaps, he wanted a little peace.
As the evening wore on, I saw a different George – inquisitive, warm, and maybe a little insecure. It made me think that behind all the glitter and the headlines here was just another young man trying to find his way in life.
Stories about our differences were often taken as fact, but the truth was that they were exaggerated. I did not agree with some of the things George did, I did not think his lifestyle was compatible with being a professional footballer, but for a while at least I accepted that he was doing extraordinary things on the field. As long as this was so, it was maybe understandable, if not right, that Matt Busby refused to lay down an iron hand of discipline.
When George left Old Trafford I was seeing a real tragedy, for football and for him. Today, when I park my car and go to my place at Old Trafford and see parents taking their children to watch Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo, I am reminded of the faces of the kids of the 1960s. You could see on them the anticipation and excitement when Georgie was playing. But then, suddenly, he was no longer there.
When I look back on a life that was too brief, too troubled, I share that sense of wonder, sometimes disbelief when I think of how good he was and all the improbable things he achieved under such immense pressure. Rightly, the goal he scored against Chelsea – as he ignored scything tackles from some of the toughest, most ruthless to play the game – is seen as the embodiment of so much of his ability. It showed courage, resilience and a skill that could not be tamed.
He set a standard that people talk about even now and I suspect this will always be so as long as there is film of him, because what they see is something that, for all the talented players of today, they believe is no longer available. They do not see anyone who is quite like George Best.
I carried all those memories of glory and sadness when I walked into the hospital room with Denis. I thought of my perhaps naive belief that George might have been kindling thoughts of a different, more stable life that night I made a mess of the scampi.
I thought of all the controversy that had surrounded the last years of George’s life, of how some had complained that because of his lifestyle, his repeated failures to stay on the wagon despite the most serious warnings from doctors, he did not deserve the transplanted liver he was given that might have gone to someone who had not so relentlessly imperilled his health. But then I thought that life creates extreme cases, and did anybody in football know anybody whose experiences of joy and sadness, and the ability to create such emotions in other people, had been quite so profound?
When I heard that the club had commissioned a bronze statue of George, Denis and me, to stand outside the ground on Sir Matt Busby Way, I told George’s father, thingyie, that nothing could fill me with more pride. For a little while, there in the hospital room in London, the three of us had been united for one last time. When Denis and I walked away down the corridor, we did not need to say that, along with George, we had left behind the greatest of our football times.
