Calum never saw his father at his best
ALCOHOLISM: Nothing off limits in book about son’s relationship with Manchester United icon George Best
LONDON — There’s one place where the memory of George Best is forever of the stylish winger who bamboozled defenders and thrilled fans: Immortalized in bronze outside Old Trafford, a statue featuring Best is as much as a crowd-puller as the Manchester United icon was in his footballing prime.
It’s where Best’s only child now goes for a glimpse at what one of the game’s first international superstars looked like before alcohol took over his life, then destroyed it.
“I go up there and take pictures in front of him, just like everybody else does,” 34-year-old Calum Best says. “I’m a fan in that respect.”
Calum never got to see his father winning trophies at United in the 1960s and collecting personal accolades for his extraordinary dribbling and goals. Born in 1981, Calum instead endured a tumultuous relationship with a father who struggled to cope with the end of his playing career and revelled in a hard-drinking playboy lifestyle before dying at 59 from multiple organ failure.
Approaching the 10th anniversary of the death in November 2005, Calum is telling the full story of their turbulent father-son relationship for the first time.
Nothing is off limits in Calum’s book about his father, which was published Monday: violence, neglect and, of course, the extent of the drinking problem.
The focus on the flaws over the footballing exploits in Second Best has angered George’s family in his native Northern Ireland, with his sister’s husband, Norman McNarry, telling local media in Belfast the book’s “nastiness” was a “betrayal.”
Raising the family rift himself, Calum acknowledged: “It’s kicked up a fuss.”
“Belfast feel they are probably protecting their own,” he added. “It’s not an attack on my dad. I’m my dad’s No. 1 fan. I love him to bits, more than anybody. But this isn’t about George Best the footballer. This is about me having alcohol dependency in my relationship with my father.”
The relationship was as fraught as it was fragmented.
The 1968 European player of the year was with the San Jose Earthquakes when his first wife, Angie, gave birth. Calum’s arrival didn’t curb the binges and the couple separated from George. By 1986, Angie sought to shield Calum from his father’s chaotic life, applying for divorce before returning to California after a few years in England.
George didn’t even turn up to the custody hearing and the sense of abandonment felt by Calum is reflected throughout the book, as is a constant pursuit of his father’s love and attention. It was rarely fulfilled.
Back in the U.S., Calum discovered the extent of his father’s past prowess through “absolutely mind-blowing” videos of some of the 180 goals scored in 465 United appearances.
But Calum’s first visit to Old Trafford with his father was no bonding experience. Like so much of their time together, it ended in tears. The 11-year-old Calum was abandoned in the evening by his drunken father, who took until the following afternoon to re-emerge.
By then Calum was old enough to realize his father’s alcoholism was being splashed across newspapers.
“I would come into town for my trips to see him and everyone would be like, ‘He’s so excited to see you.’ As soon as I’d get here, he’d go on a three-day brandy bender.”
One trip to London in 1995 was traumatic. Calum had enough of trailing around pubs and returned to his father’s flat. When George later returned in a drunken mess, he accused his 14-year-old son of having an affair with fiancé Alex.
“You’re not my son,” Calum recalled being told as his father attacked him. “You’re not even meant to be. I hate you.”
Reflecting on the night 20 years later, Calum said: “It was one nasty situation.”
The constant rejection hurt and seems to explain Calum’s own wild ways as a hellraising teenager enjoying the surfer-boy lifestyle on the West Coast while binging on drink and ever-harder drugs. Calum played football, but never wanted to emulate his father. But Calum’s life has mirrored his father’s. A modelling career faded after his teens as drinking, drug-taking and womanizing took over, even as George was seriously ill.
Although George received a liver transplant in 2002 and briefly looked to have turned a corner, alcohol was just too hard to resist.
“I saw in his eyes he wanted to change but he wasn’t able to.”
A reaction to medication to control the alcoholism forced George into hospital in 2005. He never left, dying two months later.