George Best

Manchester United football legend George Best is remembered for his dazzling skill on the pitch and his champagne lifestyle away from it. Born on May 22, 1946, this Irish football genius combined pace, acceleration, balance, two-footedness, goal scoring and the ability to beat defenders. George Best is widely regarded as one of the greatest players to have graced the British game.

Together with Denis Law and Bobby Charlton, George Best formed a triumvirate that inspired Manchester United to League Championships in 1965 and 1967 and the European Cup in 1968. In that year, he picked up the English and European footballer of the year awards. His heyday occurred during the ’Swinging Sixties’ and with his good looks, he brought a pop star image to the game for the first time. But the accompanying playboy lifestyle degenerated into alcoholism, bankruptcy, a prison sentence, a liver transplant and eventually his death at age 59 due to kidney infection.

Belfast City Airport was renamed George Best Belfast City Airport as a tribute to Best but public opinion in Ireland about the renaming was divided. Best’s lovable, cheeky image won him many fans during his career and nearly 100,000 people turned out on a rainy day for his funeral in East Belfast. He wrote his own epitaph when he once said: "I was the one who took football off the back pages and put it on to page one."