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Hard to say - he never played football at the highest level in his national side, which is generally how greatness is measured - Pele and Maradonna both won World Cups, but then neither Pele nor Maradonna were playing for Northern Ireland. In terms of his possible impact on a game, his ability to beat defenders at the top level of the club game and his ball control, then it's pretty safe to argue that he was one of the best footballers of the modern game in his position.
As for where I got it - well:
Not to worry that thousands of people are dying in very tragic an unnecessary ways all over the world. Good old Georgie drank himself into an early grave and the world needs to stop turning for a moment.
This raises the rather interesting question of what constitutes a necessary death. Sacrifices to the Winged Serpent to make sure that the Sun rises tomorrow aside, how does one identify which deaths are necessary or unnecessary? Honestly, I'm not entirely sure where starting a thread sneering at George Best becomes significantly more worthwhile to help all those evocative starving Africans than putting on a retrospective on the 1 o'clock news.
Besides which, it's not like they would have been caught by surprise and desperately flanneling while they updated the obituary, now, is it?
As to why the focus - well, I think it's easy for the younger people to miss some of the significance of George Best. As somebody who did remarkable things in the 60s and then became tabloid-fodder, he's probably comparable in terms of celebrity within Britain and fame at the time with one of the Beatles or Rolling Stones. He was the prototype of the celebrity footballer we see these days - young, attractive, post-maximum wage, going out clubbing in sharp suits and hanging out with pop stars. He is also, of course, a powerful metaphor for the destructive qualities of fame, and the difficulties of adjusting to life after you are no longer able to do the one thing at which you are not just good but great. The man was a huge honking morality tale, and one that ties, I suspect, into many of the anxieties and insecurities of a generation (in particular a generation of men) a little younger than Best but older than the average Barbeloid who can see in Best the prolonged collapse of their own dreams - this may be one of those cases where the media is not really focusing on the youth angle.
It's possible that the death of George Best may not be an interesting story for all, but is a story of considerable interest for a number of different groups. I can't help but wonder what an apalling, embarrassing place Barbelith might have been to exist in if Bill Hicks had managed to make it through to 2002 or so... |
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