Matthew Engel has Best’s magic down pat, at least for those of just old to remember when the Bangor train going past the house was enough to bugger up the horizontal hold:
Best came into a black-and-white footballing world and left it in glorious colour. When he arrived at Old Trafford, the club were barely recovering from the Munich air crash of 1958 that destroyed the first great team created by the manager, Sir Matt Busby. The footballers’ union had only just smashed a wage ceiling of £20 per week, a pittance even in those days. The players had Brylcreemed hair and often travelled on buses in a Britain that was only just escaping from theconformist world ofthe 1950s into a culturedominated by the Beatles.
Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty