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George Best autographed Manchester united shirt 1963 Wembley

Authentic George Best autographed Manchester united shirt 1963 Wembley. Shirt signed in black marker by George adding Best Wishes.

George Best (22 May 1946 – 25 November 2005) was a Northern Irish professional footballer who played as a winger; spending most of his club career at Manchester United. A highly skillful dribbler, Best regarded as one of the best players in the history of the sport. He was named European Footballer of the Year in 1968 and came sixth in the FIFA Player of the Century vote. Best received plaudits for his playing style, which combined pace, skill, balance; feints, two-footedness, goal scoring and the ability to get past defenders.

In international football, Best capped 37 times for Northern Ireland between 1964 and 1977. Then again, a combination of the team’s performance and his lack of fitness in 1982; meant that he never played in the finals of a major tournament. He considered his international career as being “recreational football”; with the expectations placed on a smaller nation in Northern Ireland being much less than with his club. He is regarded as one of the greatest players never to have played at a World Cup. The Irish Football Association described him as the “greatest player to ever pull on the green shirt of Northern Ireland”.

Playboy

Furthermore, his good looks and playboy lifestyle, Best became one of the first media celebrity footballers, earning the nickname “El Beatle” in 1966, but his extravagant life style led to various personal problems, most notably alcoholism, which he suffered from for the rest of his life. Additionally, these issues affected him on and off the field, often causing controversy. Although conscious of his problems, he was publicly not contrite about them; he said of his career: “I spent a lot of money on booze, birds [women] and fast cars – the rest I just squandered”. After football, he spent some time as a football analyst, but his financial and health problems continued into his retirement. He died in 2005, age 59, due to complications from the immunosuppressive drugs he needed to take after a liver transplant in 2002.