Our George: A Family Memoir

It's a story everyone thinks they know, the young boy from the back streets of Belfast who grew up to be the most famous soccer player in the world, a legend who was the first superstar of the sport but whose troubled personal life, as much as his athletic genius, came to dominate the headlines. But Barbara and Carol, George's sisters, and Dickie, his father, know more. Revealing for the first time the real story of George Best—as told by those who knew him and loved him most, this is the inside story of the ordinary Belfast family whose love for, and contact with, their famous son and brother never wavered through the years. It's the story of a family desperately helping him as he battled the illness that also claimed the life of their beloved wife and mother. Illustrated with a wealth of previously unseen family photographs, documents and correspondence—much of it deeply poignant—between George and his family, this is a searingly honest book about the influences that molded the legend, and the demons that haunted his life. Speaking for the first time, the intensely private Best family reveals how George really felt about the people and the events that shaped his life. Barbara Best is frank in confronting George's own failings and those of some of the people who were close to him, as well as offering a unique perspective on the many pressures to which he was subject.