"We had our problems with the wee fella, but I prefer to remember his genius," Matt Busby, the legendary Manchester United manager, once said of George Best. And yesterday, after Calum Best announced the death of his father at London's Cromwell Hospital, memories of that genius were all that could console on the saddest of days, writes Mary Hannigan.
The inevitability of the news made it no less painful, not least for those closest to Best, among them his manager and friend of 25 years, Phil Hughes. "He's gone somewhere where no one can hurt him," he said. "He's safe now."
Up north in Manchester, a shrine of flowers, cards, jerseys and scarves was building outside Old Trafford where Best had his happiest of days, and where those lucky enough to have seen him play had theirs. Notably many of those leaving tributes were supporters who could hardly have been born before Best's finest days had passed, but such is his legend and status, particularly in the city of Manchester, that he remains an icon for every generation.
"I think I've found a genius," Bob Bishop famously told Busby when he spotted the 15-year-old Best playing in Belfast. Two years later, in 1963, he made his debut for United and, by the time he had played his final game for the club, on New Year's Day 1974, his genius had long since been confirmed.
"With feet as sensitive as a pickpocket's hands, his control of the ball under the most violent pressure was hypnotic," Hugh McIlvanney, the Scottish journalist, once wrote. "The bewildering repertoire of feints and swerves, sudden stops and demoralising turns, exploited a freakish elasticity of limb and torso, tremendous physical strength and resilience for so slight a figure, and balance, that would have made Isaac Newton decide he might as well have eaten the apple."
And while defying gravity with those feints and swerves, Best entertained and thrilled like few footballers had done before and even fewer have done since. And all with a sense of fun and joy.
So easy, so natural, so effortless, so exhilarating, that from the vantage point of 2005 he appeared to be playing a game wholly different from the one with which we are now familiar.