A new BBC film to be screened tomorrow examines the relationship between the famous footballer and his mother, both of whom died prematurely as a result of alcoholism, writes FIONOLA MEREDITH
WHEN GEORGE BEST died in 2005, he was buried in Belfast alongside his mother, Ann. In the extraordinary hubbub of the funeral – the flowers and football shirts flung at the hearse, the celebrity-packed special service at Stormont – few people gave a thought to the woman buried beside the iconic footballer. Yet Ann Best and her son shared one stark truth: they were both alcoholics, and died prematurely, of alcohol-related illnesses, in their 50s.
Now a new BBC film, George Best: His Mother's Son, to be screened tomorrow, examines the relationship between the pair. Written by leading Northern dramatist Terry Cafolla, the factual drama covers the period between 1966 and 1973. As Manchester United slipped from European glory towards relegation, Best was revelling in his exotic superstar lifestyle, while back in her small terraced home in Belfast, his mother – a teetotaller until the age of 44 – started her sharp descent into alcoholism.
“What we were trying to do was chart Ann Best’s decline, just as her son’s meteoric rise was happening,” says Cafolla. “The story is really of how Ann came to drink. Ann had three kids under the age of five, the press were camping on the doorstep and everybody was looking at what George was doing, calling him the fifth Beatle, and that must have started to eat away at Ann’s identity. The family back in Belfast were living in a glass bubble of publicity that they’d never asked for.”
It’s poignant to learn about Ann’s early life, her striking good looks and her own success on the sports field as a hockey player, before the malign influence of alcohol took over. By all accounts, drink turned Ann from a warm, shy woman, who never spoke ill of anyone, to a raging harridan.
In her memoir, George’s sister, Barbara Best-McNarry, recalls that “when [Ann] was drunk, she was argumentative and very difficult. She would taunt us and goad us. Dad tried everything. He pleaded with her to stop. He begged her to see a doctor. He even tried to get a hypnotist to help her. This was all futile. Nothing worked. For years she steadfastly refused to accept
that she was an alcoholic”.
The Best family were entirely unprepared for – and unprotected from – the bizarre levels of scrutiny and intrusion that George’s celebrity conferred on them. As Cafolla points out, “there was no privacy. It’s not like today, when footballers like Beckham and Ronaldo are protected from the fans, everything handled and choreographed for them. Back in the 1960s and 1970s, busloads of George’s fans would turn up at the family house on the Cregagh estate and just walk up to the door. Ann couldn’t get past them to take the kids to school.”
Campaigners hope that the film, which is supported by the BBC’s mental health initiative, Headroom, will draw attention to the often hidden problem of late-onset alcoholism in women. Austin Prior, head of treatment services at the Rutland Centre in Dublin, is familiar with the phenomenon.
“We are seeing more cases like this. One women never had any issues until she retired, and now she’s drinking her head off. Another lived with an alcoholic husband for years, and then eventually started drinking herself. It happens with widows, too. Often, it’s very well hidden, so well that even best friends or family are not aware of it. There is a huge amount of shame about it in that age group of women; they feel very judged by society.”
But why do some women find themselves slipping into alcoholism later in life, never having had a problem before? “Often it’s loneliness,” says Prior. “A lot of them would have been very capable, would have always worked, but then they find they don’t have a reason to get up in the morning.”
According to producer and director, Colin Barr, the film “will offer answers to some of the questions about why George turned out the way he did . . . it’s the bit of the George Best story that most people won’t know but it’s probably the most important”.
There’s no doubt that the figure of Best himself – son of Belfast, the football genius, the roguish charmer – still exerts an extraordinary pull on the public imagination in the North. He’s commemorated on gable-end murals in his native east Belfast, and the city airport has been renamed in his honour.
His family – who asked if they wanted to contribute to the film but declined the offer – are fiercely protective of Best’s memory. In fact, it seems that Best is well on his way to popular sainthood in the North, all the violence, squalor and paranoia of his alcoholism wiped away. Perhaps this film will remind viewers of the real man and the real family behind the shiny patina of celebrity.
George Best: His Mother’s Son
will be screened on BBC2 tomorrow at 9pm and will be followed at 10.30pm by a behind-the-scenes documentary on the making of the drama