Madam, - I usually hate the manufactured outpouring of sentimentality on such occasions and the not-so-subtle milking of the situation for other purposes.
But I was overcome with sadness at the death of George Best. He was the pin-up boy of my generation, the football genius, the "bit of a lad" we all wanted to be. He played as we would have liked to have played, if we had been given the talent and the chance. He lived out our fantasies, in more ways than one.
His football was off-the-cuff, skilful, daring, imaginative and never nasty. He played to win, jinked and dribbled away from mesmerised opponents and scored fantastic goals.
The video clips remind us. The talk brings us us back to our youth and the way things were, in those rosy days of football before it became the business it is now. Goodbye George, we weep to see you go.
We are also crying for ourselves and our ideals, our dreams, our fantasies, our might-have-beens. - Yours, etc,
MICHAEL POWER, Springlawn Road, Dublin 15.