The story of George Best is truly a tragedy. Few would dispute that he was a football genius. His remarkable ability allowed him scale the heights of his profession. But he was brought down and ultimately destroyed by his chronic addiction to alcohol and his inability to overcome it.
He turned professional aged 17 and retired aged just 27. For most of his remaining 33 years, he was pathetically unable to resist alcohol, his undignified decline chronicled remorselessly by sections of the media. Best knew he was doomed. Explaining his addiction, he once remarked "there are dark moods and demons and you just need to go off and get wrecked".
There was genuine and widespread sorrow yesterday at the passing of a man who, despite his evident failings, was capable of evoking in others feelings towards him of great warmth, of love even. In a world where manufactured heroes are two a penny, Best was a real hero, a hero from east Belfast's Protestant working class community whose appeal transcended crude divisions.
In his heyday in the 1960s he was a strikingly handsome young man with pop star charisma. He was tanned and had blue eyes. With his mop of black hair, morning-after stubble and generous smile, he exuded a raffish charm that many women found irresistible. He was football's first superstar, the first to step effortlessly off the playing field and into the world of designer clothes and flash-bulb celebrity. Like that other sport superstar Muhammad Ali, he had a sharp mind, keen intelligence and wit. His self-deprecating humour made him more endearing still.
Throughout yesterday, Best's skills were on display as TV stations showed archive footage of his glory years with Manchester United, his red strip devoid of commercial sponsorship, a reminder that much has changed in professional football since then. Best was no pauper player for sure. In 1966 he was earning £160 a week, drove a 3.4 litre Jaguar, had a personal fan club with a full-time secretary and a half share in a booming fashion boutique - a profile that puts him, but not his fellow players back then, on a par with today's football superstars. But were he a young player today, Best's self-destructive excesses would be less tolerated than they were and a robust manager might have been able to help save him from himself.
In football stadiums across the world, Best will be remembered as fans will want to recall him above all else - as a magical player, who dribbled, skipped and danced past opponents, leaving them immobile like statues in his wake, only to slam the ball into the back of the net to the eruption of wild cheers from the terraces.