I can still remember the
photograph of footballer George Best dying in hospital - he was a yellow olive Thai
curry colour. He’d allowed the photograph to be used as a terrifying warning
shot : “Don’t drink!” The tea-time news reported that his organs were closing
down and he died shortly after. As he was an Irish legend the funeral was held at
Stormont and I can remember seeing his son Callum
walking behind the cortege with tears running down his cheeks. Here I am at the
hospital where George died from the affects of alcoholism. This hospital is
known around the world for treating liver and kidney infections. It couldn’t
help the football legend though as he’d continued drinking after having a new
liver.
When I was a boy I can remember him being on
television. I was so naive I thought he was called Best as he was the best
footballer in the country. When he’s shown on television playing football he’s
usually dribbling passed defenders and scoring but he was a brilliant
all-rounder - brill with both feet, good at feints, a
fast sprinter with the ball and crafty at finding space when heavily marked.
He’d often played after a night out clubbing and boozing and getting just three
hours sleep.
I remember him more as a writer though. After his
football career he wrote in a magazine that supplemented a Sunday newspaper.
Suddenly things stopped and the paper had dumped him, fed up having to baby him
into meeting writing deadlines. This coincided with a messy private life which
was anything but private. He’d allegedly hit his wife in the face a couple of
times when drunk. His chronic boozing had paid the wages of many a newspaper
reporter as he was regularly featured in the red-tops for assaulting police,
drink-driving, stints in prison, stealing and brawling. He’d been an alcoholic
for most of his adulthood (his mum had turned into an alcoholic in her
forties.)
Aged 54 he was diagnosed with severe liver damage
and told it was functioning at only 20% efficiency. A year later he was
admitted to hospital with pneumonia and a year later he received a successful
liver transplant (nearly bleeding to death in the operation.) He couldn’t stop
drinking though and soon seen drunk and banned again from driving.
Aged 59 he was brought to this hospital to receive
intensive care for a kidney infection. The media reported that he was dying and
men with cameras assembled on the pavement when I’m stood. Old chums from the
past visited to say farewell - Rodney Marsh, Bobby Charlton and Denis Law.
Knowing the end was near he requested the News of the World newspaper published
a picture of this jaundiced wreck with yellow eyes. On 25th November 2005
treatment was stopped and George died the same day. He was buried with his mum
Annie in Roselawn Cemetery that looks across onto
East Belfast.
The hospital is on a busy road and you can only
hope the windows are double-glazed and kept shut. BUPA bought this place and
even today it’s marketed at wealthy Middle Eastern people (accounting for 40%
of its patients.) The actress Margaret Lockwood died here in 1990 of cirrhosis
of the liver after many years living as a recluse. I did a salute and left.