Soccer legend George Best dies at age 59
(AP)
Updated: 2005-11-26 10:10

In a game in Portugal in 1966, Best scored twice in the first 12 minutes, and the shaggy-haired star with screaming fans became known as the fifth Beatle. He was voted European Player of the Year after his club's Champions Cup triumph in 1968.

"Pele called me the greatest footballer in the world," Best once said. "That is the ultimate salute to my life."

Best retired at 27 in 1972 to concentrate on business ventures, which included nightclubs and clothing boutiques. He came out of retirement three years later, considerably overweight.

Best slimmed down and went to the United States, where he played for the Aztecs of the now-defunct NASL. He later walked out on Fulham, a second-division English club, prompting a worldwide ban. That ruled out a move to Fort Lauderdale, although he later played for the team.

After the ban was lifted, Best had a successful spell with San Jose. He then moved to the Scottish club Hibernian but was fired when he failed to show for two games because of drinking binges.

In 1984, he served two months in jail for drunken driving. In 2004, he was banned from driving for 20 months after another conviction. In 2000, Best collapsed from serious liver damage. He was hospitalized with pneumonia in 2001. Two months later, anti-alcohol pellets were implanted in his stomach.

Best could not be relied on to keep appointments either as a player, TV soccer analyst or after-dinner speaker. His private life was splashed across the British tabloids.

"I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars," he once said. "The rest I just squandered."

At times, he had a comic's perfect delivery.

"I used to go missing a lot," he said. "Miss Canada, Miss United Kingdom, Miss World."

In 1983, Best was hit over the head with a beer glass in a London pub hours after he appeared in bankruptcy court for failing to pay back taxes. Just before Christmas the following year, Best was jailed for three months for drunken driving, assaulting a policeman and jumping bail.

In 1990, Best appeared wildly drunk on a live TV show, uttering expletives and embarrassing the host. But, with his second wife, Alex Pursey, standing by, he contained his drinking enough to regularly appear on an afternoon soccer program as an analyst.

The drinking caught up with him again, and doctors told him even one more glass of wine could kill him. In the hospital for a month, Best promised his wife he wouldn't drink again. It was one more promise he couldn't keep.

In 2004, Alex Best was granted a divorce after nine years of marriage, citing her husband's adultery. Best had a son, Calum, from a four-year marriage to his first wife, Angie.

Best will be buried next to his mother, Ann, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on Dec. 2, said his agent, Phil Hughes.