Bother

Anyone browsing through the Sunday papers the other week would have noticed in one tabloid a large photograph, candidly snapped, no doubt with a lens like a drainpipe, and captioned ‘the picture we’ve all been waiting for’. The picture showed a wistful George Best, garbed in prison overalls, serving his time. It certainly wasn’t my cup of Typhoo (was it really anyone’s?): but it set me pondering about how we treat our heroes. Best’s own case has been well documented, and he is possibly the saddest case of a sporting megastar who has come a cropper through his own and other people’s excesses. Now, instead of remembering the genius, we are reduced to inserting the boot when the man is clearly out for the count.