When I was a kid, I had a mate whose dad would rave about George Best, the greatest footballer on the planet, he claimed. He once played us a documentary showcasing Best’s talents (on and off the pitch). My abiding memory is not of Best bamboozling defenders or nightclubbing with glamorous women at his side, it’s of the song that sound-tracked the documentary: Belfast Boy by Don Fardon.
This catchy pop tune became so embedded in my head that whenever I have subsequently flown into George Best Belfast City Airport, I hear Fardon’s voice: “Georgie, Georgie, they call him the Belfast Boy...
..” Reaching the UK Singles Charts in 1970, that anthemic tune is stirring again today as I walk around east Belfast, where Best was born in 1946.
His terraced childhood home, on the Cregagh Estate, is now a guesthouse, offering accommodation decorated with memorabilia. As well as Best family portraits and his old school reports, it displays handwritten letters that George sent home from across the Irish Sea, which he had crossed, aged 15, to join Manchester United, where he would go on to win a glut of trophies. You can discover Best’s former haunts on tours - either with an audio guide or a local expert.
Highlights include the Glentoran Oval, home of the football club that infamously rejected young George for being “too small and lightweight”, and WJ Desano, his favourite ice cream parlour. Established in 1938, it still delivers the goods, at 344 Newtownards Road - the main t.
