It was the best of times
Well, no, actually it was the Baxter of times
Ladies and gents, the sad decline of the footballing genius that was George Best recently has prompted me to share with you the part he played in my formative years.
Picture the scene dear reader. The venue is Danny MacKay's boozer just off London Rd, Bridgeton, and the dateline is 18:30pm on Saturday August 10th 1963. Oh, they're all there, the usual suspects, among them are my old man, his old man, my uncles and their mates oh, and a young scamp who would come to call himself '1972' on the FF message boards in later days.
Playing the starring role in this act of the play is my old man and his old man. They're just back from watching Rangers, well Baxter mainly, pissing all over Timmy in his 'ain midden' on the opening day of that Triple Crown winning 1963/64 season in a League Cup sectional tie. Oh, and for good measure 'The Blacks' were out that lovely summer's day also. The conversation (as the drink flowed) went something like this;
My old man (to his old man) - 'C'mon admit it, you've NEVER saw a better footballer than Jim Baxter'
His old man (to my old man) - 'Rubbish, I saw eleven Jim Baxters in the one team playing for Rangers'
My old man (incredulous at this point even allowing for his good mood, snorted derisively) - ' You saw eleven Jim Baxters. Okay when? Like 1927 when Falkirk could put us out of the Scottish Cup at Ibrox in a replay? (My old man, who knows his stuff you know, was on a roll by now) Eleven Jim Baxters in one team who couldn't win the Scottish Cup in 25 years? You saw eleven Jim Baxters in the one Rangers team? Away and bile yer heid ya obstinate old goat!'
His old man - (Slightly on the retreat by this point) - 'I'm telling you, I saw better Rangers players than Jim Baxter.
My old man - 'Well, who then, name them!'
His old man - (He's getting slightly more confident again as he knows he has 'time' on his side) 'Well, Alan Morton and Davie Meiklejohn for starters!'
My old man - (Exasperated by now) 'Well that's only F****** TWO players. You said you saw eleven. Name them!
The bottom line is, my granda didn't want to extol the virtues of James Curran Baxter the footballer ON the park (certainly not to his son) because, in his opinion, he didn't behave like a Ranger OFF it. And that's cool if slightly unfair as you'll find out later on in this wee scribble.
But the game/charade/footballing theology debate, call it what you will, that would be endlessly replayed by the two most knowledgeable football fans I have ever met was up. As my old man always said to me in the ensuing years. How could he argue against the merits of Alan Morton and Davie Meiklejohn, when he was too young to have seen them play and therefore judge them against Baxter?
However, the year 1963, is very poignant and symbolic in this wee tale. Just a few months after that conversation my granda would get his 'Get out Jail Free' card in this 'father and son' debate. Because in the October, a mere slip of a lad from Belfast made his debut for Manchester Utd at Old Trafford v West Brom. That boy was George Best. And from then on the debate between these two took on a different slant in the years to come.
My old man - 'I still maintain you've never saw a better, finer footballer than Jim Baxter!'
His old man - 'Yes I have, George Best!'
My old man - 'So that's George Best PLUS the eleven Baxters you saw previously then?'
I had my part to play as I got older, a mere pawn between these two footballing super brains it had to be said. I'd be sitting in the pub with my granda and I would ask him the following question;
Me - 'Who was the best Rangers player you ever saw?
My granda - 'Morton and Meiklejohn' the old fox would reply. It was almost as if you could see the wheels turning upstairs under his bunnet. 'If I say Baxter he'll go home and tell his old man'
Me - What about Baxter, how did he figure in the grand scheme of things?
My granda - 'Och Baxter wisny bad, but he didn't play for Rangers, he played for himself!'
Me - 'So who was the best footballer you've ever seen?'
My Granda - 'George Best!'
Me - 'So George Best was better than Pele, Di Stefano, Puskas, even Alan Morton?
My granda - 'You better believe it!'
I would always leave it at that.
Call me biased but I'm still under the impression there was some first class subterfuge going on here. First off, in an argument with his son, my granda didn't rate Baxter because he wasn't a 'Ranger'. A generation later he is telling his grandson that he didn't rate Baxter because he wasn't a team player, he was an individual, a maverick if you will.
But perversely enough, the person that he did rate as the greatest ever footballer (George Best) was as much an individual and maverick on the pitch, and rogue off it, as there has ever been. Pst, whisper it, but between you and I dear reader, I reckon my granda fancied George Best, first and foremost, because he was a Belfast Prod!
But the footballing debate that engaged my old man and his old man apart. We should never, ever forget the rich tapestry of footballing genius that the Belfast Boy left us all. And even in his footballing dotage (tragically all too early) 'Bestie' gave us a wee glimpse of what used to be at Ibrox on Saturday March 1st 1980. (The defeat at Easter Rd a couple of months earlier had nothing to do with Best and everything to do with our own side's failings)
I can still remember it. A crisp, bright spring day at Ibrox and with his side shooting into the Broomloan Rd, Best collected the ball over at the dug out area then shimmied, sold a dummy a dummy and then delivered the most crisp, sumptuous, daisy-cutting 45 yard pass cross field to a colleague on Hibs' right hand side of the field. Two/three seconds of sheer footballing poetry. It was a cameo performance and then some.
Which brings us back conveniently to that previous, continual argument between my old man and his old man. The sad fact is TV wasn't around in the 1920s to capture the exploits of Davie Meiklejohn and Alan Morton. Come to think of it, we didn't get too much of Baxter either, nearly 40 years later.
But because of the ever-growing importance/influence of the 'Roger Mellie' we did get to see Georgie Best. And what price those memories? THAT lob at the Stretford End, that veering, cross-field wander and step aside of the keeper and the swashbuckling shot v West Ham (?) not at the Stretford End. The Gordon Banks episode at Windsor Park. That improbable, dizzy, mazy dribble for some mob whilst playing 'sakka' in the US of A. We saw it all and we watched mesmerised. As a child you came away from these (earlier Man Utd) clips wanting to be even better than Bestie.
But do you know what I loved most about George Best? It wasn't just that he was a half-decent dribbler, and that he had a certain ability to pass a ball that so few people will never get to attain. It wasn't his Belfast accent and background. And I couldn't care less how many blondes he got to tup.
Nope, what I admired most about Best was his bravery. He really was a footballing St George out to slay the dragon. Watch especially, the early footage of this wee skinny fella going in where others dared not to tread. He never pulled out of going for a 40-60 challenge. In fact that imp knew he'd get there first and he had the nous and the cunning to avoid the inevitable lunge that was coming next.
He was a matador to the raging bulls of the game. Only it was a red shirt he inflamed them with, not a cape. He came into an era when certain footballers were praised for their savagery (Chopper Harris anyone?). It was as if bringing football into disrepute was something to be congratulated on. Yet here we had a young man challenging and taunting them to their faces and reminding us once again that football, when played in the purest sense, is not just a sport but something that should captivate and be enjoyed by us all.
There was also however another philosophical and mature side to him. And this becomes apparent when you read Michael Parkinson's biography of him. Where George Best viewed the 1968 European Cup triumph as the launchpad to the rest of his career. The start of the rest of where he wanted to be, as a footballer. Conversely enough it was journey's end for Sir Matt Busby. His personal Holy Grail had been found. And you get the feeling (Hell, this having a degree in retrospect is the doddles) that a large chunk of George Best's career died because of it.
There was another aspect to George Best's life that must evoke sympathy. We must remember that he was caught up in a sort of 'Beatlemania'. No one, whether it be George himself, or his mentor at Man Utd, Sir Matt Busby, his family, or the staff at Old Trafford would have been able to cope nor comprehend this phenomena. How could you?
Think Beckhamania, only with a real deal of a footballer instead and you begin to get the point. Yet whereas Mr Posh Spice has an army of staff to deal with the crap and the overkill. Bestie had a little old woman in Macclesfield or such like, to deal with the fan mail.
You get the feeling that George Best in the early 1970s, one of, if not THE most famous footballer in the world at that time. A man adored, loved, envied and feted by millions of people, was the loneliest person on the planet.
To my mind THAT is the life a genius lives. If you have not been touched by God and landed with this extraordinary talent then I very much doubt any of us will ever get to live out the frustrations of those who have when the humdrum state that we lesser mortals have to live through, kick in.
Again, Best, like Baxter before him, had to endure personal abuse on the medical front when things were not going his way and major surgery by way of a transplant was required to keep him going. You all know the drill. You all saw the letters from outraged of Croydon (or in Baxter's case Croy) 'Dear Sir, I would like to register my disgust.. My sister's husband (a widget maker from Leicester) who has never let alcohol pass his lips in 63 years has been denied a liver Transplant. However a trollop called George Best’.. I'm simply not equipped to answer this medical and theological debate.
So there we have it. The first five years of the 21st Century has witnessed the passing away of arguably the two most outrageously gifted and irascible footballers of the previous century. If one of them was ours in the physical sense, the other was most definitely ours in a spiritual one. Another reminder, should any be required, as to the utmost importance of a proper youth system. And of course the folly of neglecting our Brethren over the water.
Which brings me back to the greatest 'What If' of all. What if Rangers had, had their arse in gear back then scouting wise? What if George Best had made the same journey from Belfast to Glasgow as Billy Simpson had 13 years previously?
Well, we do know that a certain Fifer already on the books would have went out of his way to make the youngster from Belfast feel at home. Take him under his wing as it were. This may have caused amnesia and even more consternation in an already under siege and perplexed Scot Symon Eight Nights a Week. Tell you what though. It might have stopped my old man and his old man bickering for a while!
Sleep well Bestie,
The Govanhill Gub.