Belfast mourns its favorite son George Best
(AP)
Updated: 2005-12-04 10:25

In death as in his life, George Best stirred the passions and unified the people of his native Belfast in a triumphant farewell of tears, humor and pride.

More than 100,000 mourners, Protestant and Catholic alike, applauded as the hearse bearing Best's body drove down Belfast streets Saturday for a state-style funeral inside Stormont Parliamentary Building, Northern Ireland's hilltop center of government overlooking the city.

Northern Ireland has seen more than 3,000 funerals over its past 35 years of sectarian conflict _ but nothing so large in scale, nor as surprisingly cathartic, as this.

Best, 59, was the world's first soccer superstar. He delighted fans with fantastic ball-handling skills and attracted others with his dark good looks. But in recent years he became an increasingly tragic figure, unable to defeat his toughest opponent _ alcoholism _ despite a 2002 liver transplant.

Tears flowed freely in the state-style funeral service, televised live throughout Britain and Ireland, as Best's only child, Calum, read poems that compared his father to a heavenly star called home too quickly by God.

"The golden days, they went so fast. The precious times, why can't they last?" Calum Best said in one of many moments when emotions overflowed at the speaker's podium beside Best's casket.

Outside, mourners who stood for hours in the rain for their moment tossed bouquets and soccer scarves into the path of the slow-passing hearse. Police stood to attention and saluted it all the way to Roselawn Cemetery on the Belfast outskirts, where Best was buried alongside his mother, Ann, in a private ceremony.

But at Stormont, laughter and happy memories cut into the grief. In his coffin-side testimonial, former Manchester United teammate Denis Law reminisced about Best's feckless failure to keep appointments or to show up sober _ a reputation so ingrained that one Belfast bookmaker had offered 7-to-1 odds on whether Best would miss his own funeral.

"I can't count the number of times he let me down. He didn't turn up, or he did turn up _ and wasn't on this planet," Law said from a podium overlooking the casket, which was draped in a green Northern Ireland soccer flag.

Law said Best's legendary charm would win him over even at that moment of disappointment. During one vacation together, Law said he found Best in the hotel bar the next morning.

"There he was sitting in the bar, with a cheeky smile on his face, glass in hand. Before I could say anything, he'd said: 'Hey little man, I've just ordered you a nice pot of tea'," Law recounted.

Best's career peaked in 1968 when, combining up front with Law and Bobby Charlton, Manchester United won the European Champions Cup. Best was crowned European Footballer of the Year.

Best, who died on November 25 in a London hospital, had joined Man United at 17 and became a phenomenon with pace, dribbling and guile that left defenders lunging in his wake.

But blessed also with matinee-idol looks and a hearty appetite for women and booze, Best walked away from the game in 1972 to run nightclubs, fashion shops and other ill-fated business ventures.

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

He returned to soccer, largely to regain the money he'd partied away, pursuing assignments in the now-defunct North American Soccer League and with Hibernian in Scotland. He lost the Hibernian job after missing two games because of hangovers.

Ordinary fans and top-flight soccer figures alike voiced regrets Saturday that Best never played in a World Cup or European Championship. He played 37 times for a Northern Ireland that had too few other talented players.

England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson, Manchester United boss Alex Ferguson, Northern Ireland coach Lawrie Sanchez and Man United player Ole Gunnar Solkskjaer were among approximately 300 family members, friends and dignitaries allowed into the funeral ceremony in Stormont's Grand Hall.

"I have never been to a funeral like that before," Eriksson said. "It was beautiful and George and his family got the respect he deserved. I shed a few tears myself."

Also there were Ireland's former world featherweight boxing champion, Barry McGuigan, and Belfast snooker ace Alex Higgins. Rival political leaders from the British Protestant and Irish Catholic factions of this long-divided community sat side-by-side.

"Whatever our politics, whatever our religion, George Best has helped us find our common humanity," said Peter Hain, the British secretary of state for Northern Ireland.

Hain recalled marveling at Best's seemingly effortless grace as he tore through the defense of his team, Chelsea, in the 1960s. "Even though I was a (Chelsea) fan, a fanatic, you actually wanted to see him do it _ you clapped him as he destroyed your team," he said.

Those outside on a typically chilly and wet Belfast winter's day followed the ceremony on three giant TV screens. Many mourners had traveled overnight from England and Ireland.

"Since I was a knee-high little boy, I watched his life," said Stanley Neill, 45, a railway operator who was born in Northern Ireland but lives in England. Neill arrived about 9 p.m. Friday and was first inside Stormont's gates.