A £26,000 bid has secured George Best’s player of the year trophy for 1968 at auction.
The English Football Writers Association Footballer of the Year trophy for the year was sold by Graham Budd Auctions on Wednesday, May 7.
The trophy was awarded to Best to celebrate his achievements in the 1967 – 68 football season.
That season, his club, Manchester United, were second in the English first division but won the European Cup with an emphatic and much-celebrated 4 – 1 victory over Benfica at Wembley.
Best in 1976. Reportedly a shy youngster he became one of football’s first big star players with a pop star-like profile beyond the game.
A typically brilliant goal from Best was the highlight of the final.
The Belfast-born player was also awarded the Ballon d’Or as the best European footballer for 1968.
By this stage Best was more than just a football player.
His looks and lifestyle helped to make him one of the first celebrity footballers of the modern age. Portuguese reports of the ’68 final called him the Fifth Beatle.
Although his party lifestyle, including a string of encounters with famous women, interfered with his playing more and more, Best is still commonly considered one of the greatest ever footballers. He was a great, natural talent and an inspiration to players like Maradona and Johan Cruyff.
The 23-cm high trophy was awarded by the Football Writers Association, whose 400 or so members have voted on the best player in England since the 1947 – 48 season, when Stanley Matthews was the inaugural winner.
Graham Budd held a two-day Auction of Two Halves this week, dedicating a day’s sale to each of Manchester’s big clubs: the Sky Blues of City (currently dominant) and the Red Devils of United (with the greater historical record despite a current slump).
A legend in Northern Ireland, one of Belfast’s international airports was named in his honour in 2006.
Historic shirts were the backbone of the City sale. A Tommy Booth red and black No. 5 shirt worn for City in the 1969 FA Cup Final (they beat Leicester City 1 – 0) made £3,800.
Best is exceptional not just as a footballer but as a personality. He was a fixture on the celebrity circuit, and in tabloid newspapers.
He died in 2005 aged just 59, effectively from alcoholism. His funeral in Belfast was attended by more than 100,000 people.
He is highly collectible. Last year, the Benfica shirt he obtained from opponent Antonio Simoes and wore in celebrations was sold for £22,000.
