'Limitless' - the genius of George Best, 60 years after his Manchester United debut

“To me, a genius is someone with a brilliant mind who has had great accomplishments in a challenging field, and changed the world in some meaningful way. As vague as this definition may seem, the essence of genius is limitless. There appear to be no bounds to what geniuses can accomplish. To define it much further, is to limit something that is supposed to be limitless.” (I. C. Robledo).

It was 60 years ago this week that a certain young man from east Belfast made his debut for Manchester United. His name is George Best, and he was a genius.

On a bright sunny day on Wednesday 22 May 1946 a baby boy was born in Belfast who would literally change the face of football forever. In June 1945, Dickie Best married his sweetheart Anne Withers and eleven months later the couple witnessed the birth of their first child and named him George after Anne’s father.

Has any footballer ever been born with a more suitable name and into such a humble background? Dickie was a modest working-class man and a hugely respected figure in the local community of Castlereagh in East Belfast where the Best family lived at

Burren Way. Dickie worked at an iron turner's lathe at the world-famous Harland & Wolff shipyard at Queen’s Island, Belfast where the Titanic was built. Anne worked on the production line at Gallaher's tobacco factory, the largest tobacco factory in the world, located in North Belfast. Dickie was 26-years old when Geordie, as the family called him, was born and played amateur football until he was 36 whilst George’s mum was an outstanding hockey player.

From the moment he could walk all George ever did was play football and it was his Granda George who would kick a ball about all day with his grandson. On the other side of