Babysitting George : The Last Days of a Soccer Icon

Celia Walden, a young reporter in Great Britain, is charged with staying close to soccer icon George Best, but ends up in an unlikely friendship with the aging and sickly athlete. This is their story. As a young reporter, Celia Walden receives an unusual assignment: track down a global superstar and keep him away from all other journalists. That man is soccer player George Best, who made his debut for Manchester United at age seventeen and was the star of a star team throughout the 1960s. Enormously skilled and ruggedly handsome, idolized by men and women alike, he was referred to as "the fifth Beatle," and still holds a firm place among the world's all-time best players. But in 2004, George Best is nearing sixty and deteriorating like a much older man. A notorious alcoholic and philanderer, he has just received a liver transplant and has Antabuse tablets sewn into his stomach lining. His wife has left him again. When Celia finds him in a bar in Malta, he isn't exactly delighted to see her. He's been chased by journalists all his life. Yet as Celia's assignment to "babysit" George around the clock stretches out over months, an unlikely sort of friendship develops, and she gets to know George as a funny, volatile, and complex human being, an avid reader and member of MENSA, ravaged by alcohol and gradually withering under the constant glare of the spotlight. Babysitting George is a tender account of a unique relationship between a young journalist and a dying star. It questions the exploitative nature of tabloid journalism; the terrifying, all-consuming nature of addiction; and the implausible meetings that can change one's life. __________________ 'Celia Walden's memoir of George Best near the end of his life is a beautiful portrait of genius in tragic, terminal decline' - Tony Parsons 'Funny, affectionate and tragically sad by turns, and the book actually sheds new light on the ex-footballer' - Independent 'A touching insight into George Best the man - and the media circus that made him' - Economist __________________ A unique and moving memoir of a young journalist's summer in the company of George Best, in the year before he died August, 2003. Celia Walden, a young reporter, receives an unusual phone call from her editor. She is to drop everything and fly to Malta in an attempt to track down a legendary footballer and keep him from the press. George Best, an alcoholic with his personal life in chaos, isn't, however, the easiest man to find. But the unlikely friendship that develops between George and Celia reveals an intelligent and complex human being. Babysitting George is a tender account of a unique relationship between a young woman and a dying star, which questions the exploitative nature of fame and tabloid journalism, the horrors of addiction and the humane, implausible friendships that can change one's life forever. "In 2003 Celia Walden, a young reporter, receives a phone call from her editor. She is to drop everything, travel to Malta and track down legendary footballer George Best. When Celia does discover him, in an Irish bar drinking countless white wine spritzers, he isn't exactly delighted to see her. But the unlikey friendship that develops between George and Celia reveals an intelligent, funny, wild and complex human being."--Back cover.