"The Fashion Of Football - From Best To Beckham, From Mod To Label Slave"

If Bobby Moore was a man in full control, George Best's impulsive nature, his wild-hearted temperament, led him to places Moore would never have visited, such as turning up drunk on national TV or finding himself senseless on early-morning pavements.

Best was both totally open and totally closed, a man of mystery and soul. He once chased a girl for months and months, and when she finally relented and appeared at his house to disrobe and entangle herself with him, she was a greeted by an empty flat and a note on the door from George that read, 'Nobody knows me.'

When Best arrived in this country, the son of a shipyard worker and an alcoholic mother, he was a callow 16 year old who dressed in black and white, very staid, very understated. Within a day, he was back in Belfast, convinced that not even his God-given talent could deliver that which was expected of him by manager Matt Busby. He was wrong. Within a year, Best had transformed himself into one of the most stylish footballers of his time, both on and off the pitch.

At first, Best adored his stardom, for it made his life a dream. Money, champagne, girls, applause, the whole country enraptured by your unique skills - was there ever a better buzz, or curse, for a working-class boy from Belfast? Best played football with extraordinary flair and colour. His ability to create a wondrous magic on the field, to leave defenders in his wake and the crowd gasping at his ability to score goals of supreme imagination, gave British football a completely new dimension. Best brought something totally new to the game and in doing so achieved greatness.

Best was the supreme individualist, a man not given to a belief in tactics, only to faith in his lavish skills. His magic was instinctive, totally unexplainable. His national manager at the time, Billy Bingham, once said of him, 'He contributes nothing [to team talks] . . . nothing at all. He sits and never utters a word . . . most players want to get involved but when I bring George into the discussion, he'll only say yes or no . . . I don't know why because he's an intelligent boy.'

Best's ascent to the highest levels of fame began in 1963, the year he made his debut for United. He learnt fast. By 1965, he had played fifty-eight League games for United, scored nine goals and made as many appearances for his country. He was not yet twenty. In 1966, United played Benfica away in the quarter-final of the European Cup. Busby ordered his players to contain them for the first twenty minutes at least. Defend, don't let them score. Defend, defend. Those were the strict orders drummed into the players' heads.

'George must have had cotton wool in his ears,' Busby later stated. 'Within the first quarter of an hour, he destroyed them on his own with two goals and made another for Connelly.'

Tactics, schmactics.

Best came home to find his face on the front and back pages of the Daily Mirror. He wore a sombrero. El Beatle, they called him. It was a smart move to link him with the Fab Four, for what The Beatles were to pop music, George was to football - an absolute phenomenon, a man of magic, a man who would change the way things were done forever. Just like John, Paul, George and Ringo.

Six days after the Benfica game, Best and close Manchester City friend Mike Summerbee (Best was best man at Mike's wedding) opened up a male boutique called Edwardia in Sale, Manchester. The 400 fans, mainly schoolgirls, who came to the opening nearly brought down the shop window under their collective pressure. For Best, the shop was a diversion whose main rewards were not financial, but those of the flesh.

'I ended up having a stake in three shops,' Best told writer Joe Lovejoy. 'Another one just off Deansgate and the third in the Arndale shopping precinct in Manchester. Summerbee and I were partners but it was Malcolm Mooney who ran the set-up. Mike and I didn't really have much to do with them; we used our names to promote them and popped in once in a while. Just another way of pulling birds I suppose.'

Clothes for the young were the obvious tool in the selling of Georgie. He was soon being photographed carrying boxes of what he termed 'our new "Mod" stock' into the shop. He was also photographed posing in a white button-down shirt, Prince of Wales checked trousers and waistcoat, looking very Modish. 'I enjoy it and it's good for business,' he stated.

Best often posed with his partner, Mike, and that was good for business as well - United and City for once joined at the hip. Everyone welcome. In one memorable press shot, they wore suits made from 'kid mohair, with satin-faced lapel and cuffs. The trousers are slightly flared with satin-bound side seams. The price, about £42'.

The copy line also says that this is George's one and only suit. 'He always teams jackets with trousers but won't buy a suit.' George's attitude to suits is instructive. At that point in his life, suits to the young symbolised authority, were worn only by the staid, those who would keep talent such as his at bay. Suits were for squares and Best wanted nothing to do with the creaking world the suit represented at that particular point in Britain.

With the shop came further photographic demands. Here's a pic of Mike, modelling a checked umbrella for men, 'one of the first to break away from the traditional black umbrella image', and George sporting a double-peaked rainhat made by Edward Mann and costing 35s 11d. 'Thank heavens for a bit of imagination,' George's quote runs. 'Men tend to be so dull about accessories. They wear floral ties and things, why not stripes and zigzags on umbrellas or caps like this, instead of outdated trilbies?'

As on the pitch, so in the wardrobe. Best yearned for the new. The new coloured up the world, created a brave new future. It was the decade's strongest belief, designed to instigate the complete breaking away from the stiffness of the 1950s, the years of austerity, the years of kowtowing to the upper classes.