But the talk was still about football - and of the late George Best in particular.

I eavesdropped a little bit more; I didn't really have to.

These gentlemen were the type who believe that the louder you are, the more important your words become.

So anyway, we'd got to the stage where a determination was made that Bestie was indeed an arrogant git.

And why was that, Mr Born Long After He Stopped Playing And Never Actually Met Him Or Anyone Who Really Knew Him?

Oh, it was germinated by a clip he saw from a Michael Parkinson show dating back to the early Seventies.

Best, who was in his mid-twenties then, was explaining to Parky about why he was demanding a not inconsiderable amount of money in his new contract at Manchester United.

"Well," said George, "I'm the best player at Old Trafford so why shouldn't they pay me the most money?"

So there you have it. George Best, forever branded as an arrogant git in the mind of a moron.

The ironic reality of course is that - and I've seen the clip myself - the kid from Cregagh was actually being modest.

He wasn't just the best player at Old Trafford. He was the finest player on the planet - and, arguably, the greatest footballer of all time.

George wasn't arrogant. He was many other things, though; lovable, charming, intelligent, witty, endearing, intriguing, infuriating, exasperating, thoughtless, unreliable...

And disarming. Oh yes. Indeed, that was probably the most powerful thing about George's personality.

His accomplishments on a football field are now the stuff of legend, and you'd be hard pressed to find a Manchester United or Northern Ireland supporter who would have spoken ill of him, especially now that he's no longer with us.

But Bestie did let an awful lot of people down, both those who knew him intimately and those who really only knew him by reputation.

For a start, he let the football world down by walking away from Manchester United at 27 when, potentially, his finest years in the game were still ahead of him.

Later, he would let down others who had booked him for numerous functions - many of which were actually organised at his behest - by failing to turn up. Well-meaning people paid good money just to get a mere glimpse of their hero at, say, a gala dinner held in his honour ... and the man himself couldn't even be bothered to attend.

Yes, maybe the guy in the bar had a point with that "arrogant git" remark.

But we all know it wasn't arrogance, nor was it contempt for ordinary folk, that made George do what he did.

Indeed, it was the reverse. Despite his global superstar status, he was never aloof; he was everyone's friend, and everyone wanted to buy their friend George a drink.

To their great delight - and to his ultimate, fatal downfall - he invariably accepted.

Women, captivated by his smouldering good looks and fundamentally shy demeanour, wanted to give him a lot more than a drink - and more often than not he took them up on that offer too.

Already an alcoholic in his early twenties, he spent the next four decades or so, up until his death in November 2005, both captivating and infuriating people, including close family members and two long-suffering wives.

Yet because of his disease - or maybe simply because he was just lovable old George - he got, if you excuse the football parlance, a bye ball.

Certainly the tens of thousands who lined the streets of east Belfast for his funeral on that bleak, damp December afternoon provided a fitting send-off for the genius from Burren Way.

Like that other famous product of Belfast, the Titanic, here was a proud, flawed masterpiece finding its final resting place.

That endearing dichotomy - extraordinary, immortal footballer, yet ordinary and all too mortal man - continues to fascinate, however.

There are no big banner headlines about the Belfast Boy any more; no more tales of hedonistic nights with glamorous ladies, drunken arguments, run-ins with cops, embarrassing appearances on TV and at dinners, even more embarrassing non-appearances, doomed attempts to stay onthe wagon, controversies over liver transplants.

That mantle, if you like, appears to have been assumed by his self-styled playboy son Calum, but that's a story for another day.

The story we're helping to bring you this week is about George himself.

The man who made it to the very top of his profession - and then imploded spectacularlywhen he got there.

The man whose skills on a football pitch, even when captured in grainy black and white television images, still have the capacity to send a shiver of astonishment down the spine.

"You think Ronaldo's good? He couldn't have laced Bestie's boots..." (Copyright everyone who, like me, had the pleasure of seeing his peerless player glide across the turf with a ball at his mesmeric feet).

There have been over 30 books written about - and, supposedly, by - George Best since he burst onto the scene as football's first media superstar in the mid-Sixties.

Some were good, most were downright awful, many were written to cash in on his drink-fuelled notoriety - often sanctioned by the fallen idol himself in times of need.

Both his ex-wives Angie and Alex have published books about their lives with George - and both have retained his surname.

Indeed, the latter even changed the title of her autobiography from " Always Alex" to "Loving George" after her ex-husband finally succumbed to the real love of his life - alcohol - at the age of 59.

But these "authors" are people who met George when he was already world famous; what about those who knew him best - his own family?

Now, at last, that story is to be told, primarily by his sister Barbara, with exclusive extracts in the Belfast Telegraph this week.

We'll hear what was really said when the icon was slowly slipping away in that hospital bed in London, how George's mother herself fought a losing battle with the booze and, of course, we'll hear how being a sibling of Bestie was both a pleasure and a pain.

With previously unseen family photos and hitherto unpublished letters, it promises to be a fascinating read.

Many people, like myself, have met and spent a highly enjoyable time with Bestie; many millions have been touched by his sheer brilliance as a footballer.

But few people can say, hand on heart, that they really knew the enigmatic, fatally flawed genius.

Now, however, we're finally about to hear from them.