I have read virtually all of them; some were mediocre, a few obvious newspaper clipping "jobs", while others can be classified as perceptive and even brilliant.

The latest tome, Memories of George Best by Christopher Hilton and Ian Cole, in my opinion surpasses them all.

The authors felt there had to be a different George Best behind the endless screaming, occasionally lurid headlines so they set out to find him.

The 255 page publication is a gripping story and one when you start reading is impossible to stop. Here diligently researched are hundreds of anecdotes by team-mates, newspapermen, friends or just acquaintances.

His first wife Angie Best whom he divorced in 1986 pulls no punches.

She says: "Everything the football people tell you about George being a great bloke, very intelligent, shy but marvellous company - it is all true but only in the environment of a football field.

"The rest of George's life was incredibly unhappy. He didn't know how to accept what had been given to him and so he turned to drinking.

"There was nothing you could do to make George happy. He never addressed his depression and that is what ultimately killed him. If it was addressed maybe in the last 10 years, it was too bloody late. His brain and the depression that lived in it had to be addressed because that was what would suddenly click and he'd disappear."

South African Michael Cohen, one of his team-mates at Los Angeles Aztecs, said: "He was a magnificent person. He was able to make people around him feel special. He didn't work at it, he was just like that but, having said that, he was quick in sussing out people whether they were genuine or not."

And Rodney Marsh, who launched a series of road-shows with him, contends nobody ever understood George and he issued a challenge to the authors: "People have never ever, ever, got the true side of George Best. Ever. Maybe you two will."

My view - they certainly have after trawling deep with their nets spread world-wide.

The authors have talked to the people who drank and caroused with him, spoken to the women in his life to discover the secret of his sex appeal and listened to real friends describe how the patient, crossword puzzle expert, became a monstrous parody of himself with drink.

Rodney Marsh revealed he was totally committed to loving his father. He didn't trust other people 100% because he had been turned over so many times.

"Again that would be the defensive mechanism of the second George Best (the first was the football genius). Who can blame him? I live my life like that too.

"He was incredibly sharp, would talk about any subject with great knowledge but again you would have to say you'd have to qualify the conversation by saying when he was not drinking.

" When lucid you'd sit down with him and he would chat about history, politics and he had strong opinions about a divided country - Ireland."

The tales are endless, amusing, candid and revealing such as the trip to Dubai before he had his liver transplant. Overall this book portrays with honesty and sincerity George Best in all his facets.

Unanimity exists on one point - the boy from Burran Way on the sprawling Cregagh housing estate whom I've known from his schooldays ranks along with Pele, Maradona, Cruyff and Zidane as the greatest. A legend whose name will never die.



Memories of George Best (Christopher Hilton and Ian Cole, Sportsbooks Limited, £14.99). Front cover picture taken by Lucien Careme (L'Equipe).