Title: When George Came to Edinburgh
Author: John Neil Munro
Publisher: Birlinn
Year: 2010
At the beginning of the 1979/80, Hibernian got off to one of their worst starts for a number of seasons and were rooted to the bottom of the Premier Division. Extraordinarily, their chairman Tom Hart went out and bought his team the world’s most famous player. Cue Roy of the Rovers stuff where the team, buoyed by their new signing make a late surge for the title, right? Sadly that wasn’t the case. You’ll have noticed I said ‘world’s most famous’ not ‘world’s best’ player. Hibs had signed George Best, the one-time ‘fifth Beatle’ and now playing in fits and starts for Fulham between periods in the United States. This is the story of George Best’s spell in Edinburgh.
John Neil Munro paints a very clear of what sort of club Hibs were and what sort of shape George Best was in prior to his move to the capital. Well researched and speaking to a wide variety of sources, Munro paints a vivid portrait of Best’s stay in Edinburgh and how he impacted upon Scottish football. Munro has also taken the time to get behind the stories that appeared in the papers during the Ulsterman’s season – we find out that the infamous photograph that appeared nationwide indicating Best was worse for wear was in fact just catching Best at a bad angle (haven’t we all been there?).
When George Came to Edinburgh shines a light on an often neglected period of George’s life, but Munro highlights several of the issues that would afflict Best the rest of his life were becoming noticeable even by 79/80. My only quarrels with this finely written book is the inaccuracies stating Hibs had won the League Cup in 1993 (where they reached the final only to lose to Rangers) and the final chapter, reflections on George which instead of all being lumped together could have been lightly peppered throughout the book which would have added something more to the prose.
Buy When George Came to Edinburgh here.
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