Best and Edwards

by: Gordon Bu (Author)

Publisher: Faber & Faber

Publication Date: 5 Oct. 2006

Language: English

Print Length: 256 pages

ISBN-10: 0571215807

ISBN-13: 9780571215805

Book Description

'The hero is the creature other people would like to be. Edwards was such a man, and he enabled people to respect themselves more.' By the mid-fifties Manchester United had caught the imagination of the country. Duncan Edwards played his first game for the club at the age of fifteen years and eight months in 1953. Two years later he won his first England cap and Walter Winterbottom, then England manager, referred to him as 'the spirit of British football'. On £15-a-week and living at Mrs Watson's boarding house at 5 Birch Avenue in Manchester, Edwards was the most prized of the Busby Babes. Then in February 1958 came Munich.Half a decade later George Best represented United rebo. 'Georgie' of the boutiques and dolly birds; 'El Beatle' of the European Cup in '68 and European Player of the Year; in the opinion of Pele, the most naturally talented footballer that ever lived. Retired at 27 and reduced to the role of Chelsea barfly and tabloid perennial; George, where did it all go wrong? An investigation into a club, two personalities and an England that has all but disappeared, Best & Edwards plots the course and trajectory of two careers unmoored in wildly different ways.

About the Author

Review A detailed and coruscating look at different generational sporting and social mores, dependency and the changing emphasis of celebrity. -- Alan Chadwick, MetroAn elegiac, handsome contemplation -- Alan Pattullo, The ScotsmanThis eloquent, sorrowful and angry book adds much to our understanding of what the game has lost. -- Sean O'Brien, Independent Book Description Best and Edwards, by Gordon Bu, is an investigation in George Best and Duncan Edwards, Manchester United and an England that has all but disappeared. Best and Edwards is an essential book for anyone interested in the history of football in England.
About the Author
Gordon Bu is the author of three novels, Alma Cogan (winner of the Whitbread First Novel Prize), Fullalove and The North of England Home Service. He is also the author of the non-fiction titles Somebody's Husband, Somebody's Son, Pocket Money, Happy Like Murderers and On The Way to Work.