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Calum Best Opens Up About Dad’S Struggle With Alcoholism
Calum Best Opens Up About Dad’S Struggle With Alcoholism
Calum Best Opens Up About Dad’S Struggle With Alcoholism

Calum Best opens up to Perez Hilton about dad’s struggle with alcoholism on Celebrity Big Brother.

Calum Best Opens Up About Dad’S Struggle With Alcoholism

Dad’s bitterly poignant last words to me…about girls, drinks and parties: CALUM BEST describes his football legend father’s tragic final hoursGeorge Best’s drunken decline has never been more movingly chronicled than in his son Calum’s memoirs.

Today, in the final part of our serialisation of his new book, he describes the football legend’s tragic last hours…

The phone call in the spring of 2005 is a surprise. It’s from Dad’s agent, Phil Hughes, asking me to come to a meeting at his new offices in West London. I’m intrigued.George Best’s drunken decline has never been more movingly chronicled than in his son Calum’s memoirs.

Today, in the final part of our serialisation of his new book, he describes the football legend’s tragic last hours…

The phone call in the spring of 2005 is a surprise. It’s from Dad’s agent, Phil Hughes, asking me to come to a meeting at his new offices in West London. I’m intrigued.

Scroll down for video I haven’t seen much of Dad lately. He’s back drinking hard after his liver transplant, and I know for certain that nobody’s going to give him a second one. That means there’s only one place he’s heading. And it’s heartbreaking.

The sad thing is that part of me still thinks he’s invincible. He’s George Best, the legend. Always pulls through. Gets away with murder, always has. He’ll get through this one as well, surely? Deep down, though, I know he won’t.I turn up at Phil’s office and Dad’s there. I’m shocked at the state he is in. His skin has gone yellow and his eyes are weird — yellow and bloodshot. He’s never been this colour before. I’m scared, but I don’t say anything.

I look around the room. On the wall there’s a picture of Dad and Pele. There are moulds of Dad’s footprints and boots, and lots of other memorabilia.

It’s really impressive. I say so.

Well, says Phil, that’s why we’ve asked you to come in. Dad tells me they’re about to start a George Best memorabilia business, and they’d like me to be a director. Dad says it’s because he wants to leave me with something.

Looking at the state he’s in, I can only think he knows he’s getting near the end. I try hard not to choke up. This is his way of looking after me when he’s gone.

It feels like a huge moment in my life: sad, but exciting, too. It’s not about the money we might make. It’s the feeling I am properly part of Dad’s life.

He wants me involved. I’m not a person he would prefer had never existed, as I have spent so many years thinking. I’m his son, his only child, and because of that he’s giving me this, his legacy.Dad and I start spending more time together now. Not because of the business, as it turns out, but because not long after I’ve signed all the papers he goes into hospital for treatment on his liver.

For weeks, then months, Dad spends his days hooked up to a dialysis machine watching TV, while I sit on a chair next to him either on my phone or watching, too. We don’t mention what’s happening to him, or the reason he’s in there.We’re not ignoring each other, it’s just that neither of us knows how to bond with the other, or how to bring some closeness to this situation. We could be in one of those funny but painful movie scenes, where two men with so much to say to each other fail miserably to talk about their feelings.

I have no idea how messed up Dad’s head must be at the moment. His second wife, Alex, has divorced him. He’s seriously ill, and he knows it’s all his fault. He’s put me through some terrible times, but I feel sorry for him, truly sorry. Poor guy.

Dad’s not allowed to eat solids, but one of the few things he says is to ask me to get him fruit pastilles and wine gums, which he’s always loved. I know I’m not supposed to be feeding him these things, but I can’t help it.

And so the months go on. I know it’s a selfish thing to admit, but it’s pushing me close to breaking point. I don’t have the words to describe how tired I am. Sometimes I get a call to go to the hospital in the middle of the night, and I’m so exhausted that I instantly fall asleep again.

When I wake up, I’m frantic. Am I too late? I run out of the house, desperate.

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