Georgie Best returned to Belfast for the last time on a day when even the skies joined in the mourning, writes Frank McNally in Belfast.
The bleak mid-winter seemed to have arrived early, Black Mountain was shrouded in mist and heavy rain beat down on the cortege as it wound across the city to the flat-roofed, two-storey houses of the Cregagh estate, where the footballer grew up. About 200 people, mostly friends and neighbours, braved the downpour to watch the coffin - draped in a Manchester United flag - carried inside his father's small home.
It was a private wake, with a policeman on guard at the front door to ensure it remained so. But the front garden had been turned into one of the city's several shrines to its hero, and throughout the afternoon a stream of pilgrims came to study or photograph the jerseys, wreaths and other sodden tributes covering the tiny lawn.
Family friends visiting the house had to shuffle past them on the garden path, but there was no attempt to turn the curious away.
For all the mourning, the theme colours of this funeral are red and white, blending strangely with the Christmas decorations now up everywhere. At City Hall, Belfast's main shrine to the footballer was sharing space with a continental market, and it was a strangely festive combination.
The smell of chocolate crepes sweetened the already celebratory messages pinned to the railings, while the kaleidoscopic arrangement of soccer jerseys - including a rare appearance of Celtic and Rangers colours side by side - was giving the season of peace and good will an early boost.
Amid the mostly sentimental tributes, only a hand-written message from Cregagh Boys Club hinted at the sadder aspects of Best's life. It was "a game of two halves", the card read: "the first half goals, flair, excitement. The second half yellow cards, fouls, and hurt." They seem to like their heroes human in Belfast.
A mural on Woodstock Road, near Cregagh, portrays the football player in full flight, not as the whippet-like figure of the 1960s, but the grizzled Best, complete with spreading waistline, of a decade later. There was talk of covering up some of the other murals for today's funeral, to present the world a view of east Belfast as it must have appeared when its most famous son left it, before the Troubles.
Crash barriers were piled up last night in preparation for what is predicted to be the biggest event ever held in Northern Ireland. In its own odd way, today's event will mirror the player's extravagant life.
The cortege will first pass the playing grounds, bog-like yesterday, that he graced as a 15- year-old. Then it will climb the high hill to Stormont for a service in one of the most incongruously grandiose parliamentary buildings in the world, where songs will include The Long and Winding Road.
Finally, the hearse will head back down the hill, past the crowds to Roselawn cemetery where, returned once again to the privacy of his family, George Best will be buried alongside his mother.