Long nights by the radio that United father and son

PASSION FOR SPORT: JOHN BAXTER:Sports agent John Baker tells JOHNNY WATTERSONabout his long-standing love of a club and a player who were, to him, simply the Best.

MY DAD Alfie was a Manchester United fan even though he never left Ireland. His passions were Man United and heavyweight boxing champions.

There was a time I could have named every heavyweight champion there had ever been. That was a time of radio, not television and I came to know and love United through the radio with my dad.

He was something of a radio freak and we’d listen to all the matches together and, for world title fights, I’d get up in the middle of the night and we’d listen to them together. Even thinking about those days now, it is very evocative and emotional.

When we heard of the Munich disaster in 1958 we both cried.

That team of Duncan Edwards, Liam Whelan, Roger Byrne, Eddie Coleman. . . all those guys and listening to that report of the plane crash and the list of names of those that died is where my passion started.

That was before Bestie even arrived on the scene. Now my wife Ann has to close the door whenever I see pictures of him on television to stop the kids from seeing me crying. I have a picture of him after he scored the goal in the European Cup final against Benfica, which is signed.

I was going to go up to his funeral in Belfast when he died but couldn’t for other reasons but I watched it on television. Again tears. Just watching the funeral cortege move through Belfast and listening to Denis Law, who was one of his great friends, was incredibly sad.

I suppose being who I am, I have always admired extraordinary talent and people who were different and George Best was the first guy to look different. In that Beatles era he took on the establishment. He drank Coca-Cola after winning the European Cup with United and then slowly went into oblivion.

Law, whom I had the pleasure of meeting, spent a lot of his time with Best’s son Calum, when he was young. Law and his wife used to take him to the continent, where they had a holiday home and look after him along with their own kids. There is no doubt Bestie was a tragic figure but I would have rows to argue that he was the best ever.

I met him three times. The first time was in a Manchester night club in the late 1960s or early ’70s. He was such a charismatic person. So, like any serious groupie, I went up to him to introduce myself. I remember it like I was there talking for 15 minutes but the reality was that it was about 15 seconds. He couldn’t have been better.

I also met him briefly when he came to Ireland and played for a short time with Cork Celtic. I went down to watch him but he was a much different man then, a different player. The final time was in the Burlington hotel. He was on the drink at that stage and it was just incredibly sad to see him like that.

One of the things that angers me even now, when I think about it, was when he appeared drunk on the Terry Wogan chat show all those years ago.

I would like to meet the person that decided he would go on that show, the person that gave him the drink beforehand. I’m not an aggressive person but I’d love to meet who it was and give them a piece of my mind. It was an absolute disgrace that he was allowed to take part in the state that he was in. It was degrading, it was unfair and it was cheap.

The first house I bought in South Dublin, I had it painted red and white and called it Old Trafford. Then, if I ever scored a goal for my hockey club Monkstown, which was rare, I’d celebrate like Denis Law with one hand straight up in the air. Tommy Allen (former Ireland and Monkstown hockey goalkeeper) has a picture of me doing it when we played in Europe all those years ago against an English club called Hounslow. The hand was up because that’s what Law did.

I’ve also met Matt Busby and Frank O’Farrell, when they were over in Dublin at a reception in the then Victor Hotel in Dun Laoghaire. I danced with Busby’s wife, who was known as Lady Jean. But when I think back to it now I just remember those rare, perfect times as a boy sitting with my dad by the radio and then later the massive impact that the gifted George Best had on Manchester United and football in general.

I’ve now brainwashed most of the children I’ve come into contact with to love United. I even wanted to call my first child Denis, but after some, er, family negotiations he was christened Christopher Denis.

The funny thing is that when I got into sports management the first person I signed up was the Irish rugby flanker Eric Miller. Eric is a Man United fan too.

* John Baker (left) is the founder of the management company Baker Sports Management and represents a range of clients across sport and media. He was formerly a hockey player with Leinster and Monkstown.