Graham Kelly: Hardaker treatment might have helped legend Best

As a young man I was standing behind the Wembley net that George Best slotted the ball into to give Manchester United their winning lead over Benfica on that balmy spring evening in London 34 years ago.

Some weeks later I sat shaking before the imposing and craggy secretary of the Football League, Alan Hardaker, to whom I had felt it advisable to recount the tale of my 500-mile round trip in a Morris Minor as evidence of my undying devotion to the game he served, and which I was certain would undoubtedly prosper from my talents.

Hardaker was not a man to be trifled with. He had seen active service in the Royal Navy and rejoiced in a ferocious reputation as one who 'took no prisoners'. He ran the Football League pretty much as his personal fiefdom, brooking little interference from committees, directors, or, least of all, managers.

"Oh, no," he exploded, "not another bloody Manchester United supporter". However, on this occasion, his bark proved to be worse than his bite, and I succeeded in persuading him that, in those less regimented days, I was a follower of footballer rather than of fashion.

My thoughts strayed back to that time the night George Best was in intensive care following his liver transplant last week. The same day former and present members of the League's staff gathered to mark the partial retirement of controller of broadcasting Lee Walker in a restaurant in Lytham St Annes – only a stone's throw from Hardaker Court, the apartment block recently completed on the site of the old headquarters that Alan Hardaker put up at a cost of £64,000 in 1960.

Best was one of the greatest players the world has ever known, comparable to Pele and Maradona, Cruyff and Di Stefano. This slip of a lad established himself when the defences of the English First Division were marshalled by characters such as Peter Storey, Tommy Smith and Norman Hunter. They used to say he was fearless. Good job, considering he didn't wear shinpads.

He topped the scoring lists for five seasons for his club from 1967-68, and left the Old Trafford spotlight after a row with manager Tommy Docherty in 1974 at the age of 27, the same age as David Beckham now.

Even his friends have applied the term tragedy to Best's battle with the complicated disease that is alcoholism, which so often they feared he was about to lose. Some observers felt Sir Matt Busby was too indulgent with his precious young talent, when a firm fatherly hand was needed. But in truth Busby represented more of a grandfather figure, such was the generation chasm opening up in the "swinging" Sixties. How could he have been expected to understand the depths of Best's problem, when Best himself has only really come to terms with his affliction in the last year or so? Alan Hardaker appointed me and advanced me, and many years later it turned out I was to have the considerable privilege of working with Best in public. He was sober, unassuming and entirely straightforward, with no edge whatsoever. If anything had gone wrong, I would have carried the can. I had no qualms whatsoever.

For some time, in his forties, he had a recurring dream when he slept. In it he was a Manchester United player again under Busby with Bryan Robson and Ryan Giggs of the then team, and Denis Law and Paddy Crerand of the Busby era. Now he and wife Alex have another dream, of starting their own family. For this he needs his health.

As I believe that no one should judge me until they have walked in my shoes, I don't begrudge Best his second chance of the full recovery that the skills of the surgeons have afforded him.

Meanwhile, the recriminations from the ITV Digital debacle continue. In the 1970s, when the collective debt of the 92-club Football League was £15m, the nation faced economic crisis, and the clubs called for government relief from the £90m annual betting tax, Alan Hardaker wrote: "When I look at the clubs' finances I am never sure whether to laugh or cry. They have been in a mess for years, victims of their own inefficiency.

"Directors are a mixed crew, efficient at one end of their scale, and simple folk at the other. Football has put a face on many faceless people. Many are excellent and talented, but too many others are greedy, impatient, unqualified, short-sighted and confused."

Financial realism was a long time coming and, judging by the recriminations from certain chairmen after the court ruling last week, we shall have to wait a little longer to find some basic humility. There will be blood on the walls before long.

grahamkelly@btinternet.com