'Six-goal shirt' worn by Best sells for £24,000

The football shirt worn by George Best during one of his greatest games sold for £24,000 when it went under the hammer yesterday.

Best came back from a six-week suspension to score six goals in Manchester United's 8-2 demolition of Northampton in the fifth round of the FA Cup in 1970. The jersey he was wearing that day was sold as part of a football memorabilia auction at Christie's in London.

Kim Book, Northampton's goalkeeper in 1970, said last year that "not even the Berlin Wall" could have stopped Best that day. The winger was being marked by Roy Fairfax, who said later: "The closest I got to him was when we shook hands after the game."

The shirt was won by the seller in a national newspaper competition in 1996 but, after fierce bidding, it was bought yesterday by an anonymous buyer.

Elsewhere in the sale, the shirt worn by Bobby Moore in his last English League match, between Fulham and Blackburn in 1977, sold for £3,600. The match was also Moore's 1,000th senior game.

The 1970 FA Cup Winners' medal awarded to Chelsea captain Ron "Chopper" Harris fetched £13,200. Harris was feared as one of the toughest defenders of his generation - a reputation he cemented during his team's 2-1 win over Leeds to claim the FA Cup.

Also on sale was the shirt worn by the Brazilian Rivelino in the 1970 World Cup final, when his team beat Italy 4-1. However the shirt, which was expected to fetch up to £35,000, failed to sell.

The world record for a football shirt at auction is £157,750, reached at a Christie's sale in 2002 for Pele's jersey from the 1970 World Cup final.