Brian Viner: Best never needed any Flick Colby routines

Not only in kiddies' football are goals beginning to look like a means to an end THis euphoric team-mates joined him in performed some dance moves in some dance move goal

George Best was the subject of This Is Your Life last week. Rarely has Michael Aspel's big red book, or Eamonn Andrews' before it, told us so little that we didn't already know. Best's life has been an open book, big and red or otherwise, for nigh on 40 years. And if we've heard it all before, imagine how he feels.

"Then you scored this goal in the 1968 European Cup final," said Aspel. Best nodded, wistfully. "And then you went to jail for a drink-driving offence." Best nodded, wistfully. "And then, told that one more drink would kill you, you had a liver transplant." More wistful nodding.

Happily, the wistfully nodding head looked in pretty good shape. There are times, and this could have been one of them, when the show should be called This Is Your Life But For How Much Longer? Yet there was colour in the great man's cheeks, and for the first time in months it wasn't mustard yellow. The Grim Reaper will beat him to life's byline one day, but – if he can stay off the bottle, which is an "if" the size of the Empire State Building – probably not one day soon.

As in any programme about Best, the most enjoyable bits of This Is Your Life were the clips of him playing football. Like most footie enthusiasts of my age, I am practically a PhD on the subject of old TV footage of George Best, on and off the pitch. But there was one I didn't remember seeing before, in which – in a blur of miraculous footwork – he stopped the ball going into touch, controlled it, nutmegged an opponent and skipped round him. It was like watching Rodin chiselling, or Einstein thinking. Genius at work.

And not least of the qualities of genius, is that it doesn't need to draw attention to itself. When Best scored a goal, which for Manchester United he did 149 times, he invariably raised one arm and trotted contentedly back to the centre-circle. Of those footballers today who deserve to be mentioned in the same paragraph as Best, if not the same breath, Thierry Henry is similarly restrained. And thank heavens for it. Because carefully choreographed goal celebrations, featuring routines so cheesy that Flick Colby would have hesitated to give them to Pan's People, have reached a place quite a long way beyond a joke.

Indeed, I was downright depressed to hear from a friend who looks after a team of eight-year-olds, that when an opposing player scored against them – a thunderbolt from almost 35 centimetres out – his euphoric team-mates joined him at the corner flag, where they performed some dance moves in the style of Eminem. Or was it Craig David?

Whatever, it is not only in kiddies' football that goals are beginning to look like means to an end, rather than ends in themselves, the apotheosis of which came in the World Cup, when the South Korean players celebrated Ahn Jung-Hwan's equaliser against the United States by pretending to be speed skaters. This, we learnt, was to avenge a perceived outrage perpetrated in the Winter Olympics, when the South Korean speed skater Kim Dong-Sung was disqualified and the gold medal given instead to an American. Clearly, the celebration had been practised at least as much as the move which led to the goal.

There are dozens of examples of this, some of which were briefly witty (such as Jürgen Klinsmann and his Spurs team-mates diving) or even sweet (such as the Brazilian players pretending to cradle a baby following goals in the 1994 World Cup by Romario, whose partner had just given birth). But when there is more teamwork after the ball has hit the back of the net than before, it is time for coaches, if not referees, to call a halt.

I am more able to stomach the idiosyncratic goal celebrations of particular individuals. As annoying as they can be, on balance they probably enhance the game. Besides, who could deny Peter Beagrie, for example, who was celebrated for bugger all else, the distinction that came with being able to turn a back somersault? How far back does this phenomenon stretch?

Some weeks ago I posed exactly that question, remarking that I was not aware of unusual goal celebrations in English football before Mick Channon's whirling arm and Charlie George lying flat, looking at his toes. Martin Young, however, e-mailed me to say that Duffy, who scored the winner for Charlton against Burnley in the 1947 FA Cup final, "ran around with his arms outstretched taking his team-mates and the whole crowd completely by surprise. Nothing like that had been seen at Wembley before".

I also received an intriguing e-mail from P McGrath, referring to Charlie George's curious celebration in the 1971 Cup final. "I think that if you examine what he's staring at, it's not his toes," wrote Mr McGrath. "In his state of excitement Mr George does seem to have become somewhat aroused."

Have any other players become similarly excited upon scoring a goal?' If they have, George Best was not among them. He was not only one of the planet's greatest footballers, he also reputedly slept with three Miss Worlds. Clearly, he knew which kicks he could best get where.

b.viner@independent.co.uk