Spread the love

 

Beesotted editor, Dave Lane, looks back at a rather obscure, yet extremely memorable night’s entertainment beneath the Griffin Park floodlights – a night when one of football’s prodigal sons graced our proud old stadium… The one and only George ‘Georgie’ Best.

I’m not quite sure where Monday 12th October 1981 fitted into the Fifth Beetle’s roller-coaster ride of a life, but that was the night that I got the chance to see Best play at Griffin Park. San Jose Earthquakes, for that was their name, were owned by the current Sheffield Wednesday Chairman Milan Mandaric, and they made the unusual transatlantic pilgrimage to West London to become the first North American Soccer League team to play at Brentford.

Now please believe me when I say that there is not even the slightest hint of irony in my voice when I say that even with the mighty George Best in the side, The Earthquakes simply had no answer to the firepower of Bob Booker, Keith Bowen, Gary Johnson, Gary Roberts and David Crown that night. Brentford ran up seven on the Richter scale.

These days having your club named after a natural disaster may seem a little sick, for example, just imagine the grief we’d get if we re-branded and became known as Brentford Tsunami, but back then it seemed cool that a side was named after the faultline that was capable of maiming thousands. Fred Callaghan’s Bees certainly gave the Yankee wannabes a footballing lesson that I have never forgotten, and Georgie was so embarrassed, that he left the club shortly afterwards.

But no matter, if it wasn’t for that visit over a quarter of a century ago I would never have seen the great man in action and therefore would never have been able to write this piece… Which after all, is exactly what George would have wanted.

Dave Lane