BOROUGH PARK MEMORIES: George Best becomes a (proper) red

Any Reds supporters, born after 1983, probably missed out on one fantastic Borough Park experience.

We are talking about a rather special evening back in 1986 when George Best pulled on a Workington Reds shirt and guested for the team in a quite unique friendly. He wore the number 11 shirt in a fund-raising match against a Lancashire Football League select XI.

The seeds were sown for this special game about forty years ago, an idea launched to address another financial crisis facing the club. Reds were probably punching above their weight in the one division Northern Premier League but attendances were well below ‘break even’ with the average crowd hovering around the 250 mark, including several below 200.

The Old Lady (Borough Park) was in a poor state of repair, income streams were few and the wage budget had been reduced on more than one occasion. This culminated in all of our ‘out of county’ based players starting to seek employment elsewhere. The reason was down to the fact that the club could no longer afford to pay the wages that had kept some of our ‘eighties greats’ tied to the club.

A plan to invite a top club to Borough Park and play Wayne Harrison’s team, supplemented by a special guest player, was discussed. It had worked well several years earlier when Bobby Charlton attracted a near 6,000 crowd to the ground when he became a Workington player for ‘one night only’.

Numerous top flight teams were approached but our invite didn’t attract much interest and all politely declined. But help came from a Lancashire League club who offered to assemble an ‘all-stars’ team.

Approaches were made to the one and only George Best and, to cut a long story short, Workington (including the former Manchester United and Northern Ireland legend) would host a Lancashire League XI, managed by Oldham Athletic boss, Joe Royle.

The cynics had a field day when it was announced that George Best would guest for Workington at Borough Park, with the pessimists predicting that the 1968 Ballon d’Or winner would fail to turn up.

But turn-up he did and the 9th April, 1986 will be a date forever etched in the club’s history, another memorable occasion staged at Borough Park.

George arrived at the stadium in the early afternoon and was the perfect guest for nearly twelve hours, starring in the match just weeks short of his fortieth birthday.

A Manchester United player over eleven seasons, he was a Workington Reds ‘asset’ for eleven hours signing hundreds of autographs and, although ‘selfies’ hadn’t been invited back then, posing for a countless number of photographs, displaying exemplary behaviour throughout.

George captained the following Workington team:

Keith Hunton, Martin Gaffney, Tony Stones, Billy Gilmour, Ian Johnston, Kenny Wallace, Allan Carruthers, Wayne Harrison, Mark Dobie, Gary Messenger, George Best. Substitutes – Martin Harris, Kevin Rowntree and Chris Collins.

Joe Royle’s team, including players from Oldham Athletic, Bolton Wanderers and Carlisle United, was captained by Phil Neal (ex. Northampton Town, Liverpool and Bolton Wanderers). Also involved were Andy Goram, David Fairclough and former Reds’ player, Ewan Chester.

Seeing Best in a Workington shirt was special and he still looked the part – several years after his distinguished career ended. David Fairclough scored for the Lancashire League XI, who played in an Oldham Athletic kit, with Martin Harris, the man left out to accommodate Bestie, equalising for Reds in an entertaining 1-1 draw.

On a bitterly cold Spring evening, a crowd of 3,500 turned out to see the world-famous Belfast super-star.

The fund-raising friendly was sandwiched between two home league matches against Burton Albion and Caernarfon Town, NPL fixtures which drew attendances of 209 and 187 respectively!