Babysitting George - Hardcover

'Funny, moving and shot-through with a clear-eyed, unsentimental humanity,
Celia Walden's memoir of George Best near the end of his life is a beautiful portrait of genius in tragic, terminal decline. Babysitting George reminded me of Rex Reed's famous essay of an ageing Ava Gardener, and Norman Mailer writings on the twilight years of Muhammad Ali. Yes, it really is as good as that. This is a sad story told with humour and heart and with - the journalist's dream - unprecedented access. It is not a football book - but if you loved George Best, then you will know him far better after reading Babysitting George. And, perhaps more importantly, you will love him far more'

(Tony Parsons)

'So George Best walks into a pub...' Howls of laughter drown out the punch line, and for the first time since I heard the news of his death I smile. George would have liked that one.

2003. A Sunday in early August. Celia Walden, a young reporter, receives an unusual phone call from her editor. She is to drop everything, travel immediately to Malta, track down a legendary footballer and global superstar and keep him away from the press. But George Best, a notorious alcoholic and party animal who just had a liver transplant and been left by his wife - again - isn't the easiest man to find... and when Celia does discover him in an Irish bar, drinking countless white wine spritzers, he isn't exactly delighted to see her.

But the unlikely friendship that develops between George and Celia reveals an intelligent, funny, wild and complex human being, a man who loved reading thrillers, was a member of MENSA, worshipped women, and whose extraordinary life had played out under the constant glare of the media spotlight.

Celia, or 'Trouble' as he liked to call her, stays with George for months. She witnesses drunken brawls, life inside a rehabilitation clinic, his relationships with women and their families, and hears his story; from his early homesick days at Manchester United, to his years of super stardom, from his notorious womanising and partying to his tumultuous marriage to Alex and, finally, devastatingly, his crippling addiction to alcohol.

Babysitting George is a tender and beautifully written account of a unique relationship between a young journalist and a dying star. It questions the cold, exploitative nature of tabloid journalism, the terrifying, all-consuming nature of addiction and the deeply humane, implausible friendships that can change one's life forever.