Eamon Dunphy tried to get George Best to quit booze by smoking spliff with him

Football pundit Eamon Dunphy has revealed how he once tried to get George Best to ditch the booze – by smoking a spliff with him.

However, Dunphy said Best, who had a long-standing battle with booze, flatly refused to ever do any drugs.

Dunphy, 79, was a lifelong friend of Best after the pair first came through the youth ranks at Man Utd together back in the 1950s. He said Best, who died at the age of 59 in 2005, was actually a very shy person who had used alcohol to hide that.

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Dunphy, who will turn 80 next year, recalled meeting up with Best in the months leading up to his death, and was sad to see that he was still drinking.

He said: "It was very sad, really. He had been hospitalised and he was in bad health because of the drink. Now, he had given it up officially. So, we went out and the first thing he did was order a brandy."

"I was drinking bottles of lager, which was my thing, but I had a couple of spliffs and I said to him, 'George, you shouldn't be drinking that stuff, that f**king stuff is killing you. Have a spliff.'"

"He said, 'Eamon, I don't do drugs. I would never touch that stuff.' He had that working-class prejudice against drugs. But the alcohol is what killed him."

Meanwhile, Dunphy said he is trying not to think about his own mortality as he nears his 80s.

He told the Sunday Independent: "I'm trying not to, but you know what the deal is, so I think it gives you more of an appreciation for every day."

"You don't think, 'I hope I'll be happy someday down the road.' You better get happy now, baby, because there ain't going to be a 'down the road'."

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