Infamous Scandals

by Anne Williams

  Tyson will always be remembered for his many sporting achievements, but his outrageous and often controversial behaviour in his private life has always kept him very much in the public eye.

  George Best

  George Best is best remembered as being one of the greatest football players in the history of the game. Sadly though, he died prematurely in November 2005, aged just 59, without ever realising his full potential. Although it was no great shock to hear of his demise following a string of alcohol-related illnesses, it made the loss of the British footballing legend no less sad.

  a rare talent

  George Best was born on 22 May 1946 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. His father, Dickie, was a shipyard worker and his mother, Annie, was the athlete of the family. She was an international hockey player and many believed that George inherited his skills of amazing balance and ball control from his mother. George was the eldest of four children and loved nothing more than to kick a football round the streets where he lived with the other kids in the neighbourhood.

  George’s incredible skill with the ball was first noticed when he played for the Cregagh Football Club in Belfast. With grass to play on instead of the rough pavements of home, George was able to manipulate the ball the way he wanted. His seniors watched in amazement as he manouevred the ball around the defenders – stopping, spinning, accelerating and then shooting with either foot – a skill rarely seen. Talent scout Bob Bishop and assistant coach for Manchester United, Jimmy Murphy, could hardly believe their eyes and they invited the 15-year-old lad to train with their team.

  Despite being excited about the prospect of training, and possibly playing for his dream team, George only survived one night in Manchester, before fleeing home after feeling terribly homesick and rather overwhelmed. His father was extremely angry and told his son that opportunities like that only came along once in a lifetime, especially to a young boy from a council estate. He immediately phoned Matt Busby, the coach for Manchester United, and told him that his son would be returning very shortly.

  Busby was very understanding of the situation and decided that George needed a father figure. He was put up in a boarding house run by a woman named Mary Fullaway, who made sure he had a home away from home. George settled and started to show the coaches just how well he could play. By the age of 17 he was offered a contract and just four months later was promoted to play for the big club.

  His first major game for the club was a success and he won the hearts of the crowd. The new Man U player seemed to have them eating out of his hand, as he always seemed to be one step ahead of his opponents. His skill and fame went from strength to strength and in 1968 George was voted Footballer of the Year.

  By now George’s fame had spread worldwide and there wasn’t a shop in England that didn’t sell something that his picture on it. He received as many as 10,000 letters a week from his fans and for once, the crowds that came to watch him play included hundreds of screaming teenage girls. His popularity was likened to that of a pop star and many people described him as the ‘fifth Beatle’, not only wooing his fans with his incredible skill but also with his charm and good looks.

  With all the fame, however, came pressure and frustration, especially among his fellow teammates. Many of them resented the preferential treatment that George received and others frustrated when he always seemed to try and score rather than pass the ball to a more appropriate player. With his face splashed all over the front of the tabloids, women literally threw themselves at his feet and George was finding it harder and harder to balance his football with his glamorous status.

  road to ruin

  When Busby announced he was going to retire in 1969, George obviously missed his mentor and started behaving erratically. Not only would he miss some training sessions altogether but he also started misbehaving and disregarding the better knowledge of his elders. His regular drinking binges had already started to affect his level of play and the team’s new coach, Wilf McGuinness, decided he had no alternative than to suspend the young player for a month.

  Although George continued to be a high scorer for his team, his extravant lifestyle started to take its toll and as good as the 1960s were for the young star, the 1970s proved to be bad – very bad.

  Instead of getting his thrill on the football pitch, George sought his excitement elsewhere, spending his money on drink, women and fast cars. George’s initial run of luck at the gambling tables earned him $50,000, but he would spend the next several years trying to replicate that win. He never succeeded and got deeper and deeper into debt. All the time he was losing money, George was also trying to run a nightclub and a boutique, but as quickly as he made a profit he quickly wasted it away until the situation became very serious.

  By 1972 the then coach of Man U, Tommy Docherty, was tired of George’s behaviour on and off the pitch and threw him off the first team. Although he attempted a comeback, by 1974 the 27-year-old Best was sacked by his club for excessive drinking and failure to turn up at training sessions and matches. At a time when George should have been the pinnacle of his career, he had played his last game at Old Trafford and left under a shroud of scandal.

  Although only a young man, George’s body was starting to suffer from alcohol abuse and he struggled to make a comeback in 1974 when he signed to play for Dunstable. The club were delighted when their normal crowd of 200 was boosted to over 5000, but now overweight and desperately unfit George could only display a few of his former talents.

  When no further offers came his way, George decided to try his hand overseas and signed a contract with the Los Angeles Aztecs. The club’s owner, John Chaffetz, aware of what he was taking on, wasn’t even certain whether George would turn up, but he stepped off the plane wearing a T-shirt that said, ‘Who the Hell’s George?’

  This time George was determined to get back in shape and finally earned himself a position with the scoring leaders. His teammates were thrilled to get to play with such a footballing legend and for a while he thrilled the American crowds.

  George met his first wife, Angie, a former Playboy Bunny and model, at a dinner party in Los Angeles in 1975 when he was about to sign up for the Aztecs. It was love at first sight for both of them. Although Angie was worried about her boyfriend’s constant womanising and drinking, George eventually persuaded her to marry him on 27 January 1978. George, true to form, was drunk at the wedding and spent his wedding night gambling and drinking. They had a son, Calum, who was born in 1981, but George’s continual adultery and drinking drove the couple apart.

  By 1984 George was drinking himself literally to death and was arrested for drunk driving and assaulting a police officer and spent that Christmas behind bars. In 1991, George appeared on the BBC chat show hosted by Terry Wogan, but he was clearly drunk, incoherent and used abusive language – his world was falling apart around him. He later apologised and openly admitted that his alcoholism was out of control. Despite the fact that George’s reputation had gone to pot, many of the old football fraternity refused to turn their backs on him. He still managed to make a decent living from appearance fees and doing some writing for magaines and newspapers. In 1995 George married Alex Pursey, a former air hostess and model, who was aware of his erratic behaviour but who believed she could help him mend his ways. However, all the functions he still attended meant he had plenty of opportunities to drink and by 2002, George’s liver

  had deteriorated to such a point that he required a

  liver transplant. It was hoped that George’s near brush with death would help him fight his battle against alcoholism, but the respite was short-lived. By 2003 he was seen out drinking again and he received a lot of criticism for his lack of respect. Many felt that he shouldn’t have received the transplant if he wasn’t prepared to help himself.

  In 2003 Alex Best took part as a contestant on the reality television show I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! on which she openly made allegations about their marriage. It appears even she had had enough of his
behaviour and was no longer prepared to support him.

  On 3 January 2004, George was convicted yet again with a drunk driving offence and was banned from driving for 20 months.

  George seemed hell bent on destroying himself and on 2 October 2005, was admitted to intensive care at the private Cromwell Hospital in London. By November his condition had deteriorated and on the morning of the 20th, the News of the World published a picture of George Best lying in his hospital bed, alongside a message ‘Don’t die like me.’

  George lost his fight for life on 25 November 2005, ironically a day after the government passed a law allowing bars to stay open 24 hours a day. George was buried in Belfast and tens of thousands of fans attended the service. More than half a million people lined the streets as the hearse drove by, proving that no matter how bad his behaviour was, George Best will always be remembered for the good times and the remarkable skill he showed on the football field. Many believe that we only got a glimpse of the level of his genius.

  Diego Maradona

  Like his British counterpart, George Best, Diego Maradona is possibly one of the greatest footballers to put on a pair of boots. However, on the flip side of the coin he is also considered to be one of the sport’s most controversial figures.

  Born on 30 October 1960, among the slums of Buenos Aires, Diego Armando Maradona reached the dizzy heights of professional football at the age of 15. He was originally spotted by a talent scout at the age of 11, when he was playing for a junior football club, Estrella Roja. One of his greatest skills was his ability to dribble the ball at top speed and being able to deliver lethally accurate passes to his teammates.

  By the age of 16, Maradona joined the senior national squad for Argentina. Despite his remarkable talent, the coach César Menotti, decided that Maradona was too young to play in the 1978 World Cup, and the bitterly disappointed teenager had to watch his team take the gold medal from a television screen at home.

  Determined to make an impact on his team, Maradona gave the game everything he could offer and was eventually picked to join the squad for Spain in 1982. In the first round of the World Cup, Argentina lost to Belgium, but successfully beat Hungary and Salvador to progress to the second round. In the second stage of the tournament, Maradona was closely marked by the Italian Claudio Gentile, but let his frustration overflow when he felt he had been manhandled unfairly. This resulted in him being sent off, which meant he was unable to unleash his full potential and his team failed to take the title.

  However, his skills had not gone totally unnoticed, and he was signed to play for Barcelona for a then record transfer fee of £5 million. However, a bout of hepatitis and a badly timed tackle by an opponent, seriously jeopardised his career. Maradona’s willpower and physical strength allowed him to make a quick recovery and within 14 weeks he was back on the pitch. It is rumoured that it was during his time at Barcelona that he was introduced to the drug coccaine, to which he later became addicted. Following frequent disputes with Barcelona directors, Maradona demanded a transfer in 1984, and went to play for the Italian club, Napoli, for £6.9 million.

  Maradona made his return to the World Cup in 1986 in spectacular fashion, leading his team to victory. As captain, he led his team into the quarter final against England. It was his skill and dominance of the match that truly cemented the man as a legend, but it also caused much controversy. Maradona scored the first goal, but replays later showed that he had scored with the aid of his hand. Unnoticed by the referees and despite cries from the crowd, the goal was allowed. Just five minutes later, Maradona single-handedly took the ball through the entire English defence and scored his second goal. After the match, when confronted by the video tape, Maradona simply replied, ‘Even if there was a hand, it must have been the hand of God’.

  Maradona took his skill with him to Napoli, helping them reached unprecedented success and winning the UEFA Cup in 1988/1989. However, his personal life was not such a major success. No one knows when his coccaine addiction really started to become a problem. It is thought that he might have started experimenting while in Barcelona, but it was probably the organised crime outfits of Naples in the 1980s that caused it to become a major problem. Added to the drugs, Maradona was also at the centre of a scandal over an illegitimate son that he had fathered in Italy. Maradona was married to the woman he described as ‘the love of my life’, Claudia Villafane, with whom he had two daughters, but the scandal – together with many alleged infidelities – meant that the couple divorced in 2004.

  In 1990 the world was watching Maradona as he captains Argentina once more in the World Cup. However, an ankle injury severely hampered his performance and he was a far less dominant figure than four years earlier. The most memorable of the matches was the semi-final against Italy, which was played at Maradona’s home club in Naples. Maradona felt humiliated when the fans started to boo him during the match and after their failure to win the tournament, his career hits an all-time low.

  In March 1991 he tested positive for drugs and was banned from playing football for 15 months. After his ban he returns to Napoli and later transfers to Sevilla for one year. By 1994 Maradona’s career as a professional footballer was over when he was suspended again for failing a drugs test.

  Maradona decided to take a new career path and tried his hand at coaching, but failed miserably. Downhearted and fighting a drug addiction, Maradona returned to his old football club, Boca Juniors and played with them until his last match on 25 October 1997. Just five days later, on his 37th birthday, Maradona announced to the world that he would be retiring from football.

  Maradona spent a large part of the 2000s battling with his addiction to cocaine, periodically entering rehab to try and conquer the problem. The highlight came in 2001 when Maradona played his farewell match against a selected team of some of the greatest footballers in the game. It was a highly emotional day witnessed by over 60,000 fans. Maradona walked out onto the pitch with his daughters, Dalma and Giannina, and one of his nephews. The crowd were excited and screamed loudly to their idol, ‘Diegooooo, Diegooooo,’ in recognition of one of the best football players of all time. The event finished with fireworks, songs and a lot of tears from Maradona.

  In 2004, Maradona suffered a severe heart attack, exacerbated by a tendency towards obesity. He survived the attack, but his old demons came back to haunt him and he started drinking to try and drive them out. He was in and out of hopsital for the new few years, even undergoing a gastric bypass operation in 2005, after which he appeared to be notably thinner. In 2007 Maradona announced on Argentine television that he had kicked his addictions and that he was now completely clean.

  Like George Best, Maradona was an exceptionally tortured genius. His controversial lifestyle both on and off the pitch left him both loved and hated, but the name Maradona will always be easily recognisable even in the remotest of places. However, despite his undoubtable skill, the Argentine soccer player has stirred global controversy of unparalled magnitude. This controversy stopped him getting the FIFA title of Best Football Player of the Century because the association found his personal image unacceptable. The award eventually went to Pelé.

  The Black Sox Scandal

  The Black Sox scandal describes a number of events that took place around and during the 1919 World Baseball Series, which resulted in the most famous scandal in the sport’s history. Eight players from the Chicago White Sox (who later became nicknamed the Black Sox) were accused of throwing (or intentionally losing) the series against their opponents the Cincinnati Reds. Exact details of the extent to which each man was involved have always been a little cloudy, but the charges were serious enough to have the players permanently banned from professional baseball for life. The eight men involved were – ‘Shoeless’ Joe Jackson, pitchers Eddie Cicotte and Claude ‘Lefty’ Williams, infielders Buck Weaver, Arnold ‘Chick’ Gandil, Fred McMullin and Charles ‘Swede’ Risberg, and outfielder Oscar ‘Happy’ Felsch. Ironically, because of the raised interest i
n baseball just after the war, the bigwigs decided to make the series a ‘best-of-nine’ play-off instead of the usual ‘best-of-seven’ and discussed ways of making it an unforgettable series. Little did they realise what bad timing this was, as baseball was about to make a spectacle of itself without their help.

  formation of the white sox

  The White Sox team was formed in 1900 under the ownership of Charles Comiskey and were originally called the White Stockings. In their first year they won the league championship and by 1906 the White Sox won the World Series by defeating the Chicago Cubs by four games to two.

  During the next four years the team had no major achievements, but in 1910 Comiskey decided to build a new ballpark for his team and put every effort into building a really strong squad. To boost his team in 1915 he bought three star players – outfielder Joe Jackson, second baseman Eddie Collins and centre fielder Happy Felsch.

  Two years later the White Sox were playing at their best and won the World Series, and by 1919 had the best record in the American League. Comiskey had succeeded in his dream – building one of the most powerful teams in the history of baseball.

  Despite their outstanding success there was a lot of dissent among the players. Regardless of their plush grounds and facilities, the team were payed poorly and it is believed that it was Comiskey’s stinginess that was largely to blame for the scandal that was about to erupt. Many said that if they had received decent wages the players would never have agreed to throw the series. Comiskey was also known to constantly break his promises, teasing his players with offers of big bonuses if they won – but these were idle promises that he never intended to keep. When the team did win, all they received was the odd bottle of cheap champagne and a slap on the back. To add insult to injury, Comiskey even had the gall to charge the players a fee for laundering their dirty uniforms. In protest the players decided to leave their uniforms unwashed and for several weeks turned out onto the pitch in dirty gear, but Comiskey physically removed the clothes from their lockers and then fined his players. Unfortunately, without a union to back them up and a clause in their contract that stopped them from transferring to another club, there was little they could do about their conditions.