George Best's lost weekend to be turned into a film

It was no surprise that George Best didn't show up for training that week.

Manchester United's star player was known to have a fondness for nightclubs and a keen eye for a pretty girl.

At the time in the winter of 1971 his wayward behaviour and heavy drinking were tolerated.

His critics claimed he was in decline but Best was the team's talisman still capable of destroying the opposition after having consumed a skinful.

The 25-year-old Northern Irishman was already setting out on the path of self-destruction that would claim his life.

But back then his manager Sir Matt Busby could only hope that his star would arrive at the station in Manchester in time to leave for London for United's important match against Chelsea.

As it happened Best missed the train on Saturday January 9 but caught a later service to the capital.

However as United battled to a 2-1 win he was nowhere to be seen, exasperating his manager, teammates and fans alike.

It was nothing compared to their fury when it emerged that the AWOL player had headed to Islington where he was shacked up with a beautiful young actress.

Best had recently begun dating rising star Sinead Cusack.

He had bolted to her apartment, his head still befuddled by booze and his appetite for football fading.

What happened next is the subject of a new and as yet untitled film by producer Stephen Evans who made The Madness Of King George.

Evans, 68, also made a film about another maverick sports star, the golfer Seve Ballesteros.

Cusack, then 23, found her flat besieged by the paparazzi for four days.

No date has yet been fixed for the release of the just announced film, which will depict how chanting fans and television cameras also arrived at her flat in 1971.

It all added to the chaos and the scenes made headlines all over the world.

Best later wrote about his lost weekend in his autobiography titled Blessed.

"Chelsea was the fixture I loved playing more than any other.

"Big club, big players but it didn't interest me at all although I did fancy a weekend in London."

Cusack, who was later to marry the actor Jeremy Irons, was shocked when the footballer rang the buzzer of her flat.

Best added: "It was utter madness.

"Here I was, one of the world's most famous footballers and I just decided not to play an important game and instead went out on a date.

"It's hard for me to explain what state of mind I was in to do such a thing."

Sir Matt, who had only just been lured back to the Old Trafford hot seat to try to recapture past glories, felt betrayed.

A few days earlier he had spoken up for Best at a Football Association disciplinary hearing.

It didn't help matters that Best, who received a suspended ban for a string of misdemeanours, arrived late for the meeting.

His mind was scrambled and the downward spiral was made worse by United's poor form that season as the team relied too heavily on its star who had scored six goals in a cup tie 12 months earlier.

"I just felt the whole world was on top of me when I woke up and realised I had missed the train," wrote Best.

"I had arranged to see Sinead after the match so I saw no reason not to go through with that part of my plans."

Best was one of the most recognisable figures in the country and any hope of keeping his location secret disappeared when the couple blithely decided to go out for dinner on the Saturday evening.

The following morning Cusack, whose sister Niamh is also an actress, heard a commotion outside her window and threw open the curtains to discover a baying mob.

"What on earth have you been up to George?" she asked.

Best, who played 37 times for Northern Ireland, later said he fled into the arms of Cusack because he found her easy to talk to.

On a smaller scale she was also having to cope with becoming famous at a young age and all the accompanying pressures.

Born in Dublin, she was the daughter of the actor Cyril Cusack and at the time had recently starred alongside Peter Sellers in the film Hoffman.

Best also said he felt guilty for dragging Cusack, whom he barely knew, into the fall-out from his unravelling football career.

"She had been expecting a quiet weekend," he said.

"But instead she became a prisoner in her own home for four days.

"To me my life seemed to be in crisis but to everyone else it was just a piece of fun.

"People started turning up outside the flat chanting my name.

"When I turned on the TV to take our minds off it, we were forced to watch updates of our situation on the news.

"It was surreal.

"Poor old Sinead couldn't understand it.

"She must have thought she was harbouring a mass murderer."

The flat remained under siege until Best slipped back to Manchester to face the music.

The fling between the football player and the actress quickly fizzled out and he was suspended for two weeks by Sir Matt who resisted calls to sack Best on the spot.

The manager was a fatherly figure who hoped somewhat forlornly that Best would marry and settle down.

Rather naively, given his pop star status which earned him the nickname El Beatle and United's status as the most famous football club in the world, Best didn't think that his antics on that particular weekend were in any way a big deal.

Yet his drinking and womanising were already under scrutiny and there was always the suspicion that he was a playboy who squandered his remarkable talent.

At the peak of his career he drove a white Jaguar and opened two boutiques.

Best added: "Some people might say incidents like that were a cry for help - and they probably were - but I didn't see it like that at the time.

"I just acted out of instinct, drunken instinct."

Sir Matt left the club later that season and successive managers were unable to tame Best, who once claimed, "If I had been ugly you would never have heard of Pele."

Best, who retired prematurely from playing top flight football in 1972, also remarked: "In 1969 I gave up women and alcohol.

"It was the worst 20 minutes of my life."

It was just one of many of the star's one-liners often relating to his almost legendary drinking.

Best eventually had a liver transplant and fought a losing battle against the bottle before dying in 2005 at the age of 59.

His approach to life is best summed up by a story which he enjoyed recounting, involving a hotel bell boy delivering champagne to Best's hotel room.

The footballer was entertaining a scantily-clad Miss World and the bed was scattered with his winnings from the casino.

"So George, where did it all go wrong?" asked the lad.

George Best who married twice and was declared bankrupt was a flawed genius but he remains one of the finest players ever to have graced a British football pitch.