During Brian Godfrey’s time as manager in the early 1980s Exeter City briefly contemplated signing George Best who was possibly the most famous British footballer of the 1960s and 1970s. A series of misunderstandings prevented talks from progressing. He had famously played in the January 1969 FA Cup game between Exeter City and Manchester United when the visitors were the reigning European champions.   

The story as reported by Trina Lake of the Express and Echo was that Grecians’ manager Brian Godfrey, accompanied by assistant Malcolm Musgrove, had planned to watch Best in a charity match at Home Park, Plymouth in November 1982. They had previously attempted to contact Best’s agent with a view to signing the player without receiving a reply. 

After hearing that the game had been cancelled, City’s management duo decided not to travel but later heard the game had gone ahead. George Best was thirty-six at the time and, after most recently plying in Hong Kong, was soon to sign for third-tier AFC Bournemouth where he was to play his final five games in English professional football.    

George Best had joined Manchester United from school in 1961 and made his first-team debut in 1963 as a seventeen-year-old before helping United to league titles in 1965 and 1967 and the European Cup in 1968. Rapidly becoming the most-talked about - and arguably the finest - British player of the 1960s he made his debut for Northern Ireland in 1964 and was European Footballer of the Year in 1968.

Yet, as he encountered problems with handling fame and fortune, the peak of George's career had passed by the first day of 1974 when, at the age of twenty-seven, he made the last of his 361 league games for Manchester United (in which he had scored on 137 occasions). Subsequently, over the following nine years, his career became progressively stop-start as he played for the likes of Stockport County, Cork Celtic, Los Angeles Aztecs, Fulham, Fort Lauderdale Strikers, Hibernian and San Jose Earthquakes.

With the Grecians reported as being amongst twenty clubs interested in his services, and him finally agreeing terms with Bournemouth, he thereafter played occasional games for a number of clubs including Brisbane Lions in Australia and Irish club Tobermore United. Although the peak of his career was long over, George Best remained in the public limelight as his problems with  alcohol worsened leading to his death at the age of fifty-nine in November 2005.