George Best Destroys Northampton

George Best

In front of a capa­city crowd, Manchester United legend George Best etched his name into the foot­ball record books dur­ing the FA Cup Fifth Round match against Fourth Divi­sion out­fit Northamp­ton Town at the County Ground in Feb­ru­ary 1970. The Manchester United side, which fea­tured names such as Bobby Charlton, Paddy Crerand, Brian Kidd, Wil­lie Mor­gan and Ian Ure, even­tu­ally ran out 8–2 winners.

The Northamp­ton defence were unable to cope with George Best who man­aged to score on six occa­sions as Manchester United demol­ished The Cob­blers. The floodgates opened for Manchester United as the North­ern Ire­land inter­na­tional headed home a Brian Kidd cross from the right of the field in the 20th minute of the cup encounter. Best made it 2–0 when a through ball from ver­sat­ile defender David Sadler found the lav­ishly gif­ted attacker who roun­ded the help­less Kim Book in the Northamp­ton goal to score. Just a mere minute after the resump­tion, the ever present George Best made it a hat-trick after a scramble in the Northamp­ton goal­mouth. The Ulster­man even­tu­ally net­ted his fourth goal of the after­noon when he headed another accur­ate cross ball from Kidd into the back of the net. Brian Kidd was the next player on the score­sheet as the young and tal­en­ted striker con­ver­ted a flag kick from Scot­land player Wil­lie Mor­gan before Best scored Manchester United´s fifth goal in the match. Shortly after full back Fran­cis Burns found Kidd who made the score read 6–0 in Manchester United´s favour. Northamp­ton striker Dixie McNeil got one back for the home side but the imper­i­ous George Best once again found the net after receiv­ing the ball from mid­field engine Paddy Crerand. In the clos­ing stages of the one sided clash a cross ball from John Fair­brother found Frank Large at the far post who man­aged to head home mak­ing the final score 8–2.

Manchester United Books