George "The" Best

The History is made by each step of today. Today i would like to tell you all about a  man who had very high potential and talent. He is little known in history but is a legend. The Man himself is "George Best", a great football player who played for Manchester United for most of his life.

 

George Best (22 May 1946 – 25 November 2005) was a Northern Irish professional footballer who played as a winger for Manchester United and the Northern Ireland national team. In 1968 he won the European Cup with United, and was named the European Footballer of the Year and Football Writers' Association Player of the Year. He is described by the national team's governing body, the Irish Football Association, as the "greatest player to ever pull on the green shirt of Northern Ireland".

Such was Best's talent and charisma that he became one of the first celebrity footballers, but his subsequent extravagant lifestyle led to various problems, most notably alcoholism which he suffered from for the rest of his adult life. These problems affected him on and off the field throughout his career, at times causing controversy.He often said of his career that "I spent 90% of my money on women, drink and fast cars. The rest I wasted". After football he spent some time as a pundit, but his financial and health problems continued into his retirement. He died in 2005 age 59, due to complications from the immunosuppressant drugs he needed to take after being controversially granted an NHS liver transplant in 2002. Best was married twice, to two former models, Angie Best and then Alex Best. His son Calum Best was born in 1981 from his first marriage.

Prior to his death, Best was voted 16th in the IFFHS World Player of the Century election in 1999 and was one of the inaugural 22 inductees into the English Football Hall of Fame in 2002; in 2004 he was also voted 19th in the public UEFA Golden Jubilee Poll and named by Pelé as one of the 125 best living footballers in the world..After his death, on what would have been his 60th birthday, Belfast City Airport was renamed the George Best Belfast City Airport as a "fitting and permanent tribute to his footballing brilliance." According to the BBC, Best was remembered by mourners at his public funeral held in Belfast as "the beautiful boy" [with a] "beautiful game".

Best hit the headlines at the age of twenty when he scored two goals in a European Cup quarter-final match against Benfica in 1966. The Portuguese media dubbed him "O Quinto Beatle", "the fifth Beatle" in English. His talent and showmanship made him a crowd and media favourite. Known for his long hair, good looks and extravagant celebrity lifestyle, Best appeared on Top of the Pops in 1965. Other nicknames included the "Belfast Boy" and he was often referred to as Georgie, or Geordie in his native Belfast.
The 1966–67 season was again successful, as Manchester United claimed the league title by four points. The following season, Best became a European Cup winner after scoring in the final against Benfica. United won 4–1 and Best was later crowned European Footballer of the Year and Football Writers' Association Player of the Year. After this, his steady decline began.



A great player missed out the chance to be the greatest because of the alluring stardom he had in his starting career. But We can collect that if you are on the verge of your new stardom don't misplace your footstep.

Francis Ouimet

Ouimet was born to Mary Ellen Burke and Arthur Ouimet in Brookline, Massachusetts. His father was a French-Canadian immigrant, and his mother was an Irish immigrant. When Francis was four years old, his family purchased a house on Clyde Street in Brookline, directly across from the 17th hole of The Country Club. The Ouimet family grew up relatively poor, and found themselves near the bottom of the economic ladder, which was hardly the position of any American golfer at the time. As far as the general public was concerned, amateur golf was reserved for the wealthy, while professional golf provided competition and income for former caddies, prohibited by the USGA from caddying after the age of 16 or lose their amateur status.^[3] Ouimet found an interest in golf at an early age and started caddying at The Country Club at the age of nine. Using clubs from his brother and balls he found around the course, Ouimet taught himself the game. Soon enough his game caught the eye of many country club members and caddie master Dan MacNamara. It wasn't long before Ouimet was the best high school golfer in the state. When he was a junior in high school, his father insisted Francis drop out and finally begin to do "something useful" with his life. He worked at a drygoods store before a stroke of good luck helped him land a job at a sporting goods store owned by the future Baseball Hall of Famer, George Wright.^[3][4]




1913 U.S. Open
In 1913 Ouimet won his first significant title at age 20, the Massachusetts Amateur, an event he won five more times. He participated in the U.S. Amateur at the Garden City Golf Club in New York in early September, losing in the quarterfinals to the eventual champion, Jerome Travers. Soon after he was asked personally by the president of the United States Golf Association, Robert Watson, if he would play in the national professional championship, the U.S. Open, which had been postponed to mid-September from its original June dates to allow for the participation of British golfers Harry Vardon and Ted Ray.^[5] The event was played at the course Ouimet knew best, The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts. Ouimet originally declined to play, having just returned from an absence from work to play in the National Amateur. This was soon arranged, however, with the cooperation of his employer.
It was Ouimet's first appearance in the championship. After 72 holes of play finished in a three-way tie, Ouimet went on to an 18-hole playoff the next day in rainy conditions, and won the Open over Vardon and Ray.^[6] Ouimet's victory after an 18-hole playoff against Vardon and Ray was widely hailed as a stunning upset over the strongly-favored Brits, who were regarded as the top two golfers in the world. He was the first amateur to win the U.S. Open, the biggest crowds ever seen in American golf followed the playoff, and his achievement was front-page news across the country.
Ouimet's U.S. Open success is credited for bringing golf into the American sporting mainstream. Before his surprising win over Harry Vardon and Ted Ray, golf was dominated by British players. In America, the sport was restricted to players with access to private facilities. There were very few public courses (the first, Van Cortlandt Golf Course in The Bronx borough of New York City, opened in 1895). Ten years after his 1913 victory the number of American players had tripled and many new courses had been built, including numerous public ones.

He was a genius and a true student who learned the game by his passion. History was created.

Burt Munro (History Man)

Herbert James "Burt" Munro (Bert in his youth) (25 March 1899 – 6 January 1978) was a New Zealand motorcycle racer, famous for setting an under-1,000 cc world record, at Bonneville, 26 August 1967.[2] This record still stands today. Munro was 68 and was riding a 47-year-old machine when he set his last record.[3]
Working from his home in Invercargill, he worked for 20 years to highly modify the 1920 Indian motorcycle that he had bought that same year. Munro set his first New Zealand speed record in 1938 and later set seven more. He travelled to compete at the Bonneville Salt Flats, attempting to set world speed records. During his ten visits to the salt flats, he set three speed records, one of which still stands today.

Records
In 1962, he set a world record of 288 km/h (178.95 mph) with his engine bored out to 850 cc (52 cubic inches)[2]
In 1966, he set a world record of 270.476 km/h (168.066 mph)[9]
In 1967, his engine was bored out to 950 cc (58 cubic inches) and he set a class record of 295.453 km/h (183.586 mph). To qualify he made a one-way run of 305.89 km/h (190.07 mph), the fastest-ever officially-recorded speed on an Indian.[2] The unofficial speed record (officially timed) is 331 km/h (205.67 mph) for a flying mile.[2]
In 2006, he was inducted into the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame.[10]