From Private Eye’s “Hackwatch”
Fleet Street’s hyperbolic lyricism about George Best was bad enough But it could’ve been even worse.
Obseverer Sport Monthly editor Jason Cowley, who fancies himself as a literary gent, was moved to write this panegyric: “Thou wert the morning star among the living,/Ere thy fair light had fled;/ Now, having dies, thou art as Hesperus, giving/New splendour to the dead.” Shelley’s words on the passing of John Keats (above) may be applied equally to the passing of George Best.”
Alas, this was too much, even for the Observer’s sports mad editor Roger Alton – who personally vetoed it.