A collection of prized George Best mementos including his first ever football boots has sold for £140,000.
The unbranded black boots date from about 1960 and were bought for a young Best by his parents when he first joined the Cregagh Boys youth team in Northern Ireland.
His talent was quickly spotted and he took the rudimentary boots with him when he signed for Manchester United in 1961. The plain dark boots with large brown shoelaces sold for £16,000. They had been expected to fetch £5,000.
The sale also featured the Man Utd legend's Northern Irish international shirts, individual awards and tops he swapped with opposition players.
One of those was a Benfica shirt he exchanged after his virtuoso performance to help Man Utd win the 1968 European Cup final.
Best got hold of left winger Antonio Simoes' white and red number 11 jersey following the Wembley contest which the Red Devils won 4-1.
The silky winger was at the peak of his powers scoring a solo goal as United became the first English side to win the elite trophy. Simoes' grass stained shirt was valued at £5,000 but fetched over four times that sum achieving a price of £22,000. Best's Footballer of the Year Award from the Football Writers Association for 1967/68 went for £28,000.
Best's green and white number seven shirt from the 1964 Northern Ireland v Scotland match at Hampden Park achieved £15,000, while a blue Northern Ireland cap he wore against the USSR and Spain in 1972 made £6,000. A cache of seven handwritten letters Best wrote to his parents in 1963 letting them know how he was getting on at United achieved £6,000.
In one the young player could not contain his excitement at being compared to the United 1950s winger Johnny Berry after setting up two goals. He wrote: "Well we done it. We won 3-0. It was fabulous. Steve said the crowd think I'm another Johnny Berry. I started on the left wing but switched with Willie Anderson and laid on two of our goals."
The items, split into 50 lots, sparked a bidding war at Graham Budd Auctions, of Wellingborough, Northants.
They were consigned by a private collector. David Convery, head of sporting memorabilia at Graham Budd Auctions, said: "There was worldwide bidding for the Best Collection and his enduring appeal and legendary status is still very relevant today judging from the amount of interest and prices achieved in the sale."
Best made his debut as a 17-year-old for Manchester United in 1963 and scored 179 goals in 470 games during a momentous 11 years at the club. He received the Ballon D'Or for the world's best player in 1968 after scoring 32 goals in 53 games.
Aside from Manchester United he also turned out for the likes of Fulham, Hibernian, Bournemouth and Los Angeles Aztecs. He also won 37 caps for Northern Ireland, scoring nine goals He died after a long-standing battle with alcoholism aged 59 in 2005.