SOCCER supporters in Kent and around the globe have paid glowing tributes to football legend George Best who has finally lost his battle for life.

The former Manchester United and Northern Ireland star died in London's Cromwell Hospital from multiple organ failure following internal bleeding.

Manchester United supporter Michael Brine, from Ditton, near Maidstone, said: "There was noboby quite like him with a football."

Mr Brine, a fan of United since he was five or six, added: "He was just a genius."

David Lacey, of the Guardian, one of the country's top soccer writers, said: "George Best was the outstanding British footballer of his generation and that, many would argue, is a gross understatement for he had plausible claims to be considered the greatest of any generation.

"Comparisons are impossible...however, it is safe to say that no footballer, before or since, has achieved either the initial or the lasting impact that Best had on the English game."

Best helped Manchester United win the European Cup in 1968 - the first English club to do so - and he was European Footballer of the Year that season.

Best's style captivated football fans around the world but his lifestyle degenerated into alcoholism, and bankruptcy, and finally a premature death. He was 59.