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Chelsea icon Bobby Tambling tells us how he brought George Best to Cork Celtic

This week on Team 33, we had the privilege of picking the brains of two players involved during C...



Chelsea icon Bobby Tambling te...
Soccer

Chelsea icon Bobby Tambling tells us how he brought George Best to Cork Celtic

This week on Team 33, we had the privilege of picking the brains of two players involved during Chelsea's Swinging '60s and early '70s era.

Former Ireland right back Paddy Mulligan dropped into studio alongside Joe, Killian and I, and on the line from Crosshaven, Co Cork was Bobby Tambling, the forward who had held the all time Chelsea goalscoring record until Frank Lampard overtook him in 2013.

With the game having changed irrevocably since their playing heyday, Mulligan and Tambling, who remain great friends to this day, took us back to what Paddy regards as "halcyon days" for football, explaining the shortcomings they feel have crept into modern players and reminiscing about how the game was played in their era.

You can listen to full double interview with Bobby and Paddy on the podcast player or stream/download on iTunes:

Chelsea icon Bobby Tambling tells us how he brought George Best to Cork Celtic

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Recent interviews on Team 33 include Dutch legend Johan Neeskens, ex-England striker Darius Vassell, former Ireland midfielder Mark Kinsella and former Everton forward Tomasz Radzinski. Plus our in-depth chats with Packie Bonner, Nobby Solano, Ron Atkinson and Alan Curbishley are still available on iTunes. You can find them all in one place by subscribing to Team 33 on iTunes.

But one of the things we touched on with Tambling was how he brought Manchester United legend George Best to Cork Celtic for a brief spell during the 1975-76 season.

Tambling, who had been in the provisional squad for England's 1966 World Cup winners, had arrived in Cork himself on the advice of Paddy as they explain on the podcast.

But when it came to trying to bring Best over, Tambling had become manager and had been tasked with finding a high profile player by the Cork Celtic board.

"When I came back, I said, 'How would George Best suit you?'" Tambling told us.

"I think they were frozen. They couldn't quite believe who I'd said and George of course was an expensive sort of deal. He certainly paid it back by the amount of people who came to the matches and the nice thing about it was that we gave thousands of people in Cork, the opportunity to say, 'We've seen George Best'". 

Tambling also talked about how Best integrated into the dressing room in Cork.

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