Having retired for almost a year Best returned to Old Trafford for one final fling in September 1973

Having "retired" for almost a year, Best returned to Old Trafford for one final fling in September 1973. But nothing could have prepared them for that most sublime, most wayward winger of all: George Best. Four successive managers - Sir Matt, Wilf McGuinness, Frank O'Farrell and Tommy Docherty - failed to tame the Irish genius.Best's legendary extra-curricular activities were tolerated to a degree, his sudden and unexplained absences from United's Cliff training ground less so.Despite this tendency to go walkabout, Best almost single-handedly kept United in the top flight - in each of the four seasons after the 1968 European Cup win, he was the club's top scorer. Mitten was banned and transfer-listed by Busby on his return before being sold to Fulham.The Mitten episode was a foretaste of future problems for United managers with recalcitrant wingers. He played in Colombia for a year, but United's form suffered so much in his absence that Busby was forced to deny rumours he was about to be sacked.

Kanchelskis's spat with Ferguson represented merely the latest in a line of run-ins between brilliant wingers and Old Trafford bosses who like to stress the virtues of attacking wide play while remaining mindful of the need to churn out results.One of the earliest of these encounters began during United's close season tour of Amerca in 1950 when Charlie Mitten, who wore the No 11 shirt in the late Sir Matt Busby's first great side after the war, was approached by a representative of the Bogota club, Santa Fe, to play in Colombia.Mitten's signing-on fee was reputedly pounds 5,000 plus a weekly wage of at least pounds 40 - nearly three times the then maximum wage at home. A very public feud between the two soon broke out. For outraged United fans, though, this open clash of personalities was nothing new. Alex Ferguson's decision to sell the Ukrainian-born Russian international winger Andrei Kanchelskis to Everton for pounds 5m may have been one of the more predictable events during Manchester United's crazy mid-summer clear- out. After all, Kanchelskis had barely been on speaking terms with Ferguson since the United manager dropped him for a League game - ironically at Everton - back in February. Harry Redknapp, the West Ham manager, earlier described Boogers as "not a good signing.

my mistake", but Storrie said the pounds 800,000 buy from Sparta Rotterdam would shortly resume his career at Upton Park.Sheffield United gained a new owner yesterday when Mike McDonald, the Cheshire-based Texas DIY magnate who previously tried to take over from Peter Swales at Manchester City, bought Reg Brealey's controlling interest for pounds 3m.Meanwhile, Manchester United have paid an undisclosed sum to York City - the club who humbled them in the Coca-Cola Cup on Wednesday - for Nick Culkin, a 17-year-old goalkeeper in whom Leeds were also interested.. Tommy Burns, the Celtic manager, said yesterday that Waddle had agreed an pounds 800,000 move to Parkhead, but the player's wife did not want to uproot to Scotland. Sunderland remain favourites, despite Peter Reid's reluctance to offer more than pounds 400,000.West Ham's chief executive, Peter Storrie, returned from the Netherlands yesterday after meeting Marco Boogers amid reports that the stay-away striker was living in a caravan. Ray Wilkins, the QPR manager, admitted enquiring about the 33-year-old striker, only for Archie Knox, the Scottish champions' assistant manager, to state that Hateley would stay at Ibrox as long as they were in the European Cup.Sheffield Wednesday have confirmed that Chris Waddle has formally requested a transfer. It's important our fans know and understand that." Blackburn will bank only pounds 600,000 of the pounds 1m Wolves paid for Mark Atkins, the balance going to his first club, Scunthorpe.The possibility of Mark Hateley leaving Rangers for Rangers - Glasgow to Queen's Park - receded yesterday.