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Personality association and celebrity museumification of George Best (with nods to John Lennon)

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Abstract

It is common practice for cities to be associated with celebrated sons and (sometimes) daughters. This is tied to aligning the branding process to a selected individual’s personality, achievements or celebrityhood to ‘sex up’ the city’s image. In this paper, we compare and contrast the ‘museumification’ of George Best in Belfast and John Lennon in Liverpool. Our findings show, as expected, similarities in how both artists have been museumified in their respective cities; more importantly, however, we also demonstrate significant differences in how the celebrity museumification and associated landscaping has been received in Belfast and Liverpool. Firstly, it is claimed that Liverpool’s association with Lennon is based on a ‘highly selective’ reading of his life and ‘cleaning up’ of his past; however, this is not the case with Best in Belfast. Secondly, the celebrity museumification of Lennon received widespread local support; this is not the case with Best due to an ongoing debate about his suitability as a Belfast icon. We problematise this situation and ruminate as to why Best is seemingly more divisive compared to Lennon. Beyond the spatial spotlight of Belfast and Liverpool, the findings from this paper offer insights and lessons for place branding professionals and practitioners in other cities around the world.

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Notes

  1. The late Gregory Ashworth (2009, 2010) wrote the most dedicated and detailed texts on this subject. Other authors tend to refer to this debate, and his work, whilst analysing broader issues concerned with city branding.

  2. Club revenue from merchandise sales (e.g. replica shirts) rose by 67% in his first season; then there was the huge income generated from lucrative tours that tapped into new markets in Asia and America.

  3. The club sold out their luxury suites, attracted 11,000 season ticket holders, secured a $20 million shirt sponsorship deal and increased merchandise sales by 700%.

  4. Daniel Libeskind redesigned the World Trade Centre as a symbol of American fortitude following the 911 terror attacks on the Twin Towers; Norman Foster’s Gherkin reflects London’s world city status (as in New York the site was severely damaged, in this case by an Irish Republican Army (IRA) bomb in 1992); finally, Frank Ghery’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao is one of the most recognisable buildings in the world.

  5. Irish Republican Army, a paramilitary organisation that waged a war against what they regarded as the British occupation of Northern Ireland. Their objective was British withdrawal and a United Ireland.

  6. It is important to read these events in the context of the time in which they took place, i.e. 1960s and 1970s.

  7. In 1921, the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland divided the island of Ireland into two separate political jurisdictions. Six north eastern counties (with an in-built Protestant majority) became Northern Ireland whilst the remaining 26 counties formed the Free State or Eire, from 1949 it became the Republic of Ireland. From 1969 onwards fierce violence erupted between Republican and Loyalist paramilitaries; the former seeking a united Irish Republic, the latter defending Northern Ireland’s British status.

  8. Signed in 1998 between the British and Irish Governments, and the main political parties in Northern Ireland, paving the path for peace, power sharing and a political solution to the conflict.

  9. Two-time world snooker champion who also suffered from alcohol addiction, and public and private displays of unacceptable behaviour.

  10. His mother also died of alcoholism aged just 54. It is claimed she struggled to cope with her son’s fame, with alcohol dominating her life (Davies 2009).

  11. Prior to this he received an Honorary Doctorate from Queen’s University Belfast (BBC News NI 2001) and became the first person to receive the Freedom of Castlereagh, the local authority area of Belfast where he lived (Lowry, 2002).

  12. The West is predominantly working class Catholic-Nationalist, South is more middle class and mixed, large parts of the North are divided between working class Protestant-Unionist and Catholic-Nationalist housing estates separated by interfaces and peace walls/lines.

  13. In the West of the city the same spatial marking is in evidence, this time with Republication memorialisation.

  14. Best’s former home is owned and operated by the EastSide Partnership, a social partnership involving community, statutory, political and business members (www.eastsidepartnership.com/background). Profits from the home are channelled back into the local community through the Partnership (McAdam, 2017).

  15. The Nationalist community do not view Windsor Park is their national stadium. That would be Croke Park or the Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Ireland.

  16. On one occasion in a ‘drunken rage’ he punched and kicked his second wife leaving her with cuts, bruises, fat lip and a black eye; on another, during a ‘mutual fight’ she ended up in hospital with a broken arm (“The best place for her” he snapped at reporters); on a third occasion she awoke to find Best ‘hacking off her hair’ and ‘scribbling over her flesh’ with a marker pen. However, in other accounts his former wives inform that an abstinent Best was calm and considerate as opposed to explosions of anger when intoxicated (Bairner, 2006).

  17. Recent suggestions include naming Manchester Airport after deceased musician Mark E. Smith—the city’s ‘greatest cultural icon’ (Louder Than War 2018) and Glasgow Airport after Billy Connolly who is suffering from Parkinson’s Disease (Dingwall and Ferguson 2019).

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  1. School of Natural and Built Environment, Queen’s University Belfast, David Keir Building, Stranmillis Road, Belfast, Northern Ireland, BT9 5AG, UK

    Philip Boland & Stephen McKay

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Boland, P., McKay, S. Personality association and celebrity museumification of George Best (with nods to John Lennon). Place Brand Public Dipl 17, 409–419 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41254-020-00170-7

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