James Nesbitt has recalled a childhood memory of attending a Northern Ireland v England match at Windsor Park in 1971 when George Best's famous goal was disallowed.
The 51-year-old actor, who was recently awarded an OBE for his services to Northern Ireland and to acting, said it was only years later when Best lost his long battle with illnesses in 2005, that he decided to go on the hunt for footage of Best's goal against equally-legendary keeper Gordon Banks.
"George was my hero. I had a George Best ring and necklace. George was our shining light in the early '70s," Nesbitt told Ryan Tubridy on The Late Late Show.
"When George died I was asked as a fan to write a fan obituary in The Independent.
"In the column I said I always remembered being at the [Northern Ireland v England, May 15, 1971] match at Windsor Park when George scored the goal that was disallowed against Gordon Banks. It was a very famous goal where Gordon Banks is throwing the ball up in the air and George had scored but it had been disallowed.
"I wasn't sure if it had been in my mind's eye or if it was real that I was pressed against the fence in the stadium.
"Thanks to modern technology, when they actually showed that goal the weekend that they were paying tributes to George - sure enough I stopped it and as George realises the goal has been disallowed - I froze the frame and you can see the top of my head and my dad's head.
"I have a frame of it at home - my two heroes in one shot," he added.
James Nesbitt with his Lucky Man co-star Sienna Guillory
Nesbitt, whose new new 10-part Sky drama Lucky Man debuted on Friday, joked that his role as a superhero on the show is the "closest thing he'd get" to playing secret agent James Bond.
"I think that was part of it. The opportunity to throw myself into a genre that I'd never been put into before," he told Late Late Show host Ryan Tubirdy.
Created by Stan Lee, the comic book legend behind Iron Man, Spider-Man and X-Men, and produced by the company behind Downton Abbey, Nesbitt said Lucky Man does make a "lot of sense" despite its off-the-wall plot.
"He [Stan Lee co-created Spider-Man and Thor and Iron Man amongst many other Marvel characters. He had been asked what his superpower would be and it was the ability to control luck or to be lucky. It's interesting because since childhood we have an understanding of luck and believe in it and have a desire for it - but yet there isn't one shred of evidence for it," he said.
"This was a character that Stanley came up with, with Neil Biswas the other writer. They decided to set it in a contemporary setting - London as it's never really been seen before. London is actually a character.
"It's a familiar tale of a troubled cop who ends up in huge debt and meets a woman at a casino and wins on the tables, thanks to the help of this mysterious woman played by Sienna Guillory. He spends the night with her and wakes up with her bracelet and that bracelet is giving him the power to control luck."
"When you read it and when you are filming it you think 'is this going to make any sense?' but you forget that once you watch it and you see the context of this thing, you just go with it," he said.
He is also set to star in the 2016 reboot of Cold Feet, the show which made him a star after becoming a huge hit at the end of the 1990s.
The show, which ran from 1998 until 2003, followed the lives of three 30-something couples in Manchester and starred Nesbitt, Hermione Morris and Fay Ripley.
