Hang up your boots? How Pelé’s and Best’s were saved in Wiltshire

Like the boots worn by Pelé, the George Best pair received by the CMAS in Wiltshire was in an equally poor state of repair. Photograph: Conservation and Museums Advisory Service

What is the best way to preserve a pair of football boots that once belonged to one of the greatest players in history? Clue: it is not to drill through the studs and screw them to a chopping board.

That is one of the lessons offered by experts at the Conservation and Museums Advisory Service (CMAS) in Wiltshire, after they were asked to restore a pair boots worn by George Best that had suffered that indignity.