LONDON (AP) Former Manchester United and Northern Ireland soccer star George Best was up and walking Thursday, just nine days after his life-saving liver transplant operation.

Best, 56, underwent the liver transplant on July 30 after his physicians told him he had less than a year to live without one - the fallout of decades of alcoholism.

"He has now been able to leave his room and is walking unsupported to the end of the corridor," a spokesman for Cromwell Hospital in west London said on Thursday.

The spokesman said it would be "some time yet" before Best left the hospital. He has been told he should begin to notice improvement in his health, including better skin and hair texture and should have more energy with the new liver.

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