For a football obsessed child born in the early ’60s, the fascination shaped by a father superbly skilled in bringing the history of the game to life, the Munich air crash of February 6 1958 cast a long shadow.
With the advent of the 1970s and the widespread arrival into most homes of magazines such as the Radio Times and various football titles, all featuring colour photographs, the black and white images of the tragedy fixed it in a distant era – although in truth it occurred less than ten years before I regularly started attending football matches.
Despite not being a Manchester United supporter, when talking of the ‘Busby Babes‘ team – eight of whom perished in the disaster – my Dad always spoke (still does) in the most respectful, highly complimentary way. Along with the club he followed, Wolverhampton Wanderers, they had emerged as the dominant forces in English football as the 50s drew to a close.
By way of sad irony, of which there are many attached to the tragic episode of Munich, is that two days after the crash on Saturday 8 February 1958, Manchester United were due to play top of the table Wolves at Old Trafford – second placed United aiming to close a six point gap on the league leaders.
Obviously the match did not take place, the fixture finally fulfilled toward the end of the season, when a United team decimated by the crash and now populated by players hastily recruited from other clubs, were easily beaten by a Wolves team who had already clinched the title.
To their enormous credit, those recruited to fill the enormous void managed to reach Wembley in the FA Cup Final of that 1957-58 season, Manchester United losing 2-0 against Bolton Wanderers.
While the human tragedies of Munich must always remain paramount, when considering the awful events of that February day, the implications for football are also worth a degree of consideration.
Returning from a European Cup quarter-final second leg tie away at Red Star Belgrade whom United had overcome to reach the last four (the stop at Munich was for the aeroplane to refuel) such was the rapid development of the ‘Busby Babes‘, the possibility of them winning the trophy that season cannot be ruled out – even accounting for the way Real Madrid were dominating the competition.
As the ‘Babes‘ continued to improve would Wolves have won successive Championships as the decade drew to a close? Would Spurs have achieved the Double in 1960-61?
Five of the young men who lost their lives at Munich, Roger Byrne, Duncan Edwards, Mark Jones, David Pegg and Tommy Taylor had all been capped by England and were becoming established international players – so who knows what bearing they would have had on the national team, particularly at the 1958 and 1962 World Cup Finals.
It is also safe to assume the prodigious talent that was Duncan Edwards would have featured in the 1966 and 1970 tournaments as well.
The history of Manchester United in the 1960s would be vastly different as well. Had Munich not occurred it can be safely assumed the team assembled by manager Matt Busby, who despite suffering life-threatening injuries survived the crash, would have secured a significant haul of trophies.
As it was, Busby managed to rebuild his shattered squad and by 1963 had compiled a team good enough to win the FA Cup. Two years later Munich-survivor Bobby Charlton, Scottish international Denis Law and a Belfast-born teenage wonder named George Best, had formed the dazzling ‘Holy Trinity‘ of Old Trafford as United won the League Championship for the first time since the ‘Babes‘ had pulled off back-to-back title wins in 1955/56 and 1956/57.
The ‘Holy Trinity‘ were instrumental in leading United to another 60s title win in 1966/67 which once again brought entry into the European Cup – and ten years on from from Munich, the dream of becoming European champions was finally realised.
Charlton, two years before an England World Cup winner and centre-half Bill Foulkes, the two Munich survivors still in the United side, were members of a team who in May 1968 defeated Portuguese champions Benfica 4-1 at Wembley – the pair finally collecting the European Cup winners medals the crash disaster seemed destined to always deny them.
The first fixture I ever saw involving Manchester United was at the age of eleven in September 1972, a match against Wolves at Molineux.
In what would prove to be the final full season with United for both, Charlton (leaving to manage Preston North End in May 1973) and Best (now beholden to a chaotic lifestyle) are part of a team that had stagnated since the European Cup triumph of four years before and easily beaten.
Watching brief highlights of the game recently it is a surprise to see how out of sorts they are, each a peripheral figure as the home side dominate in midfield and create countless chances.
During the process of writing this article it occurred to me had it not been for Munich, I might well have seen Duncan Edwards play that afternoon, as being only year older than Charlton he too would have been at the tail end of his career.
But once again the awful finality of Munich is brought to bear as Edwards – just twenty one when he passed away – had already been dead for fourteen years.
So is today, the 60th anniversary of the Munich disaster, any more significant than the previous anniversaries when another ten years has gone by?
With two of the seventeen man squad who were on board the plane when it crashed on take-off (Charlton and goalkeeper Harry Gregg) still alive, there is still an embodied attachment to the fateful day and many can still recall where they were when the news broke – wireless and newspapers the principal source of information.
In terms of the milestone, yes there is added poignancy and given the figure there will be increased coverage as those who died are remembered – but the ‘Busby Babes‘ deserve to be revered just as much tomorrow and thereafter as they will be today.
This article was first published on 6/2/2018.
NEIL SAMBROOK is the author of ‘MONTY’S DOUBLE’ – an acclaimed thriller now available in paperback and as an Amazon Kindle book.
