They Were My Heroes
1958 – 2008; a period of some 50 years. To some, it may seem like an eternity in time. However, for myself, and for thousands of Mancunians just like me who emanate from my era; on Wednesday, 6th February 2008, when we close our eyes in the silent minutes of quiet recollection and remembrance; that period of time will be crossed in just a fraction of a second. The kaleidoscopic myriad of memories of an era that is long since past and for the most part forgotten, will come flooding back to us all, and I expect it to be a very bitter-sweet and moving experience.
For Manchester United fans, wherever they may be throughout the world, the date of February 6th 1958 is firmly imprinted upon their hearts. It is a date which they remember just as easily as they do their own birth date. If you were to ask any one of them what the significance of that date is, the answer will come back at you faster than a bullet fired from a high velocity rifle. It is of course the date that a tragic accident involving the aircraft which was carrying the Manchester United party back home to Manchester from Belgrade in Yugoslavia, happened. It occurred at the Reim Airport, which was (it is no longer there today) situated in the beautiful Bavarian city of Munich, then in West Germany. The day upon which a legend began, and even today, still surrounds the young Manchester United team which was decimated in just a matter of seconds at the end of a slush covered airfield runway, on that dark, grey, snow filled, February afternoon.
7 Manchester United players were amongst the fatalities that afternoon, as was the Club Secretary, and 2 of the Club’s Coaches. 8 of Britain’s finest sporting journalists also lost their lives, as well as 1 traveling supporter, 1 passenger who had hitched a ride for that journey, and two members of the aircraft crew. Another player was to lose his life as a result of his injuries 15 days later. There had been 44 persons on board that aircraft when it had left Belgrade that morning – only 21 survived the accident. Of a total of 9 players who did survive, two would never play soccer again due to the horrific injuries which they received in the accident and only 4 of the remainder would go on to have careers in the game which had any real substance.
At the time of the accident, I was just a 13 years old schoolboy living in inner city Manchester. I had been growing up in the immediate austere post war years. The inner city areas of Manchester which surrounded the city centre back in that time were not hospitable places in which to live, and in today’s world, many of the dwellings in those areas would be condemned immediately by the local health authorities as uninhabitable. It was certainly a harsh existence for people who had been trying to rear families in those conditions. Most of the people who lived in those areas were unskilled and therefore were not privy to any kind of work that would pay a decent wage. Many were immigrants, but in the vast majority, were just honest to goodness hard working families whose parents just wanted to provide an escape for their children from the appalling conditions in which they had to bring them up.
Hours were long at work and even a Saturday morning back then was, for many thousands of people, a half working day. The majority of men found release in going to watch sporting activities – football in the autumn, winter and spring, and cricket during the summer months. It was not unusual, especially on Sunday mornings or afternoons, to see a few thousand spectators gathered around the touchlines of a football pitch in the local parks, standing there supporting their local amateur team. For children like me, it was much the same albeit it was playing instead of watching. Most of our waking hours were spent outdoors. For adult and child alike, football was a huge release and in Manchester, it meant that you were either a “Red” or a “Blue” meaning that you either followed Manchester United or Manchester City. The allegiance to these clubs was normally handed down through family generations. Ours was no different, and it was my Grandfather who had nurtured into me a love of Manchester United, and their history.
I had first started going to Old Trafford in the 1950/51 season, being taken there by my older brother Peter, to watch the Reserve team play. It was to be the beginning of a love affair which has lasted until today, and no doubt one which will carry on until the time comes that I draw my very last breath. I saw my very first senior game on September 1st 1954, and following United has been a roller coaster of a ride ever since that Wednesday evening. Periods of triumph, periods of disappointment, and at times, dark despair. However, also a period of tragedy and mourning, which even today, as I have entered my old age, still deeply affects me.
I was not to know when I attended that first senior game back in 1954 that I, along with thousands of my contemporaries, were to witness over the period of the next three and a half years such a pivotal period in Manchester United’s great history. On the last day of October of 1953, Busby’s hand had been forced more than a little by injuries to some of his senior players, and he fielded a team against Huddersfield Town, in a Division One game, that contained 6 players under the age of 21. The game finished 0-0, and Alf Clarke, the dapper little sportswriter who worked for the Manchester Evening Chronicle and reported on United’s games, led with this headline in his match report in the “Football Pink” that evening: “Busby’s Bouncing Babes Keep All Town Awake”. Little was Alf Clarke to know as he had penned that headline, just how affectionately the fans, and indeed the whole of Britain, would embrace the naming of the team “Babes.” Almost overnight, the press and the fans began referring to them as “the Busby Babes.”
To be in Manchester and following Manchester United in the 1950’s was a wonderful experience. Matt Busby had imposed his own personality upon the Club from the minute that he had taken up his appointment. He’d arrived when there had been no ground for his team to play upon, when training facilities were non-existent, when money to play in the transfer market was much less than adequate, and the players in the team which he had inherited, had lost six years of their young adulthood to a little matter called the Second World War. Undaunted, he had met the challenge head on, and as the years had passed the club fast became a family unit. Busby embraced everybody into that family; players, at whatever level within the club they were playing; staff; ground staff; scouts; tea ladies; laundry ladies; and even the fans. He made people belong. Remembering his first tentative steps as a young professional player arriving in Manchester in the late 1920’s to play for Manchester City, he was to tell that wonderful writer, Arthur Hopcraft; “I wanted a far more humane approach in a club than what I had found when I had first started out playing the game. Back then the younger lads were left to fend for themselves and were just left on their own. The first team players hardly recognized any of the younger players that were playing in the teams below them. There never seemed to be enough interest taken in them. The manager sat at his desk and you probably saw him once a week. From the very start, I wanted even the smallest member to be, and believe to be, a part of Manchester United.” That he was able to do that is beyond repute.
It was in this kind of atmosphere that my own love, and also that of the Manchester United fans, for the team so affectionately called the “Busby Babes” was kindled. There was at that time, such a close proximity between the Club and the local community. Nobody was “too important.” On the field, the “Babes” developed and imposed their own magnificent style on the game. Yes they had setbacks along the way, but they continued to stick to the principles, methods and styles, that Busby, Jimmy Murphy, Tom Curry, and Bert Whalley, had worked so hard to instill into them on the training grounds.
The club was so vibrant with youth and vitality. It was such a wonderful place to be around. Everybody was so approachable. The “Babes” captured the hearts and imagination of fans wherever they played. They were perfect ambassadors in everything that they did, and were such a credit to their club, the countries for whom they played for at international level, but mostly to themselves. They were stars, yes, and they knew it. But their feet were firmly planted on the ground. No big egos, no pretentiousness, no arrogance, just a huge love for the game of football, and for the club that they played for.
The years between September 1954 and February 1958 were years that gave me so much un-abandoned pleasure. I grew up alongside, and watching all those young boys and young men as they were maturing. I shared their highs and lows – laughed when they won, and was heartbroken whenever they lost a game. The future looked so bright for Manchester United because there was so much talent flowing through along the conveyor belt from the junior teams. The strength in depth was phenomenal. The successes came – 2 League Championships, an appearance in the F.A. Cup Final, and two consecutive seasons playing in the European Cup. It seemed as though the Club would be able to dominate English and maybe European football for at least the coming decade. Whatever was there to worry about?