The Munich Air Disaster of 1958 remains one of football\u2019s defining tragedies. Of the 44 people on the flight from Belgrade to Manchester that stopped in southern Germany, 23 died. Eight of the 17 players in the travelling Manchester United squad died and two more never played again because of their injuries.<\/p>\n
Roger Byrne, Eddie Colman, Mark Jones, David Pegg, Tommy Taylor and Liam Whelan were killed instantly. Geoff Bent also died after travelling as extra cover. Duncan Edwards, the great star of the side, died from his injuries 15 days later. Edwards, Colman, Pegg and Whelan were all 22 or younger. Jones was 24, Taylor was 26, Bent was 25 and Byrne, the captain, was 28.<\/p>\n
Johnny Berry suffered a fractured skull, broken jaw, broken elbow, broken pelvis and broken leg and never played again. Multiple serious injuries also ended Jackie Blanchflower\u2019s career. Three of United\u2019s staff, trainers Bert Whalley and Tom Curry, and club secretary Walter Crickmer, also died. Matt Busby was badly injured and twice read the Last Rites in Munich before recovering and returning to Manchester in April. He contemplated quitting football until he was persuaded to continue in pursuit of European success so those who had died had not done so in vain.<\/p>\n
Jimmy Murphy, who rebuilt the club in Busby\u2019s absence, was not on the plane; he had stayed behind to fulfil a Wales managerial commitment in a World Cup qualifying playoff against Israel in Cardiff. His role is recounted in Wayne Barton\u2019s biography The Man Who Kept the Red Flag Flying.<\/p>\n
United\u2019s rise under Busby grew from a youth policy begun with the Manchester United Junior Athletic Club in 1937. The team known as the Busby Babes reclaimed the league in 1955\/56 and retained it in 1956\/57, dominating domestically by large margins. When United entered the European Cup they reached consecutive semi-finals, recording a 10-0 win over Anderlecht at Maine Road and notable victories against Borussia Dortmund and Athletic Club before falling to Real Madrid 5-3 on aggregate.<\/p>\n
Charlton later reflected: \u201cMatt Busby had declared that [European football] was the future of the game and here, in this match, was the hardest evidence that he was right.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnited versus Bilbao had produced the best of football, some brilliant skill and a razor edge of competition. Charges that United had got above themselves were promptly withdrawn.\u201d<\/p>\n
Survivors such as Bobby Charlton, Bill Foulkes and Harry Gregg formed the core of the rebuilt side. Troubled by survivor\u2019s guilt, Charlton went on to become one of the best players in the world and was consistently nominated for the Ballon d\u2019Or throughout the 1960s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Munich 1958 shattered the Busby Babes and set Manchester United on a painful, determined recovery….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6590,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1264,179],"tags":[1446,1064,1200],"class_list":["post-6591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football-development","category-manchester-united","tag-academy","tag-ballon-dor-2","tag-busby-babes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}