The Munich air disaster of 1958 remains a defining moment for Manchester United. A flight from Belgrade to Manchester stopped in southern Germany for refuelling and the crash killed 23 of the 44 people on board. Eight of the 17 players in the travelling squad died and two more never played football again.<\/p>\n
Roger Byrne, Eddie Colman, Mark Jones, David Pegg, Tommy Taylor and Liam Whelan were killed instantly. So too was Geoff Bent. Duncan Edwards died from his injuries 15 days later. Edwards, Colman, Pegg and Whelan were all 22 or younger. Edwards had already played close to 200 games for United since making his debut at just 16, while he was becoming a star for England as well. Pegg had also been capped. Colman was, by all accounts, expected to be called up sooner rather than later, while Whelan was capped by Ireland.<\/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, twice read the Last Rites, and returned home to Manchester in April. Troubled by guilt, he contemplated quitting until persuaded to continue his pursuit of European success.<\/p>\n
Jimmy Murphy was not on the plane, having stayed behind to fulfil a commitment as Wales manager in a World Cup qualifying playoff against Israel in Cardiff. Wayne Barton\u2019s biography The Man Who Kept the Red Flag Flying explores Murphy\u2019s role in rebuilding the club.<\/p>\n
Busby\u2019s focus on youth had begun long before. He had won United\u2019s first postwar league title in 1951\u201352 and the Manchester United Junior Athletic Club, created in 1937, supplied the talent that became known as the Busby Babes. United recaptured the league in 1955\/56 and retained it in 1956\/57, winning by 11 points in 1956 and by eight points in 1957. In Europe the young side reached successive semi-finals and recorded a 10-0 win over Anderlecht at Maine Road, the club\u2019s all-time record victory.<\/p>\n
On the Football League\u2019s opposition to Europe, Brian Glanville of The Times described Alan Hardaker as an \u201cunbending autocrat\u201d, a man whose \u201cattitude was supremely negative and self-aggrandising, probably influenced by the fear that his own competition would be overshadowed by the new one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bobby 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 Charlton, Bill Foulkes and Harry Gregg underpinned the rebuilt side. Charlton, troubled by survivor\u2019s guilt, 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 air disaster devastated the Busby Babes, yet United’s youth-driven revival reshaped history. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6600,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1264,179],"tags":[1446,1064,1200],"class_list":["post-6601","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\/6601","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=6601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}