[Anark]

Originally Posted by WOOLCOCK

Also in light of it being the 6th of February.

One cold and bitter Thursday in Munich, Germany,
Eight great football stalwarts conceded victory.
Eight men will never play again, who met disaster there,
The flowers of English football, the flowers of Manchester.

The Busby Babes were flying home, returning from Belgrade,
This great United family all masters of their trade.
The pilot of the aircraft, the skipper Captain Thain,
Three times tried to take off and twice turned back again.

The third time down the runway disaster followed close,
There was slush upon that runway and the aircraft never rose.
It ploughed into the marshy ground, it broke, it overturned.
And eight of that team were killed when the blazing wreckage burned.

Roger Byrne and Tommy Taylor, who were capped for England's side,
And Ireland's Liam Whelan and England's Geoff Bent died.
Mark Jones and Eddie Coleman and David Pegg also,
They all lost their lives as it ploughed on through the snow.

Big Duncan he went too, with an injury to his brain,
And Ireland's brave Jack Blanchflower will never play again.
The great Matt Busby lay there, the father of this team,
Three long months passed by before he saw his team again.

The trainer, coach and secretary and three members of the crew,
Also eight sporting journalists who with United flew,
And one of them was Big Swifty who we will ne'er forget,
The finest English 'keeper that ever graced a net.

England's finest football team it's record truly great,
It's proud success mocked by this cruel turn of fate.
Eight men will never play again who met disaster there,
The flowers of English football, the flowers of Manchester.

Excerpt from Fergie's BBC interview which will be shown in full on Football Focus:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/21346420

[WOOLCOCK]

Taken from the Portsmouth game at Old Trafford on this day 3 years ago. I'm actually the one holding the Liam Whelan two stick on the far right of the picture/left as you look at the picture.

[united_07]

[Anark]

Be nice if the England team wore armbands tonight as well.

[WOOLCOCK]

Can't see it happening sadly. Didn't the England fans jeer during a silence years back for Munich? Want to say it was 2008 when it was the 50th Anniversary but could be mistaken. Either way, it reinforced a lot of United fans having little time for England.

[Anark]

They could try banning Leeds fans from the games.

[WOOLCOCK]

A perfectly feasible option, though I have no doubts any number of Chelsea/West Ham/Spurs/Millwall or any other supporters could have made up those jeering. It gets to the point when the likes of Derby County and other irrelevant teams in terms of rivarly are trying to use Munich as some form of taunt against United fans. Liverpool have it much the same with Hillsbrough.

To think, 20th January 2014 will mark 20 years since the passing of the illustrious Sir Matt Busby. How he took a broken and depleted team marked by the death of 8 players and within a decade had managed to rebuild the team, develop new promising talent whilst recovering from his physical and mental injuries from the plane crash and win the European Cup against a great Benfica side is nothing short of remarkable.

[Anark]

Aye, a great man (apart from playing for City and Liverpool ).

[Green Light]

Duncan Edwards tbh

[WOOLCOCK]

Originally Posted by Anark

Aye, a great man (apart from playing for City and Liverpool ).

Nobody's perfect . Although he was pretty damn close. Two of my favourite quotes from him:

"Resting in Interlaken, Germany was one thing and facing Old Trafford another. When I approached the ground and moved over the bridge along which our supporters had squeezed fifty abreast in there tens of thousands to shout for us I could scarcely bear to look. I new the ghosts of the babes would still be there, and there they are still, and they will always be there as long as those who saw them still cross the bridge, young, gay, red ghosts on the green grass of Old Trafford."

"Winning isn’t everything. There should be no conceit in victory and no despair in defeat."

Originally Posted by Green Light

Duncan Edwards tbh

Regarded by those who witnessed him as one of the finest prospects English football has ever produced. Anyone of that time swears by him as arguably the most naturally gifted player United have ever produced.

Sir Matt:

"I rate Duncan Edwards the most complete footballer in Britain – perhaps the World.’

He was a Colossus. Whatever was needed, he had it. He was immensely powerful. He was prodigiously gifted in the arts and crafts of the game. His temperament was perfect. His confidence was supreme and infectious. No opponent was too big or too famous for Duncan. A wing-half, he could have been a great centre-half, or a great forward striker. He would have been one of the great leaders with his sheer inspiration. If there was ever a player who could be called a one-man team, that man was Duncan Edwards. His death, as far as football is concerned, was the single biggest tragedy that has happened to England and Manchester United. He was then, and has always remained to me incomparable.

We looked at Duncan right from the start and we gave up trying to find flaws in his game. (Remember – this was Edwards when he was just 16 years old). Nothing could stop him and nothing unnerved him. The bigger the occasion the better he liked it. While other players would be pacing up and down the dressing room, rubbing their legs, doing exercises, and looking for a way to pass time, Duncan was always very calm. He was a good type of lad too. Duncan didn’t want to know about the high life. He just wanted to go home or to his digs. He just lived for the game of football. "

Sir Bobby Charlton:

"I find that I think about Duncan a lot. I have seen all the players who in their time have been labelled the best in the world – Puskas, Di Stefano, Gento, Didi. John Charles and all the rest – and not one of them have been as good as Big Duncan. There was no other player in the world like him then, and there has been nobody to equal him since. The man was incomparable.

Sometimes I fear that there is a danger that people will think that we who knew him, and saw him in action, boost him because he is dead. Sentiment can throw a man’s judgement out of perspective. Yet it is not the case with him. Whatever the praise one likes to heap on Duncan is no more than he deserved. He was out on his own at left-half and a First Division player in every other position. There was no one else to start with him.

I am not a person to dramatize things or dispense fulsome praise. It is not in my make-up. A man is a good player or he is not. A few are great, and they deserve respect. But Duncan Edwards was the greatest. I see him in my mind’s eye and I wonder that anyone should have so much talent. He was simply the greatest of them all."

Sir Stanley Matthews:

"Duncan Edwards, the boy-man, made his début for Manchester United at 16 and was an England regular by 18. You could play him anywhere and he would slot into that position as if he had been playing there season after season. For all of his tender years, he was the most complete player of his time and it was a tragedy that his life was taken in the Munich disaster of 1958. When the going was rough, Duncan would be as unmoved as a rock in a raging sea, but for all of his considerable size, he possessed the most deft of skills"

Jimmy Murphy:

"Duncan was the Kohinoor Diamond among our crown jewels. Whenever I heard Muhammad Ali on television say he was the greatest, I had to smile. There was only ever one greatest, and that was Duncan Edwards. There was nothing that needed to be coached into him – even at such a young age of 16 – he simply had it all."