One of the centre-back positions in our best ever team goes to Duncan Edwards. Here’s an excerpt from Best XI Manchester United:

LESS THAN FOUR months before his life was tragically cut short, Duncan Edwards played one of his last internationals for England against Wales at Ninian Park in Cardiff.

On that day in November 1957, the Welsh manager was Edwards’ mentor and Manchester United’s assistant manager Jimmy Murphy.

Before the game Murphy stood in the centre of the Welsh dressing room, going through the strengths and weaknesses of each member of the England side in great detail.

He talked about ten players, but not Edwards, prompting Reg Davies, the Newcastle inside-forward, to put up his hand.

“What about Edwards?”

“Just keep out of his way son, there’s nothing I could say that could ever help us.”

Edwards inspired this kind of rare awe in all those who saw him play in the five years between his debut and his premature death.

The greatest Busby Babe of all, he has become an almost mythical figure, forever young. His legend is kept alive by only a few black and white newsreels and the memories of those who shared a pitch with him.

I once asked Sir Bobby Charlton to describe how good he was, and sitting in a box overlooking Old Trafford, he turned and looked at the pitch Edwards had once bestrode.

“He was the only player who made me feel inferior,” he said. “Duncan was without doubt the best player to ever come out of this place, and there’s been some competition down the years. He was colossal and I wouldn’t use that word to describe anyone else. He had such presence, he dominated every game all over the pitch. Had he lived, he would have been the best player in the world. He was sensational, and it is difficult to convey that. It is sad there isn’t enough film to show today’s youngsters just how good he was.”

By the time he died at 21, Edwards had already played for United 177 times, winning two League Championships, three FA Youth Cups, an FA Cup runners-up medal and 18 England caps. He had become both the youngest player to appear in the First Division at just 16 years and 184 years and the youngest England international of the 20th century, aged 18 years and 183 days, a record which stood for nearly 43 years before Michael Owen claimed it.

Edwards was revered for his all-round game and versatility, and how he could excel at almost every position on the pitch, whether it was centre-half, centre-forward, inside forward or half-back. “He was never bothered where he played,” said Murphy.

However, he would make the majority of his appearances as a left-half, a hybrid between a defender and a midfielder, which was his favourite position as he was constantly involved and could use both his defensive and attacking abilities.

“He was Roy Keane and Bryan Robson combined, but in a bigger body,” is how his former teammate Wilf McGuinness described him. “He could play as an attacker, creator or defender and be the best player on the pitch… He was world class when United had the ball, and when the opposition has the ball he was our best defender.”

“Most players they are good at certain things; in the air, or good with their left or right foot, they read the game well, or they have pace. But Duncan had it all, he really was better at everything than anyone else,” said Charlton. “From the first moment I saw him he could play anywhere and do anything. He was brave, great in the tackle, could pass it long or short and score goals. When I arrived at United Duncan was the only player who could do things I knew I wasn’t capable of.”

In February 1958 United made it to the semi-finals of the European Cup for a second consecutive season with a 3-3 draw against Red Star Belgrade. After the game Red Star’s Dragoslav Sekularac called Edwards: “Maybe the greatest player in the world.”

On the way back from Belgrade, United’s plane stopped to refuel in Munich. Amid the snow and ice, United’s plane twice aborted it’s take-off and the passengers returned to the terminal. Once inside, Edwards assumed they would stay overnight and sent a telegram to his landlady Mrs. Dorman in Stretford: ‘All flights cancelled. Flying tomorrow. Duncan.’

But the captain of the BEA Elizabethan decided to make one final attempt to take-off, which ended in the crash that would kill 23 people, including seven of Edwards’ teammates.

Edwards sustained terrible injuries, including damaged kidneys, broken ribs, a collapsed lung, a broken pelvis and several fractures of his right thigh, and for fifteen days he bravely clung to life.

In the days after the crash Jimmy Murphy visited Edwards in the Rechts der Isar Hospital in Munich accompanied by United’s goalkeeper Harry Gregg, who survived the crash physically unscathed. Gregg recalled how Duncan was lying still when they approached his bed, then suddenly opened his eyes and asked, “What time is the kick-off against Wolves? I mustn’t miss that game.” United’s next game was indeed against Wolves that weekend. An emotional Murphy bent down to him and whispered, “Three o’clock son.” Duncan replied: “Get stuck in!”

During those dark days, Bobby Charlton recalls visiting Edwards in his bed, and seeing how much pain he was in. A distressed Edwards asked where the gold watch Real Madrid had presented to him was, prompting Murphy to order a search of the wreckage. The battered watch was recovered and was strapped back onto Edwards’
wrist, bringing him some relief and happiness.

But on February 21 at 2.15am Edwards finally succumbed to his injuries. He was dead at only 21. “I have seen death many, many times, but not like this,” said one of the surgeons who tended to Edwards. “In all my years I have never seen a hospital staff so upset. This boy we have never seen before, he is so young, so strong… so
brave. Ach, but he had no chance.”

Maybe the passage of time has dulled the impact of this loss to English football, but imagine if Wayne Rooney or David Beckham had died at the same age. It is too dreadful to contemplate.

In the corridors of the youth academy at Manchester United’s training ground there is now an enormous 10ft poster of Duncan Edwards to inspire the generations that seek to follow him.

If Edwards had survived, it was believed his injuries were so serious he would almost certainly never have played football again. The sports writer Frank Taylor, who survived the crash at Munich, and recovered in the same hospital as Edwards, wrote about his harrowing experience in his book The Day A Team Died.

“One of Duncan’s nearest and dearest friends told me: ‘Maybe it was better this way. The doctors said, had he lived, he might have had to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair. Duncan couldn’t have stood that. Now I can remember him as he was: the greatest thing that has happened in British football for years.’

This e-book is available at a steal for just £2.99 on Amazon and is well worth it.

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Thoughts about this select band who pulled on the red shirt for nothing but expenses were prompted by the possibility that such Old Trafford luminaries as David Beckham, Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs may play for Team GB in the London Olympics. In the old days professionals were totally excluded but times have changed and assumptions about some innate moral superiority among amateur competitors have more or less evaporated. It was ‘shamateurs’ who did the damage, competitors who took ‘under the counter’ payments or bent the rules through taking salaries for non-existent jobs and dodgy sponsorship deals.The global spread of television added to the problem, as the massive – not to say obscene – rewards of sporting success have driven out those who competed purely for the love of it.

That’s why I want to pay tribute to the handful of authentic spare-timers who made admirably uncynical contributions to the history of Manchester United, in two cases of profound importance to what might be called the ‘Manchester United way’. For some the involvement was fleeting, but valuable none the less, including a player I never saw but remember well, an old-fashioned amateur who solved an acute goalkeeping crisis in 1961. All the standard United histories ignore this brief episode, but it caught my imagination when I was 14, perhaps because I loved the idea as a child of the man of honour riding to the rescue.

The hero on that occasion over half a century ago was one Mike Pinner, a quietly spoken solicitor with floppy hair who had already taken part in two Olympic Games, and was now with Third Division Queen’s Park Rangers. He was doing his National Service with the RAF when he got the call from United manager Matt Busby, a man with a deep respect for the Olympic ideal.

At that time in 1960-61 United were maddeningly inconsistent as they struggled to re-build after the Munich Air Crash which had killed 8 players three years before. With a team built round the great Bobby Charlton that could put six past Chelsea, five past Manchester City or beat eventual Double winners Tottenham Hotspur 2-0, they could as easily lose 6-0 to unsung Leicester City the following week.

14 into 3: Ronnie Briggs’ Nightmare

United were languishing in mid-table in January 1961 when Munich hero Harry Gregg got injured against Spurs at a time when understudy Dave Gaskell was also crocked. Busby had no option but put his one remaining fit goalkeeper between the posts, an “A” team rookie, Ronnie Briggs. In keeping with the tradition of the Busby Babes, this promising 17-year old was the seventh teenager to make his first team debut for United in that season. Hopes were high for the powerfully built Northern Irish youngster, but it turned into a complete nightmare. It was too much, too soon as he conceded six goals in his first game, that shock defeat to Leicester City. He did better in his next match, a 1-1 draw against Sheffield Wednesday in the FA Cup, but when United humiliatingly lost the replay 7-2 at Old Trafford , he looked like a rabbit caught in the headlights. At the final whistle, Briggs was seen leaving the floodlit pitch struggling to hide his tears having let in 14 goals in only three matches, many of them directly down to him.

According to the Daily Mirror, Busby consoled the distraught teenager in the dressing room, saying, ‘It’s a team game, son, and the better team won’. More remarkably the Wednesday manager, Harry Catterick wrote a sympathetic and encouraging letter to Briggs, saying ,’You showed sufficient ability at Hillsborough in the first cup-tie to convince me and many good judges of the game that you have a bright future’. A grateful Busby told the Daily Mail that this was ‘One of the nicest gestures I can remember in 30 years’.

Nevertheless, he knew he had to take Briggs out of the firing line to re-build his shattered confidence. That’s when Mike Pinner came into the equation.

Stock character

A desperate Busby contacted that archetypal old-school football man, QPR boss Alec Stock (later said to be the basis for the Paul Whitehouse TV comedy character ‘Ron Manager’), and asked for a short-term loan of Pinner, then playing with the reserves. Stock generously agreed the deal and Pinner got to Old Trafford just in time to join his new team mates for lunch a couple of hours before kick-off against Aston Villa. One of those welcoming him was Les Olive, the mild-mannered club secretary who with perfect symmetry happened to be the last amateur to play for United, as a stand-in goalkeeper in similar cirumstances in 1953.

Les Olive worked closely with another former amateur with United, club Chairman Harold Hardman, who’d turned out for the Reds way back in 1908. They were both men of great integrity who served United between them for over a century, in many ways combining the best of the amateur sensibility with total professionalism. These were qualities Mike Pinner must have felt at home with, especially as Hardman was also a solicitor. Certainly Pinner was a thoroughly decent man, taking time to express sympathy for Ronnie Briggs, telling the Mail, ‘I know how he feels. I once let in six – and wished the earth would open up’.

Mike Pinner, the amateur with ‘holes in his sweater’

Mike Pinner only played four times for United and anyone skimming through the records might easily dismiss him as one of the many goalkeepers who failed to make the grade at Old Trafford, which would be unfair. In fact he had an outstanding amateur career from the mid-1950s to the mid-’60s in which he won over fifty caps as an England Amateur international as well as representing Britain at the Olympics in 1956 and 1960. Even before his dramatic rescue act at Old Trafford he’d clocked up 30 league appearances as an amateur for Aston Villa, Sheffield Wednesday and QPR and he ultimately went on to make a further 80-odd appearances with other league teams, including Chelsea and Leyton Orient, where he belatedly turned pro at the age of 29 in 1963.

But in my eyes, as a child drawn to support United after Munich in 1958, it was Pinner’s exploits in his brief sojourn at Old Trafford that have stuck in the mind.

It’s hard to know what Pinner made of Munich, whose third anniversary occurred just as he arrived at United.It was a near-taboo subject at Old Trafford yet it inevitably haunted the club from top to bottom, even as elsewhere in some quarters there were signs of growing resentment towards the supposed romantic appeal of the tragically stricken club.

One suspects that when Pinner played for other league clubs he’d had far less media attention than he got with the Red Devils, who even in mid-table attracted enormous national coverage. There were the inevitable attempts to frame Pinner in the ‘jumpers for goalposts’ mode, with one paper claiming that the amateur keeper wouldn’t ‘take it too seriously’ with United. Bizarrely another paper said that, ‘It wouldn’t be surprising if he turned out in a jersey with a few holes in it, or boots that need new laces and a bit of dubbin. He’s done that before on occasions just as big’. As it happens, that’s almost certainly a total fantasy as United’s trainer Jack Crompton, himself a goalkeeper in the 1948 FA Cup winning team, was full of praise for Pinner’s preparations. He told the Manchester Evening Chronicle, ‘He’s the best-equiped unpaid goalkeeper I’ve met. He had three of everything!’

Feb – March 1961: Pinner’s 4 games for United

Pinner acquitted himself well in each of his four matches, helping secure a 1-1 draw against Villa in the first, on February 4. He made some crucial saves, including palming a fierce Gerry Hitchens header from close range over the bar. The United players still seemed shell-shocked after the FA Cup 7-2 debacle, and it took what the Evening Chronicle ”Pink ‘un” called a ‘blockbusting drive’ from Bobby Charlton to earn a point in the 85th minute.

The next match was away against recent Champions Wolverhampton Wanderers, then second in the table behind Spurs. United were still pretty poor but gradually showed signs of recovery, as the Sunday Times noted: ‘United’s defence started uncertainly but improved as they gained confidence in Pinner, the amateur goalkeeper, one of their few players who can look back on the match with satisfaction’. Wolves won 2-1 but United’s late goal from 17-year old Northern Irish half back Jimmy Nicholson gave the Molineux faithful some nervy final minutes which must have lifted spirits in the United camp. The crisis was receding.

Pinner’s third appearance was the most satisfying of all, an excellent 3-1 win over Bolton Wanderers at Old Trafford, one of the last matches in which Munich survivor Ken Morgans played for the Reds, shortly before the once-promising Welsh winger was transferred to Swansea, the seventh player to leave United that season.

Harry Gregg briefly returned to the first team enabling Pinner to play for England Amateurs in an international against Eire, a nice addition to his short United CV.

With Gregg injured again, Pinner played just one more time, in a hard-fought 1-1 draw against Newcastle United at St James’ Park on 11 March 1961. Bobby Charlton scored after four minutes with a ‘special’ from the edge of the area but it was then all Newcastle who inevitably equalised through former Babe, Albert Scanlon, another survivor of Munich whose game was never quite the same again.

Following Pinner’s final stop-gap appearance , Dave Gaskell returned and played through to the end of the season. It was he who was in goal when United won the FA Cup two years later, the first trophy since Munich.

What Pinner gave United

It would be false to exaggerate the importance of Mike Pinner’s contribution to Manchester United in just four games, but it’s neverthless true that he helped steady the ship at a critical moment. There was a definite air of crisis which Pinner’s studious presence helped calm down. The numerous young players were not only learning their craft, but having to cope with the unique pressures of expectation at the post-Munich Old Trafford, when the whole world seemed to be watching their every move. Some of the young players Pinner lined up with were at the beginning of their careers, such as Shay Brennan , Johnny Giles, Nobby Stiles, and even Bobby Charlton, all of whom went on to achieve great things in the game. It would be nice to think that the calm, reassuring demeanour of the responsible young solicitor in their dressing room showed them all that there was still something an amateur had to offer the professional game.

The amateur ethos at Old Trafford

What gave Mike Pinner’s time at Old Trafford an added resonance was the presence of the two ex-amateur players who had done so much to shape the United philosophy behind the scenes over decades, especially the dignified , elderly ,ascetic club chairman Harold Hardman, an Olympic champion over fifty years before, as noted in the programme for one of Pinner’s matches. He and Les Olive only played a total of six matches for United but what they gave the club off the pitch in good times and bad was of almost immeasurable importance.

Their combined service at Manchester United eventually amounted to well over a hundred years, and everything they did was steeped in certain values they had lived by as amateur footballers. In their desk jobs their service at Old Trafford was utterly professional in every way, but they still both embodied an ethos which should remain an inspiration to anyone who cares about the club and its supporters to this day.

Harold Hardman: Olympic Champion, United amateur, MUFC Chairman

Hardman was a skilful winger who played as an amateur for Blackpool and then Everton, with whom he played in two FA Cup Finals, winning one in 1906, thus becoming one of only three amateurs to win that trophy. As a regular amateur international he was especially proud of the fact that he also won four caps with the full England team. Then, shortly before joining league champions United in the summer of 1908, he was part of the England team that won football gold at the 1908 Olympics. He played four times for United before moving on to Bradford City and then Stoke City.

A man of steely determination, Hardman qualified as a solicitor and became a United director in 1912, astonishingly while still playing as an amateur for Stoke. He served on the United board for the next half century, and was United chairman from 1951 until his death in 1965, a period during which United won the FA Cup and four league titles but also witnessed the tragedy of Munich.

The day after the crash, Hardman called a board meeting where he insisted that United should carry on and fulfill all fixtures, in the full knowledge that with more than a complete team dead or seriously injured, every match might end in heavy defeat. It wasn’t even clear who acting manager Jimmy Murphy could put in the team, as famously shown in the programme for the first match after Munich, against Sheffield Wednesday in the FA Cup 13 days after the disaster. Everyone remembers how the United team sheet in that programme poignantly consisted of eleven blanks but the words of Harold Hardman on the front page should equally be etched in United’s collective memory:

“United will go on …. Although we mourn our dead and grieve for our wounded we believe that great days are not done for us. The sympathy and encouragement of the football world and particularly of our supporters will justify and inspire us. The road back may be long and hard but with the memory of those who died at Munich, of their stirring achievements and wonderful sportsmanship ever with us, Manchester United will rise again. HP Hardman Chairman.” (United Review, Man United v Sheffield Wednesday, 19 February, 1958)

The phrase that leaps out there is ‘stirring achievements and wonderful sportsmanship’, encapsulating his entire philosophy.

Hardman had a reputation for being tight with the club purse-strings, which caused some conflict with Busby, especially when the latter was trying to re-build after Munich. The two men were never close but each had great respect for the other, and it should be remembered that Hardman did in fact authorise record-breaking signings, including Tommy Taylor, Harry Gregg, Albert Quixall and Denis Law, a deal that put the club in the red following the signing of Noel Cantwell, Maurice Setters, David Herd and Pat Crerand.

There’s no doubt Hardman brought a considered responsibility to the way the club was run, having lived through the near catastrophic 1930s when the club nearly went bust. He was determined that would never happen again, and yet in other ways he could be a risk-taker when he believed in something, as when he gave Busby his full backing in taking United into the European Cup in 1956. Hardman helped outflank the stiff opposition of the reactionary Harold Hardaker and the Football League and took United into Europe as pioneers. Busby is usually depicted as the visionary at that moment, but some of the credit should go to the quiet solicitor who had played football as an amateur half a century before and never lost his passion for the game.

Les Olive: amateur player, professional administrator

The man working closely with Hardman, club secretary Les Olive was of course much younger and had played for the first team as an amateur far more recently, but they had a similar set of values. Busby didn’t hesitate to pick Les when faced with a goalkeeping crisis, knowing he’d give his all for the team despite not being a specialist goalkeeper. In fact Les much preferred to play at full back or centre half, having appeared in every position except left wing for the junior and reserve teams in the 1940s and early ’50s, always as an amateur. Nevertheless when Busby had three regular goalkeepers injured in April 1953 – Jack Crompton, Reg Allen and Ray Wood – Les uncomplainingly took up his post between the sticks.

His two appearances in goal happened to coincide with an important landmark, the debut of Busby Babe Dennis Viollet, one of United’s all-time great goal-scorers, a Munich survivor who was still at Old Trafford when Mike Pinner arrived . Les gamely helped United beat Newcastle United 2-1 at St James’ Park, watched by a youthful Bobby Charlton as future Munich victim Tommy Taylor scored both goals. In the second match United were held to a 2-2 home draw against West Bromwich Albion, with Viollet scoring his first goal for United, veteran Stan Pearson netting one of his last.

Les Olive’s emergency appearances for United as an amateur in 1953 were mentioned several times by the press when Mike Pinner came to Old Trafford in ’61 to fulfil a similar role. But Les’s brief footballing career shouldn’t obscure what an immense contribution he made in other ways, over a very long period of time. He had been on the groundstaff since the age of 14 in 1942 , becoming a bit of a dogsbody , helping out with whatever needed doing, from checking the toilets to playing in goal for the first team.

He rose to become assistant secretary in 1955, serving the much-loved Walter Crickmer until his death at Munich. Olive then had to take over and deal with all the practical and emotional ramifications of the disaster, informing victims’ relatives, arranging for the coffins to be transported from Germany to the Old Trafford gym, organising the funerals, all the while running the club as best he could, dealing with the extraordinary demand for tickets as United went on their astonishing Phoenix-from-the ashes FA Cup run to Wembley.

The way Les coped with the situation as a 26 year old was remarkable, and typical of the man. He was appointed secretary full-time, serving in that capacity for thirty years until 1988. He then joined the board , serving as a director specialising in the youth set-up until shortly before his death from prostate cancer in 2006. It was a remarkable one-club career, stretching from before the Busby era to the golden days of Sir Alex Ferguson, who had enormous respect for him, saying he was one of the most decent men he’d known in football.

I will always think of Les Olive as a by-word for calm reliability and a gentlemanly style, not in some stupid snobbish sense but in the way he conducted himself. He was totally committed to youth football, not just at United but at the grassroots level locally and it’s pleasing to think that the period of his responsibility for youth as a director coincided with the ‘Golden Generation’ of Giggs, Beckham, Butt, Scholes and the Nevilles.

He was also completely committed to serving supporters properly, as I can confirm from the infinitely polite letters I received from him as a kid in the ’60s, responding to my tiresome requests for programmes and autographs. A good man, filled with the true spirit of the amateur, a passionate devotion to the game for what it could bring to people’s lives.

Other amateurs at United (and Newton Heath)

There have been several other amateurs who have played for Manchester United over the years whose contributions range from minor historical curiosities to something more substantial. One of those in the latter category, Sam Black, never played for United as such, but played a crucial role in the early days when the club was known as Newton Heath (LYR) , appearing some 45 times in non-first class matches as a powerful and skillful defender, and was the first club captain . This is what one reference book has to say about Black, in an invaluable section on United amateurs:

‘A great defender with a superb technique, Black’s part in the early days of the club cannot be (overstated). His superhuman efforts both on and off the field enabled the fledgling club to make progress as one of the best in the area…without the likes of Sam Black there might not be a Manchester United today!’ (The complete Encyclopaedia of Manchester United Football Club, compiled by Tony Matthews & John Russell, 2002)

One of the great amateur footballing institutions has always been Bishops Auckland, who crop up on a couple of occasions in United’s history, the first time in 1904 when a high-scoring forward called Jack Allan joined United, having played in a couple of Amateur Cup Finals. He scored 22 goals in only 36 appearances at United, a remarkable rate even in those more open days. He became a pro while at United but regained his amateur status in 1906 when he returned to the Aucks.

It was then some thirty years later before another amateur played for United, and then only briefly, when one Len Bradbury briefly joined the club in 1935 from that other great amateur institution Corinthians (who had dominated the early days of football in Victorian times, the era of the gentleman amateur). Len rejoined United in 1938, and scored on his debut against Chelsea in January 1939, and then only played once more in the first team, retiring from the game in 1942.

All the other amateur appearances with Manchester United then happened after World War 2, in Matt Busby’s era, when you might have expected a more rigorous insistence on professionalism. But that would be to misunderstand what Matt stood for.

Matt Busby and the 1948 London Olympics

In accounts of Matt Busby’s life there is seldom much mention of his brief tenure as manager of the Great Britain football team at the 1948 London Olympic Games, yet it was one of his proudest achievements, such that he devoted a whole chapter to the story in his autobiography, Matt Busby: My Story (1st edition, 1957). Having just taken United to victory in the FA Cup Final against Stanley Matthews’ Blackpool, the club’s first trophy since 1911, Busby immediately had to plunge straight into managing the amateur team, drawn from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. He was presented with a named squad of 26 players, only one of whom he’d ever met, the great Bob Hardisty of Bishop Auckland, and then had to work his alchemy on them as quickly as possible. As he wryly remarked,

‘My first task was to shake hands all round, and try to remember some of the names’ (Matt Busby: My Story, p102)

Matt was highly critical of the fact that Britain could never realistically compete with foreign teams in the Olympics because so many nations picked players from their domestic professional leagues, which the authorities did nothing to stop.

Nevertheless, he wholeheartedly set about knocking this genuinely amateur collection of ‘footballer-clerks, footballer-grocers, footballer-pitmen’ into shape, helped by United’s trainer Tom Curry (yet another of those who died at Munich) and , physiotherapist Ted Dalton plus many of the United first team. He heaped praise on such United greats as Jack Rowley ( often depicted by others as a hard-bitten, tough old pro), Stan Pearson and ‘Gentleman’ Johnny Carey for their unstinting efforts to help the GB team (and remember Carey was an Eire international), all done in their summer break. This again is an untold, forgotten story.

Somehow the GB team got to the semi-finals in ’48, and, as Matt says,

‘As manager of the British team on that occasion I did a job of work which I shall always regard as one of my best. Steering Manchester United to the championship of the Football League First Division was child’s play beside the problems of sorting out a winning team from twenty-six spare-time footballers from four different countries’ (Matt Busby: My Story p.101-2)

On the way to the semis GB beat Holland at Highbury and France at Craven Cottage before facing Yugoslavia at Wembley, a team of professionals who drew with the full England team at Highbury soon after. It was thus no surprise that the South Slav pros beat the authentic amateurs 3-1. Britain then lost the third-place play-off to Denmark, missing out on medals completely. Matt nevertheless summed up his feelings of pride:

‘It was disappointing for my boys not to get the bronze medals, but it was some consolation to know they had done better than anyone really anticipated.For myself, the 1948 Olympic Games will for ever remain a proud memory, not only for the respectable results obtained, but also because I got a great kick out of working with such a grand team of amateur footballers’ (My Story, p105)

I am glad Matt wrote at length and with pride about his Olympic episode because it demonstrates his genuine respect for the amateur ethic, which he was to demonstrate again later on , not just with Les Olive and Mike Pinner but in other ways too, before and after Munich.

John Walton, the only amateur who helped United win a trophy

Before Les Olive’s emergency appearances in goal in 1953, there had already been one other amateur playing for United in the Busby era, a skilful inside-forward called John Walton who played a couple of times in the 1951-52 Championship-winning season. Again, this is one of those little noticed football achievements, the only time Manchester United have won a major trophy with the help of an amateur. While still with United Walton turned out for the England Amateur team but he’d left by the time of his single appearance in the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, when GB suffered humiliating defeat to Luxembourg.

The Aucks squad in ’58

Immediately after Munich United had a real problem, not just with the decimated first team, but throughout the club at all levels as youth teamers and reserves had to be pushed up the ladder, ready or not, leaving gaping holes in all the teams below. There was a very real danger that United would not be able to fulfil contractual obligations to compete in all the various competitions they were signed up for. Several clubs made offers of help, most of which came to nothing, with the noble exception of the amateur giants Bishop Auckland, who provided three players, including that stalwart of Matt’s ’48 GB Olympics team, Bob Hardisty (who’d once played with Matt as a wartime guest player for Middlesborough), plus Derek Lewin and the flying winger Warren Bradley. Hardisty and Lewin were invaluable in the reserves, but the real surprise was the school teacher Bradley.

Warren ‘Teach’ Bradley

I have a special fondness for Warren Bradley, nicknamed ‘Teach’ by one tabloid, who I saw several times when I first started attending matches. He lit up United’s right flank for a couple of years, speeding his way to the by-line to cross with un-erring accuracy for the predatory Dennis Viollet or Bobby Charlton to bury in the back of the net, or to cut inside and fire off an unstoppable shot himself. He’d already won a couple of Amateur Cups with Bishops Auckland, in 1956 and ’57, and was an England Amateur international but everyone was amazed at how well Bradley adapted to the professional game. In fact he ceased to be an amateur in November 1958 when he made his first team debut, although he remained part-time for the rest of his career with the Reds. He was part of the brilliant W-formation forward-line – Bradley, Quixall, Viollet, Charlton, Scanlon – that astonishingly finished the first season after Munich as runners-up to Wolves. With his diminuitive stature and ‘jug’ ears, Bradley stood out for his team-ethic hard running, scoring a remarkable 21 goals as a winger in 66 league and cup matches. To my delight , he also forced his way into the England team, winning three caps and playing well – at least I thought so, watching on TV.

Bradley joined Bury in 1962 and he continued his commitment to teaching, becoming the head of a comprehensive school in Manchester in the 1970s. He later became very active in the association of ex-United players, which combined organising social events with welfare activities for members who’d fallen on hard times. One could purchase copies of the association’s magazine and other memorabilia in the 1990s, and I was always pleased to see the signature Warren Bradley on the friendly accompanying letters. Sadly he died in 2007, but his contribution to the United tradition of exciting wing-play should not be forgotten.

Alan Gowling, United’s last amateur

If you discount players such as Norman Whiteside who were aged under-17 and thus too young to sign professional forms, the last full amateur to play for United was Alan Gowling, who also happens to be the only player to participate in the Olympics as a United player. In truth his amateur status was never going to last, as it was always pretty clear he would ultimately turn professional, in all likelihood after the Olympic Games in 1968.

I was at university in Nottingham myself when Gowling made his United debut as an economics student at Manchester University in 1968, and I had a certain liking for the idea that you could combine studying for a degree with playing for United, just as Steve Coppell did a few years later. However, although Gowling had a very respectable goal-scoring ratio in his time at Old Trafford, 21 goals in 87 appearances, he never quite nailed down a regular spot, either as a forward under Busby or later as a midfielder with early ’70s manager Frank O’Farrell.

Gowling’s gangly, angular ,ungainly style never really endeared him to United supporters who’d feasted on the grace and aesthetic appeal of the Holy Trinity of Charlton, Law and Best. I have to admit my heart sank when he came on as a sub against Sunderland in the last league match of the 1967-68 season, when United desperately needed a win to retain the league title. United lost, City won the title and United never won the league again for 26 years. Hard to blame Gowling for that, but there was an unmistakeable whiff of decline at United in Gowling’s era. Better to remember his amazing four goals against Southampton in February 1971, given rave treatment on Match of the Day. By that time he’d long been a full professional and he went on to have a decent career with Huddersfield, Newcastle, Bolton and Preston. He was a highly articulate, thoughtful man and was elected chairman of the Player’s union, the PFA, and also the United Former Player’s Association. Certainly in the latter role, a voluntary position, there was something of the amateur ethos in his involvement, as with Warren Bradley’s.

The legacy

Since Gowling’s time at United, where he was only an amateur in the early days, there have been no true amateurs in the first team, and the whole concept has largely disappeared, at least in the sense of those players who had some sort of commitment to the idea of playing football for its own sake, rather than for financial reward. The rules have changed and no-one needs to be strictly segregated in the game any more, which is perhaps for the best.

However, I do think the beliefs that players such as Harold Hardman, Les Olive and Mike Pinner brought to United , which were deeply rooted in the amateur philosophy still have a place. And it’s also very good to remember in this year of the London Olympics, just how committed the great Matt Busby was to the cause when he managed the GB Amateurs 64 years ago. The fact that he selected more amateurs than any other manager in United history shows how deep his respect was for ‘spare-timers’.

When those three past and present amateurs came together in February 1961 they were the inheritors of a shared value system going back decades that still had much to offer and went to the heart of what had made United great. If for no other reason that makes their stories worth re-telling, as a way of celebrating those qualities of team spirit, sportsmanship and the never-ceasing quest for glory on behalf of the great mass of supporters.

What happened to Ronnie Briggs?

And what of poor Ronnie Briggs? Well, with Gregg and Gaskell around, opportunities were limited but the athletic Irishman still managed a creditable 8 appearances in the season following his traumatic early baptism of fire. Thankfully, he never had a repeat of his nightmare 14-in-3 , as he helped a still struggling United to win win three and draw two, only twice conceding more than one goal. His finest moment was probably when he kept a clean sheet against the ultimate League Champions Ipswich, who were surprisingly thrashed 5-0 at Old Trafford. Briggs also won two caps for Northern Ireland in 1962 and then in 1965, by which time he’d moved on, first to Swansea and then to Bristol Rovers. Not a brilliant career, but not a failure either, as it might have been if Mike Pinner hadn’t answered Matt Busby’s SOS call.

….and Mike Pinner?

Mike Pinner is evidently still active as a solicitor, specialising as a property development and investmnent lawyer. On his company website there’s a paragraph outlining his legal experience, ending with the briefest of mentions of his distinguished life in football. It’s clear from this terse, modest summation that even after half a century his four matches in goal for Manchester United were something of a highlight:

‘Early in his career he played football for Great Britain in the Olympics and later for Manchester United’

That’s the spirit.

This will be released on DVD on August 8th and RoM has got two copies of it to give away.

Question: How many league titles did the Busby Babes win before Munich?

Send your answers, with your full name and address, to: republik_of_mancunia_competition[AT]hotmail.co.uk

Read and watch more on the drama at: BBC, The Telegraph, The Guardian and Munich 58.

Lewis joined United in 1947 and made a total of 24 appearances, scoring 11 goals. He left United for Preston and played for West Ham the season the Munich Air Disaster occurred.

He later played for Leyton Orient and Folkestone Town before emigrating to South Africa in 1970 where he initially sold insurance.

Lewis then returned to his love of football as a manager of Wits University, where he won the 1978 Mainstay Cup which he regarded as the highlight of his career. He also had successful stints at Kaizer Chiefs, Giant Blackpool, Moroka Swallows and many other leading clubs.

In 2007, as a 72-year, Lewis was appointed Technical Advisor to one of the leading football clubs in South Africa, Moroka Swallows, after spending 37 years being involved in the development of South African football.

It was reported on KickOff that Sir Alex Ferguson gave Lewis a call last month after his condition deteriorated.

“Eddie was thrilled with the call from Sir Alex,” said his good friend Greg Jacoby. “He said, ‘Greg, you won’t believe who phoned me – Sir Alex Ferguson!’ Fergie had heard through the Ex-Pros that Eddie was not well, so he phoned him up to wish him all the best.”

Back row, l-r, Ian Greaves, Walter Whitehurst, Tommy Barratt, Gordon Clayton, Alan Rhodes, Paddy Kennedy, Brace Fulton, Hotel Manager (name unknown)
Middle row, l-r, Eddie Lewis, Bill Inglis (Trainer), Jimmy Murphy, Bert Whalley, Noel McFarlane
Front row, l-r,Sammy Chapman, Eddie Colman, Duncan Edwards, Billy Whelan, Albert Scanlon

This is an interview with Sir Matt Busby taken form 1973, two years after he had stopped being our manager after filling in after Wilf McGuinness was sacked.

Here I want to celebrate Blackpool’s once distinguished history by reminding United fans of some pivotal moments in our own past when the two great Lancashire teams were linked, and not just on the pitch.

Stanley Matthews

It may seem strange given my later devotion to the Red Devils but when I was very small I was probably more aware of Blackpool than other clubs, certainly until around 1957 when the legend of the Busby Babes was just beginning to penetrate my little part of the world down South. The reason for that is very simple: Stanley Matthews, the incomparable right winger, the spindly speedster, the magician on mud, the demon of dribble, the man with a mission, as everyone knew, to win an elusive FA Cup Winner’s medal.

It is hard to convey now just what a hold Stan had on the public imagination, going right back even before my time to the Thirties when he started out at Stoke City. Without any doubt he was the biggest and most enduring star in post-war English football, right through to 1965 when he finally hung up his clumpy old-fashioned toe-capped boots at the age of 50. By then he had returned for a last blaze of glory at Stoke, following his magnificent service at Blackpool, for whom he appeared in three FA Cup Finals, including two still considered among the greatest of all time. In some respects the adulation he inspired in children like me was almost as much about ‘the idea’ of the man, as about the reality, especially for those us unable to get to see him in action.Beyond his breath-taking skill he represented the highest standards of sportsmanship throughout a long and unblemished career. What’s more astonishing is that 45 years after his retirement from the game his name is still remembered, even by (perhaps especially by) those with no interest in football.

Bubble-gum and fag packets

When I was a child at the end of the forties and early fifties my first exposure to sport was probably through cigarette cards, which I would collect, frequently scouring for discarded fag packets in the street, to the despair of my Mum. There were also bubble-gum cards such as the Chix series of Famous Footballers, a couple of which I still own, one a crude sketch of United’s Jack Rowley, United centre-forward in the1948 FA Cup Final, the other a later and much classier product, with a colour photo of United defender Bill Foulkes. Some cards had cartoons, especially Turf cards which featured stylishly enlarged heads with grinning faces on tiny bodies. Of course people would do swapsies, and it soon became very obvious who the big stars were, whether it was cricketers such as Denis Compton and Len Hutton or footballers like Billy Wright, Tom Finney, Jackie Milburn (Bobby Charlton’s uncle) and, of course, Stanley Matthews. Somewhere along the line I also acquired a picture of Stan from 1949, advertising shin guards, made by Bean’s of Yorkshire (Mr Bean?). But best of all is my treasured little lapel badge from ’53 with a picture of the great man in his orange Blackpool shirt with the ball at his feet, poised as though about to accelerate past a floundering fullback.

Seeing the Big Picture

There was hardly any television coverage of football then, not that we had a TV, but big sporting events would get covered in Movietone or Pathe News at the cinema. My parents would take us most weeks ‘ to the pictures’ at the Regent in Amersham or the Astoria in Chesham, and I always hoped there’d be a bit of sporting action, even in things I wasn’t that bothered about, such as Gordon Richards winning the Derby. I remember the thrill of seeing the report on England spin bowler Jim Laker taking 19 wickets against the Aussies in an Ashes Test Match at ‘the other’ Old Trafford in 1956. I certainly recall the excitement of Roger Bannister running the first ‘Four Minute Mile’ in 1954, and seeing him on the big screen, breasting the tape almost on the point of collapse. ( I only discovered years later in the ’70s, that he’d made love to his wife in the changing room just before the race, as he cheerfully revealed to my father, who had MS and was seeing him in his capacity as a neurologist).

I saw many Cup Final highlights in the cinema , but precisely which is a bit blurred now, raising the doubt in my mind, what did I really see at the time, and which of those old black & white newsreel pictures did I only see years later replayed on TV? I’ve certainly convinced myself that I saw the legendary ‘Matthews Final’ of 1953 in the cinema ,when Blackpool beat Bolton 4-3 in a nail-biting thriller, because it made a huge impact on me at the time, when I was aged seven.

Another Final I certainly saw was when Manchester City’s German goalie Bert Trautmann broke his neck diving at the feet of an on-rushing Birmingham forward, when City won the cup 3-1 in 1956. I watched with slight disappointment when Bert merely rubbed the back of his neck when I had ghoulishly hoped to see his head lolling helplessly at right angles on his shoulder or snapped off completely. This desire was not because he played for City, by the way.

Regardless of what I saw when, there is absolutely no question that it was the FA Cup which stirred up public passions in those days, far more than the league title.Among my own circle of friends around Amersham, which is about 35 miles from London, and not near any big clubs, I can pretty well determine when they got into football from which team they later supported, which would be based on who got to the Cup Final when. So there was Ted, a Blackpool fan from ’53, Sunshine, WBA from 1954, Richard, Man City from ’55 or ’56, Dave, United from ’57, or John, Villa,also from ’57 (in his case because he had a ‘five bob ‘ bet on them beating United) and then Chris, Luton from ’59.

Footballers of the Year and the FA Cup

The dominance of Cup over League is also reflected in who was elected Footballer of the Year, awarded for the first time in 1948, inevitably to Blackpool’s Stanley Matthews, a Cup loser to United in that year, as we’ll see. The winning captain from ’48, United’s ‘Gentleman’ Johnny Carey actually won the following year. Then throughout the 1950s no winner came from the league champions, while eight came from FA Cup Finalists, three winners, and five losers.It was not until 1961 when Danny Blanchflower won the coveted award for a second time that it went to a player from the league champions, and then he was anyway captain of the Cup Winners, as Spurs did the Double. No-one had won it from outside the top division until 1963, when – who else? – Stanley Matthews won it again, for his part in helping Stoke City win the old Second Division title in his late-40s.

By that time, I was steeped in the folklore of the FA Cup, all those wonderful stories, such as ‘The White Horse Final’ of 1923, when the original Wembley Stadium was used for the first time, or the infamous ‘over-the-line’ final in 1932, when a referee’s error gave Newcastle United victory over Double-chasing Arsenal, and the ’34 Final when the giant 19-year-old goalkeeper Frank Swift fainted in his goalmouth when the final whistle blew, signalling that his team Manchester City had defeated Portsmouth, incidentally giving Matt Busby his only medal in senior football.

I even knew all about Stanley Matthews’ three Finals with Blackpool and his determination to get his gold medal..I knew that the 1948 Final against Manchester United was said to be the finest final of all time, a view that older folk would probably still stand by.By chance the other day I found myself in conversation with a delightful elderly Yorkshireman in a local cafe, sparked by my wearing Green & Gold and United scarves. He was eager to tell me how the only time he’s seen United in the flesh was when his team Halifax Town beat them in the Watney Cup in the 1970s. As we talked about the old days he suddenly started reciting United’s line-up against Blackpool in that classic Final of ’48, ‘Crompton, Carey , Aston…’ and as I joined in we went through the whole team in unison, ‘…Anderson, Chilton, Cockburn, Delaney, Morris, Rowley, Pearson, Mitten’.

My temporary coffee companion was delighted to find someone who appeared to remember an FA Cup Final from over 65 years ago that meant a lot to him, even though he hadn’t actually seen the game. What I didn’t mention was that this magnificent match happened when I was two. I had no direct memory of it. It all came from reading about it years later plus a few crudely edited newsreel pictures and a dozen or so still photos. My detailed interest in the match actually started ten years after the event.

Munich and Memory : ‘The “United” Story In Pictures’ (1958)

As I have recounted elsewhere, before the Munich Air Disaster on 6 February 1958, I didn’t support anyone in particular, I just loved football. When United lost 8 players killed and many more injured in the Crash, I was eleven years old and began to follow them in their famous ‘Phoenix from the Ashes’ recovery, which took the patchwork team of survivors and untried youngsters all the way to Wembley to meet Bolton Wanderers in the 1958 FA Cup Final, barely three months after the Crash. It was a romantic return by a team spurred by emotion, grief, shock , and growing if temporary public sympathy and admiration. I watched the final on TV at my grandfather’s and was deeply disappointed that the dream of triumph over adversity had evaporated when Nat Lofthouse scored two goals, giving him the winner’s medal he’d missed in ’53.

Defeat didn’t diminish my now deeply rooted commitment to United and when my pal Dave showed me a Cup Final brochure he’d bought for two shillings I just had to have it. After a bit of haggling I forked out the exhorbitant price of five shillings, which would be 25p today, although that gives no idea of how expensive it was then in relative terms to a boy just turned 12. To me now it’s beyond price.

The 50-page booklet was well produced with a superb selection of atmospheric photos from before the First World War through to the heroic post-Munich games that had taken United to the Bolton Cup Final. I avidly read the text and endlessly scanned the old photos trying to make sense of the history of the club and the tragic turn of events that had destroyed a great young team inspired by an idealistic vision of how football should be played. I was captivated by the acount of the 1948 FA Cup Final, which really brought into focus two conflicting retrospective desires, the wish that United should win everything plus the regret that Stanley Matthews didn’t get his winning medal.

It’s quite bizarre that in 1958, when I read The United Story and was taking in the gripping details of the Blackpool Final a mere ten years before, it already seemed impossibly remote to my childish mind, even then. No doubt some RoM readers feel the same about some of my tales of days gone by. Me reading about the ’48 Final in 1958 is probably like a twelve-year-old reading about the Treble Winners of ’99 today in 2010.

Of course the 1948 Final took place against a very different backdrop. When you look at photos of the crowd you see gaunt faces, missing teeth, shabby suits and a preponderance of flat caps, trilbys and military berets. Hardly a female in sight. This was the age of postwar austerity, rationing, unrepaired bombsites, including Old Trafford, shortages in fuel and resources, powercuts and continuing ‘waste not, want not’ exhortations to ‘make do and mend’. Typifying that spirit, it’s interesting to note that United’s left back, John Aston (father of the John Aston who was in United’s European Cup Winning team twenty years later) gave his hobby as ‘keeping poultry and mending my children’s shoes’, in the Player’s Brochure for the ’48 Final. Hard to imagine even a Gary Neville doing that today.

The Road to Wembley in 1948

Both teams were full of men who had served in the War, including United’s Allenby Chilton who’d been wounded on the D-Day Beaches less than four years previously. Before taking over the reins at Old Trafford in 1945 Matt Busby had played with Blackpool’s two Stans, Matthews and Mortensen in Services teams and they knew each other well and were full of mutual respect. It’s not widely known but Matthews actually played for United as a Wartime Guest player in 1940, a fact I find deeply pleasing.

The team the youthful Busby had now assembled was playing some of the best, most exciting football seen for years, full of swirling, inter-changing movements and sweeping attacks, just what was needed to lift spirits after the grim days of World War 2. On their way to Wembley United had beaten 5 top (old style) First Division division teams, scoring 18 goals in the process, conceding 6. In one of the finest cup-ties of all time they had beaten Villa 6-4, having gone a goal down after 13 seconds, all recounted in the United Story, blow for thrilling blow. Three players had already scored over 20 goals and they posed threats right across their five-man W-formation attack. This same team were runners-up in the league three seasons running, in ’47, ’48 and ’49, and again in ’51, and it seemed inevitable some time soon that they would win their first title since 1911, which they finally managed in 1951-52, with Blackpool in third place.

Blackpool were also famed for their fine attacking football, and even though they were slightly less successful in the league than United they were normally pushing somewhere close to the top. They not only had Matthews they had one of the most feared goal-scorers in Britain, England international Stan Mortensen,who had scored in every round to the final and had 29 goals so far for the season. They were captained by classy England regular Harry Johnson and had many other good players. Before the game people were salivating in anticipation of a classic feast of good football. And for once they got it.

The 1948 FA Cup Final: Blackpool 2 Manchester United 4

Of course United were anxious about how to deal with Matthews, but it was the other Stan that struck first, getting tripped by Allenby Chilton as he rushed into the penalty area. Later Movietone news footage showed the foul had come outside the box in the D, so the ref got it wrong (as Matt Busby pointedly showed in his 1957 autobiography, Matt Busby – My Story, when still frames from the penalty incident were reproduced to prove the point). Some even hint at that rare thing in the 40s, a dive. No matter, no protests as Eddie Shimwell blasted the penalty straight under the diving Jack Crompton. 1-0 to the Tangerines, and only 12 minutes on the clock.

The equaliser came16 minutes later when Jack Rowley, my Chix man, took advantage of a goalkeeping error by the Blackpool ‘keeper, Robinson, who’d called ‘Right!’ but failed to collect the ball, allowing the United man to flick the ball over his head and round him to walk the ball into the net, making it1-1.

Soon after the pendulum swung back and it was advantage Blackpool once more, when Matthews took a free kick which was headed on to Mortensen who fired home past a static defence: 2-1 to the Seasiders, and nearly an hour to go.

Both sides were attacking non-stop with incident piling on incident, with Blackpool probably closer to their best at that point, although John Aston was doing a good job marshalling Matthews.

Second half

It was at half time that Matt Busby and captain Johnny Carey made their famous calming speeches about keeping playing football, although some claim it was the old soldier Allenby Chilton, a future skipper, who stiffened morale with a somewhat earthier speech. Whatever, United had a motto in those days, that ‘the ball should never stop’, in other words go for first-time passing, which is what they got going in the second half much more effectively.

It had been agreed to keep the ball as far away from Matthews as possible, so for instance Crompton would always throw out wide to the opposite flank, setting up attacks quickly away from danger. United upped the tempo and got their pass-and-move game going more fluently, with time running out, still behind with twenty minutes to go.

Then United got a free kick, swiftly taken by by Johnny Morris and there was Rowley again with a diving upward header, almost before Blackpool knew what had hit them: 2-2. From that point United remorselessly took control, except for one heart-stopping moment when Mortensen burst through yet again and unleashed a fierce shot that seemed a certain goal but for a dramatic, full-length save from Crompton (always a popular character at Old Trafford, later returning as a trainer after Munich, a familiar figure in the dugout). The Blackpool players were virtually celebrating when the ball flew up field for the ever calm inside-left Stan Pearson to crack in a shot off the left-hand post, to put United in front for the first time. It all happened so fast the disconsolate Mortensen was still walking back from United’s area having seen his ‘cert’ saved. Typical high-speed counter-attack play from United, in a tradition that has continued now for over sixty years, if not back to the pre-World One days of Billy Meredith and the FA Cup winners of 1909, nine of whom were club guests at Wembley in ’48.

United had become the first team to come from behind twice in Cup Final and when John Anderson scored in the dying minutes with a 30-yard missile which took a slight deflection, it was all over. United had won the Cup for the first time for 39 years, and no-one could dispute their right to victory in a drama-filled match of the highest quality. But nor would anyone seek to diminish what Blackpool had contributed to the spectacle. Poor old Stanley Mortensen was the first man to score in every round of the cup, including a final, yet end up on the losing side. It was generally agreed that John Aston had played Stan Matthews superbly, so he could return to Manchester to repair son John’s shoes with a deep sense of satisfaction. United, runners-up in the league and FA Cup Winners were on the march again.

Among those listening to the match on the radio were Bobby Charlton and Nobby Stiles, both to play significant roles themselves in Cup Finals at Wembley twenty years later for United. Not to mention for England.

The 1951 FA Cup Final: Blackpool 0 Newcastle United 2

Stanley Matthews’ next shot at the Cup came in 1951. Sadly it was to end in disappointment again for the men in Orange , when they were well beaten by Cup giants Newcastle United, with Bobby’s Uncle Jackie Milburn leading the line and scoring two goals.

Here we must mention the first appearence in our story of the diminuitive Geordie inside forward Ernie Taylor, then playing for Newcastle but later to join Blackpool, where he played a vital role in the Matthews Final, which some say should have been dubbed the ‘Taylor Final’. However, it’s not for that which United fans should remember him, but as a tough-as-old boots midfield schemer was was later to play a small but dramatically important role after Munich, for which he should never be forgotten. Nor should we forget Blackpool’s part in enabling that to happen.

But to return to 1951. Blackpool’s two Stans played well, but the men in black & white stripes took charge early in the second half when ‘Wor Jackie’ scored twice in the space of five minutes. The second goal came when Ernie Taylor received the ball at the edge of the area and dragged the ball under foot before rolling it back to Milburn without looking round for the centre forward to hit a spectacular 25-yarder high into the net. Speed, simplicity and imagination had undone Blackpool again. Two Finals, two defeats. Would Stan never get his medal?

The ‘Matthews Final’ 1953: Bolton 3 Blackpool 4

When Stan finally completed his quest he was 38 and had been trying for 20 years.Here is not the place to go through every turn in the wheel of football fortune that day, except to remind readers that Bolton went 3-1 up after 55 minutes and the dream seemed as remote as ever, only for Matthews to turn on an extraodinary performance down the right wing, reducing the tough Bolton defenders to frightened rabbits.As we’ve seen, by now Ernie Taylor had joined Blackpool, perhaps with his exquisite ’51 performance in mind, and he again weaved his crafty magic on this day when the whole of Britain seemed to want to see Stan get his medal in this Coronation year of all years. It should not be forgotten that Stan Mortensen scored a hat-trick in ’53, so it was far from a one -man-show, but in the end no-one who’s seen the footage could forget it as Blackpool turned it round to win 4-3 with a dramatic last minute winner from yet another Matthews cross from the right.

For those of you now getting impatient for more on United, this being a United blog, let Sir Bobby Charlton give some account of how much he admired Matthews, the ‘slim, coiled, and then darting figure who so mesmerised us’. This beautiful description comes from his superb award-winning autobiography and in many ways it gives a lovely insight into what inspired Bobby, telling us almost as much about our own great footballing knight as about Sir Stanley Matthews:

‘I have spent much of my life admiring the talent of great team-mates and opponents, but nothing has moved me more than the elusive genius of this frail-looking man. Whenever I go to the (National Football) Museum (in Preston) I insist on looking again at the refurbished film of the ‘Matthews Final’ in the 1953 FA Cup, when he systematically undermined that most formidable of Bolton full backs, Ralph Banks. It still makes the hairs on my neck stand up when he pounces, cat-like, on Banks and then strides into daylight. The Bolton man had a huge reputation for destroying wingers, but you cannot destroy a target that dissolves before your eyes’. (The Autobiography: My Manchester Unirted Years, 2007).

Blackpool v The Busby Babes 1955-56

Although Blackpool were always challenging for honours in the late-40s and early ’50s, they seldom went head-to-head with United in the League. The closest they came to that was in 1955-56, the year when the Busby Babes first really emerged to make their mark, fully fledged and all-conquering.

The season began slowly, with United taking only 8 points from their first seven games (two points for a win then) while Blackpool and Tom Finney’s Preston were making the running. But then in the late autumn United got into their stride, with names so familiar from the death-toll at Munich in their ranks, Tommy Taylor, Roger Byrne, Duncan Edwards, Mark Jones, Liam Whelan, David Pegg, and others who survived, such as Dennis Viollett, Jackie Blanchflower and Johnny Berry.

By the end of February, United had 44 points from 32 games, Blackpool 38 from 31. The crunch came on April 7, 1956, at Old Trafford. Still a formidable attacking side, the Tangerines took a 1-0 half-time lead, but United hit back in the second half with a penalty from Berry and a terrific goal from Tommy Taylor, who was by now a regular for England at centre forward, which saw him line up with the immortal Stanley Matthews, naturally.

Bouyed by that victory in April, United won the league comfortably, eleven points ahead of Blackpool, a record margin at the time.

As it happens, although it wasn’t perhaps noticed at the time, the dominance of the FA Cup in the public mind was beginning to slip, although it’s striking how little Matt Busby writes about his three pre-Munich league titles in his 1957 book, having far more to say about the Cup Finals of ’48 and ’57, defeat in which cost United the first Double of the 20th century. But by now Busby’s rich vision of the future of football had been inspired by the European Cup, which that League Championship title of ’55-56 qualified United to enter. Just imagine if Blackpool had overtaken United. We might have seen Stanley Matthews up against Di Stefano, Gento and all the other superstars from Real Madrid. Not that they didn’t already know about Stan, who was still by far the most famous British footballer in the world.

Ernie Taylor and United

When United crashed at Munich airport in February 1958 when returning from a European cup match against Red Star, Belgrade, a whole team was wiped out, killed or injured. There were initially offers of help from round the country from Bolton, Preston, Man City, Liverpool, Grimsby and Northampton as United faced a full fixture list with only a handful of players who’d ever played in the first team plus a group of promising youngsters. Bill Foulkes and Harry Gregg were the only crash survivors in any sort of shape for the first match, an FA Cup match against Sheffield Wednesday, but when it came to it the offers of help came to nothing, except in the case of Blackpool, who agreed to sell Ernie Taylor for £8000, a generous price for a two-time Cup winner and former England international, not to say one of the most skillful inside forwards in the game.

Acting Manager Jimmy Murphy very shrewdly saw that Ernie could become a mentor and guide to the shell-shocked kids who had to step up and get United back on the road.He had all the experience of pressure matches and exactly the right pedigree for a club like United, with its deep culture of imaginative, attacking football.

The road to Wembley 1958

Taylor helped steady the ship on that emotion-drenched night when United played their first match after Munich, just 13 days after the crash. As I remember well, as a schoolboy following from afar, they beat Wednesday 3-0 at Old Trafford in front of over 60,000 grieving but passionate supporters and well-wishers, desperate to see some hope for the future. Apart from Gregg and Foulkes, Ernie Taylor lined up with players he can hardly have heard of, including relative unknowns such as Brennan, Pearson, Dawson, Goodwin, Cope and Greaves, plus last minute signing Stan Crowther from Villa. Some detected the presence of a ‘higher power’ that night, but little Ernie certainly had his part to play. This was the moment when the famous Phoenix was beginning to rise from the ashes.

In the next round United faced West Bromwich Albion at the Hawthorns in front of 58,000 people, in what turned out to be a titanic struggle, full of incredible will-to-win from the boys in red. To give a flavour of just how vital to United Ernie Taylor was, here are some snippets of the match report in The Times (March 1, 1958) :

‘Only the darting little Taylor as the general of the attack and Charlton touched the peaks of sheer artistry.But what keeps United moving now is matchless, shining spirit’.

‘(United’s) masterplan plan revolved round Taylor. He was everywhere. For an hour or so he produced the game of his life until he finally played himself into the ground.’

‘After only five minutes the United swept into the lead as Taylor crashed in a left flank move between Crowther, Dawson, Pearson and Charlton… It was Taylor and Charlton, backed by Crowther and Goodwin, who made United play”

‘Once Taylor beat four men as if they did not exist…Taylor left Sander’s crossbar shuddering from 20 yaards and this time Dawson rose to head in the rebound amid an earshattering commotion’

The match, Bobby Charlton’s first since the crash, ended 2-2.

The replay under the floodlight s at Old Trafford was if anything even more exciting.

Again from The Times match report (March 5):

‘The ball came loose to Goodwin who found Taylor somewhere on the half way line . Taylor dummied, darted to the right like a little goldfish, and lofted a beautiful through pass to the last precise inch down the right touchline. And there already gathering momentum was the match winner. It was Charlton..’(whose pass picked out Colin Webster to score the last minute winnner)

‘Yet in the last analysis Manchester United , apart from their heart, had only two real artists in attack, one was Taylor, the other Charlton, and by some great act of justice it was these two who won an amazing victory.’

United’s 1-0 victory took them into the semi-final against Fulham at Villa Park. Two goals from Bobby Charlton gave United a 2-2 draw, the first one from a Taylor pass, the second, an equaliser following skilful prompting from the little schemer. The replay at Highbury in midweek daytime saw United run away with the tie when a series of goalkeeping errors by Fulham keeper Tony Macedo gifted a 5-3 victory, and an utterly improbable return to Wembley. Ernie commented on how the new Babes had risen to the task set by fate, saying admiringly, ‘These kids get better and better every time’. All the goals were illustrated in my United Story brochure, giving me the feeling that I’d been there too through this amazing journey.

1958 FA Cup Final: Bolton 2 United 0

On the day of the Final of 3 May, The Daily Telegraph said, ‘Ernie Taylor has already repaid handsomely the £8000 handed over to Blackpool for his services. History will show this to have been one of the shrewdest transfers of all time for there is no question that Taylor’s skill and generalship are mainly responsible for United’s wonderful recovery.’

Much attention was focussed on this being Ernie’s third Final in seven years, each with a different club.

The match was the first time I watched United live, albeit on television at my grandfather’s. It was a sadly deflating and disappointing experience. I was too untutored to grasp the technicalities of what was going on, but I knew United were second best, almost from the start. In fact Bolton had worked out that if you man-marked Taylor, United’s source of creativity was stifled, and the others were too inexperienced or over-awed to make up for it, even Bobby Charlton who did at least shiver the Bolton woodwork with one of his specials.

Danny Blanchflower, Spurs captain and Player of the Year, commented afterwards on the Final with a few strangely chosen words in The Observer, saying, ‘Manchester’s dreams went all astray. Ernie Taylor, that dwarf of football magic, must have felt like a giant of misery’. Certainly I think we can say he wasn’t Happy.

Ernie’s historic task accomplished, he left United the following season, after Albert Quixall, Sheffield Wednesday’s captain on that first emotional cup-tie night back in February, was signed for a record £45,000.

I hope Ernie’s brief and unique contribution to United’s history will be properly remembered, as the tragic and then uplifting events of 1958 inevitably fade from public memory. And we should also not forget Blackpool’s generosity in letting him go to United.

Matthews last days with Blackpool 1960-61

By the time I was regularly going to matches in the early Sixties Blackpool were in general decline, although they still had some good players, especially that most upright of right-backs, the marvellous Jimmy Armfield, who I saw many times for England. How much deserved pleasure he must now take from his team’s return to the upper echelons and the great reviews Ian Holloway’s exciting team are getting all round, with some very refreshing displays on TV.

Blackpool made a little bit of history in September 1960 when their 1-0 home defeat against Bolton Wanderers was screened live on ITV on a Saturday night, the first time a league match had been covered in this way. I remember the extreme excitement it generated in anticipation, only to find the reality was frankly dreadful.The football was dire and the coverage awful, as indicated in the scathing review by Frank McGhee in the Mirror, headlined :

THE SOCCER SHOCKER ON TELLY!

Reading the comments now, fifty years later, it’s uncanny how some of the faults of today’s TV coverage were there from the start. McGhee criticised ‘the wishy-washy, let’s-all-be-palsy-walsy commentaries’, saying, ‘We could all see that the game was a bad one. There was no point in Peter Lloyd and former England skipper Billy Wright continually trying to kid us – or maybe reassure us – that we were watching a “smasher”….When a game is as big a stinker as this one, it would have been fascinating to hear the man with a hundred caps telling the viewers WHY it was bad, what was wrong, what the players should do about it’.

Seeing Stanley Matthews in the flesh, at last

Sadly I never saw United play Blackpool live, but I did see them against other teams in London. One of my most vivid memories is seeing, at long last, Stanley Matthews in person aged 44, in a strangely unsatisfying 3-3 draw at West Ham in 1960-61. Stan was coming back from injury and made little real impact on the game, although I’ll bet many in the 21,000 crowd were like me,watching his every move. Noel Cantwell, a future United captain, was his direct opponent at left back, plus a 19-year-old Bobby Moore as part of a new-fangled and unconvincing 4-2-4 line up, which also featured Malcolm Musgrove, who scored for the Hammers and who later joined United’s coaching staff in the 1970s.

Blackpool were poor that day, I have to say, and hardly deserved their point, earned by two goals from Jackie Mudie and Ray Charnley. But then the Hammers weren’t much better

So, what was Stan like by that stage in his career? Well, he still had that delicate, bird-like, arms-out-wide posture on springy, shuffling feet, ready to go one way or the other, bewitching his opponent. In my scrapbooks I’d kept numerous photo sequences showing frame by frame how Stan skinned his fullbacks, and every defender in the land must have known exactly what he was going to do, yet ended up powerless to do anything about it. One of his less-known techniques was to stare intently into his full-back’s eyes, almost hypnotising him, distracting the defender from what he was doing with the ball. When I saw him at Upton Park he was slower than in his prime, of course, but one did see him turn on sudden bursts of speed to fly past a defender, still managing that characteristic little hurdling effect as he went over a desperately flailing leg. It wasn’t Stanley Matthews at his best, but it was Stanley Matthews, and I’m proud of being able to say, I saw him play.

When Old Trafford booed the Maestro

It wasn’t only fans like me who revered the Wizard of the Wing, however, it was players. There was a rather endearing article written by United’s young Irish left back Joe Carolan in Charles Buchan’s Football Monthly in July 1960, about an incident involving the veteran winger which clearly embarrassed the youngster. He wrote that ‘As a boy I dreamed of playing against Stanley Matthews. One day I did…and they BOOED MY IDOL!’

‘This unhappy incident does not reflect much credit on the Old Trafford supporters, I’m afraid.Normally they are a good crowd at Manchester United, but on this occasion they blotted their copybooks. And I’m sure many of them are ashamed of themselves for what happened when I and the great Stanley came tumbling down.The referee immediately awarded a penalty, from which they scored. Our supporters appeared to think that Matthews had gone down deliberately to make the tackle look worse than it was, and so gain a spot-kick. Well, I know this trick has been tried before, but not by Stanley Matthews. I was very upset to hear the crowd booing Stanley for several minutes for something of which he was entirely innocent. When you think of all the pleasure that Matthews has given to fans the world over, for so many years, it seems little short of heresy that some of them should have turned on him in this spiteful way. I hope that if Stanley appears at Old Trafford this season the crowd will try to make amends to one of our greatest Soccer wizards and cleanest sportsmen of our time’.

There is something very touching about the idealism and respect in these words from a United paler of half a century ago. It would be wonderful to see something of that same sportsmanship when Blackpool face Unuited again this weekend for the first time in 35 years. I wholeheartedly welcome Blackpool back to the top division in that spirit.

Although, having said that, do have to admit, I hope United squeeze the Tangerines till the pips squeak!

I have already written at length for RoM about this jaw-dropping eruption of violence five decades ago at Kenilworth Road, so there’s no need to repeat it all here. Nevertheless, as we reach the 50th anniversary it is worth having another look at the events of that day which reveal how attitudes towards United were even then going through a seismic transformation. Additionally, if further excuse is needed, I have now heard from two new eyewitnesses.

When I wrote Hitting the fan with United (Part One): Homage to Harry Gregg last year I appealed to anyone else who might have seen that Luton match in April 1960. The odds were naturally stacked heavily against finding anyone, because it was all so long ago, the crowd attendance was only around 20,000 and there was, of course no TV coverage. So it was no surprise when there was silence. No takers.

Then a few weeks ago a chance conversation with an old school-friend revealed that he had not only been there he’d had a close-up view, standing on the terraces four or five rows from the front directly behind Gregg’s goal. Luckily he was still in contact with the friend who was standing next to him on that day. What gives their recollections added value is the fact that they were, and still are, Luton fans.

They provide some entertaining new details which I had forgotten, but no startling revelations, no disagreements about what actually happened, no lingering anger directed at Gregg, in contrast to,say, the attitude of Crystal Palace fans to Eric Cantona even now,15 years after his legendary kung-fu kick, which by chance I also witnessed.

But looking back, what struck my old friend most forcibly was that in five decades of going to Luton matches he had never again heard such levels of abuse and hostility directed at opponents as happened that day, when Manchester United came to Town.

Luton Town 2 Man United 3, 9 April 1960

The match itself was of more lasting significance to Luton than United . The Hatters were in the terminal stages of a gruelling and ultimately unsuccessful battle against relegation, less than a year after their greatest achievement, reaching the 1959 FA Cup Final , which as a neutral watching on black & white television I had desperately wanted Luton to win.( Nottingham Forest beat them 2-1). United were eddying about in mid-table, capable of turning on brilliant high-scoring performances like the 5-0 at Fulham I’d witnessed a couple of weeks earlier, but equally likely to fall apart to unlikely defeats .

With Bobby Charlton away on international duty against Scotland and several key players missing through injury it was a much changed side that manager Matt Busby was able to field against Luton. Nevertheless United won with what should have been relaxed ease, with goals from the diminuitive smiley-faced England winger Warren Bradley and ‘The Black Prince’ centre forward Alex Dawson, who got two real belters. But in the great United tradition of ‘doing things the hard way’, two desperately poor goals were gifted to Luton, by none-other than Harry Gregg. Those mistakes were not enough to change the outcome, but must have been deeply embarrassing for the proud Northern Ireland goalkeeper, especially in front of his international team-mate, Luton’s hard-running winger, Billy Bingham, an old friend with whom he’d been playing three days before in a midweek friendly.

Harry’s ‘street-fighter’ moment

Throughout the match the Luton fans had been volatile and increasingly belligerent, unsurprisingly given their team’s rapidly worsening plight. There was incessant barracking of Gregg from right behind him, in the small, compact, noisy stadium, which maybe rattled him, perhaps contributing to his errors. At the end of the match I was on the point of leaving when I happened to turn round for one last look at my heroes . I noticed a man making a bee-line for Harry, long one of my favourite players, and, to my amazement the big Irish goalie, having failed to take evasive action, suddenly felled his potential assailant with a show-stopping right hander. The man went down as if taken out by the proverbial sniper. Those spectators who hadn’t already rushed disconsolately for the exits after Luton’s defeat were in uproar. Gregg was instantly bundled off the pitch by the police and ushered away by his skipper Maurice Setters. In a flash all the players were gone, leaving astonished supporters to make what they could of what they had seen.

In contrast to the world-wide media fire-storm that greeted Eric Cantona’s martial arts moment 35 years later, the considerable newpaper interest in the Gregg punch was neither disproportionate nor especially slanted against him or United. There were no editors supporting rival teams taking the opportunity to demand life-long bans . The reports were reasonably balanced and fair, and no-one could deny that the media interest was legitimate, given the explosive nature of the incident and the ‘national hero’ status of the assailant. Although the poleaxed victim had been badly bruised, Gregg could plead provocation and self-defence, justifying his pre-emptive punch by stressing that he feared he was about to be attacked.

We now know that there were police moves to prosecute Gregg for assault, but when Busby stood by him, albeit with the biggest telling-off of his career, the authorities backed off and no charges were pressed, again unlike the Cantona affair. It was generally accepted that the man had approached in a threatening manner, obstructing Harry as he repeatedly tried to side-step him in order to shake hands with his friend Billy Bingham. The clincher was probably when it was forcefully pointed out that the police had signally failed to protect Harry from an aggressive intruder who had no right to be on the pitch in the first place.

So to my enormous relief Harry got away with it and I was able to see him in action again a mere six days later in a Good Friday match at West Ham, when he looked his normal larger-than-life self, with no hint of stress – apart from losing 2-1 that is.

Mad Hatters

I was astonished when I discovered that my old Berkhamsted schoolfriend John Glasser had been at Luton that day. Neither of us has any recollection of talking about it at the time, possibly because the Easter holidays intervened, and the controversy had so swiftly died away. Also, John had originally been more of an Aston Villa supporter, partly because he’d won a ‘five-bob’ bet that they would beat United in the 1957 FA Cup Final. What we both recall is arguing endlessly about whether Peter McParland should have been sent off for the reckless charge which broke United keeper Ray Wood’s cheek-bone prior to scoring the two goals that gave VIlla their 2-1 victory.

John also has powerful recollections of the impact Munich made at school, with teachers talking in hushed tones in class about the death-toll. He was well aware of how I was affected and that I was identifying more and more with United.

John only gradually began supporting Luton which was much closer to his home in Tring, Herts, (now Graham Poll territory for what it’s worth). The first time John went to Kenilworth Road was on Boxing Day 1959, when he went with Tony Cox, the second eyewitness to the Gregg incident. That first match was against Arsenal and the attendance was over 30,000, the second largest ever. ‘You can imagine how squashed it was,’ says John. ‘We stood at the Oak Road End, now for visiting fans only, just behind Ron Baynham’s goal. I don’t remember anything of the game except that I enjoyed it and Luton lost 1-0. Tony and I went to a number of games at Kenilworth Road after that, including the match with the infamous incident on 9th April 1960.’

John and Tony both enjoyed my RoM account, which brought back many memories. Tony said , ‘It was a good read and it really took me back to that day in April all those years ago. Although I remember the incident with Harry Gregg quite clearly, I had long forgotten the names of most of the players from that day. I was continually saying, “ah yes, I remember that” to myself as I read the article.’

John adds, ‘As usual Tony and I stood behind the goal at the Oak Road end. My recollection of the incident was that Harry Gregg received an excessive amount of abuse and barracking from the Luton supporters. In fact I have not heard worse since. It was really OTT and I believe Harry Gregg let it get to him, so much so that I remember him baring his backside to the Luton supporters. I also recall seeing the violent incident, that is someone running up to Harry Gregg and then being knocked to the ground’.

It’s remarkable to see how selective memory can be. I had completely forgotten Harry baring his arse to the crowd, perhaps because it’s something I have suppressed as unworthy of my shining hero. Tony confirms that part of the story, with a further nice little detail, the song with which the Luton fans kept baiting Harry. It just so happened to a big, big favourite of mine at the time. Still is, come to that.

‘I do remember the incident with Harry Gregg punching a supporter at Luton very well, ‘Tony says. ‘ I seem to remember he also dropped his shorts in response to the crowd’s constant chanting of “Baby Face”!’

Harry’s ‘cutest little baby face’…

So what were the lyrics directed at our Harry by those cheeky Luton fans?

‘Baby face, you got the cutest little baby face,
There’s not another who can take your place, baby face,
My poor heart is jumping, you sure have started something, baby face,
I’m up in heaven when I’m near your firm embrace,
Mmm, I didn’t need a shove, because I fell in love,
With your pretty baby face…’

For those of you who don’t know ‘Baby Face’, it was the black American rock’n'roll star Little Richard’s biggest UK hit, peaking at No.2 in 1959 and staying in the charts for nearly four months. He had soared through the firmanent in the mid-fifties with stellar hits such as ‘Good Golly Miss Molly’, ‘Tutti Frutti’ and ‘Long Tall Sally’, when his shiny silver lame suits, outrageous ‘pompadour’ hairstyle and frantic stand-up boogie piano and hollerin’ style of singing somehow conveyed the sensation of being free at last.Some likened the feeling to getting out of jail.

For those who like obscure facts, ‘Baby Face’ was actually a million-selling sheet music hit in the Twenties in the USA , composed by Harry Axt and Benny Davis. It was first a million selling hit record in 1948 for Art Mooney, but he did it straight as a smoochy ballad, unlike Richard’s bouncy rocker which was more brimfull of earthy sexual urgency than romantic longings. Perhaps that’s what offended Harry.

It might be thought that all this stuff about music is pretty far removed from football, yet it was precisely around this time that the two worlds were coming closer together. When I wasn’t listening to ‘The Goon Show’ or ‘Sports Report’ on the BBC, I’d tune into Jimmy Savile’s ‘Teen & Twenty Disc Club’ on Radio Luxemburg, for years the best place to hear the likes of Little Richard, and almost certainly where ‘Baby Face’ got its first airing this side of the Atlantic. At the same time Jimmy was the DJ at the Plaza ballroom on Oxford Street in Manchester and he had been a good friend of several of the Busby Babes. On the night of Munich he was due to host the annual press ball at the Plaza but he simply cancelled the event as soon as he heard the shattering news. By the end of the ’50s more footballers were mixing in entertainment circles, such as the England captain, Billy Wright of Wolves, who married one of the Beverley Sisters, a highly popular if somewhat bland threesome singing group who were regularly on TV. You could regard the couple as the ‘Posh ‘n’ Becks’ of the day. Although it would be another four or five years before we’d hear talk of George Best as ‘the fifth Beatle’, there was already an increasing trend towards football taking on the glamour of showbiz, ultimately bringing us to today’s often sleazy obsession with football celebs.

The luck of Harry Gregg

At one level there was only pride at stake for United against lowly Luton, but that’s to underestimate the relentless pressure on the players in that period to demonstrate that the club really was on track to recover from the grievous loss of life at Munich. By this time the romantic national sympathy enveloping United in the early months after the Crash had all but evaporated, as resentment began to seep in among rival fans, as may have been the case at Kenilworth Road. Some people perhaps became jealous of the prestige and prominence of United as a ‘glamour club’, even when not in contention for trophies. Individual players who’d survived Munich were no longer guaranteed sympathy and respect, even genuine heroes like Gregg, who had after all fearlessly gone back into the burning wreckage at Munich to save lives. It seemed to me from around this time that rival supporters not only wanted to see United beaten they wanted them ‘taken down a peg or two’.

Harry Gregg was lucky he played in more innocent times when there were far fewer and slower media outlets. It’s quite a coincidence that I was also a close eye-witness to the second major assault by a United player on a spectator, that flying kick by Eric Cantona at Palace in ’95. Both events were similar but had vastly different outcomes.In each case a spectator rushed at the player and then ended up on the deck with fist or stud impressions on face or chest, while a top player was hustled off the pitch to general outrage. Both occurrences turned the spotlight on genuine household names, larger-then-life, take-no-shit individuals who had long endeared themselves to United supporters, which only increased the bitter dislike they faced from fans who wanted them knocked off their perch.

It’s instructive to think of how things might have turned out if a United player did today exactly the same as Harry Gregg did fifty years ago. We all know from what happened to King Eric how the hounds of hell would be instantly swirling round such a player, with countless replays from every angle in Hi-def and 3-D dwelling on the flying blood and snot. There would be thunderous editorials demanding the player be banned for life, it would be claimed that such an act of violence was ‘unprecedented’, and football in general would be called upon to clean up its act. In 1960 none of that happened, yet we can still detect the beginnings of the hatred towards the club that has created that well-known phenomenon, the ‘ABU’, the person who is so desperate to see United lose they’ll support ‘Anyone But United’.

Written by Giles Oakley

With thanks to John Glasser and Tony Cox.

Well, a similar goal has been scored once before in United’s history. Against Bayern Munich.

On the eve of the Champions League Quarter Finals against Bayern it’s a good moment to recall that illustrious ‘Beckham-esque’ fore-runner, from over 50 years ago.

With rather too much glee for my liking it’s repeatedly claimed that United don’t have a great record against Bayern Munich. Apart from beating them in the Champions League Final in 1999, that is. Actually the record so far in the Champions League isn’t that bad, with one win, four draws and only two defeats, but here I want to go back a little further and cheer us all up with a reminder that history isn’t entirely against us.

Munich – Remembering the Ties of Friendship

Of course the word Munich is indelibly inscribed in the hearts of all true United supporters, in more than one way. It’s right that we never forget the tragic Air Crash at Munich airport on 6 February 1958, which killed 23 people, including eight United players. But out of that tragedy a relationship of enduring friendship was forged with the city and with Bayern, which is worth celebrating again now, before the tackles go flying in.

United’s manager Matt Busby, who suffered grievous injuries in the disaster, and all the other survivors never forgot the efforts of the doctors, nurses and nuns of the Rechts der Isar Hospital in Munich, led by the kindly Professor George Maurer, who did so much to tend to the injured in the weeks and months after the crash. To this day many fans go to that hospital to pay their respects and give thanks, me included. There is now also a dignified memorial in Munich to those that died, itself something of a pilgrimage site. The warmth of sympathy towards the wounded young men from Manchester, scarcely a dozen years after the War, was heartfelt and genuine. It soon extended to the football domain.

Matt’s Return

In the summer following the crash, United were reeling with anger and disbelief when the League and FA authorities blocked the stricken club from accepting an invitation to take part in the 1958/ 59 European Cup competition in honour of those who had so recently died in pursuit of the trophy. That rebuff merely strengthened Busby’s visionary determination. ‘We face the challenge that Soccer is a world game and we are no longer on top,’ he said.’We must take our players abroad to educate them, despite the risk.’

In that spirit, in grateful response to the new bonds of friendship in the city of Munich,United embarked on a pre-season tour of Germany some seven months after the crash. They travelled entirely by rail and ferry in August 1958 as the memories of flying were still too raw.The first game was against a combined Bayern/ Munich1860 team, and it was Matt’s first match back in charge, his assistant Jimmy Murphy having handed back the reins. As it happens, United lost 4-3 when Bayern’s young winger Erich Hahn,’The Flying Pencil’, ran riot down the wing. But in many ways the result was not the point. This was the beginning of the massive task of re-building United, and there could be no more appropriate starting point than Munich.

The following August United went on another pre-season friendly tour to Germany, determined to keep in touch with continental tactics and techniques as part of the new Babes’ education. This time United were a far more impressive team, following the amazing achievement in the first post-Munich season of ending as runners up to Champions Wolves, driven on by the magnificent forward line of Bradley-Quixall-Viollet-Charlton-Scanlon. I remember the intense excitement as the new season approached, and there was enormous press interest in United’s emotionally charged return to Munich – this time by air, the first time the team had overcome that fearful hurdle. There were photographs of the team on the aircraft steps at London Airport, all-too reminiscent of the Babes’ pioneering ventures in the European Cup before the crash. Matt was quoted on how it would be ‘strange going back to Munich as a team’. The crash-survivors all took huge bouquets of flowers to the hospital where they were fondly greeted as old friends.

Bayern 1 United 2 (August 1959)

Unfortunately some of the good-will was dispelled when United played their first-ever match against the full Bayern team. United played superbly and deservedly won 2-1 but were obliged to play with only 9 men for the last 25 minutes, after two players were sent off in bizarre circumstances. There were niggling clashes off-and-on throughout the match, with the crowd increasingly infuriated by United’s rugged tackling, which would be considered perfectly normal at home. The first to go was Joe Carolan, the young Irish left back who retaliated after a series of fouls by Zsamboki, the Hungarian winger. Moments later it was Albert Quixall who got his marching orders for supposedly taking a further kick at Zsamboki as Carolan left the pitch. What incensed United was that the German referee Otto Fischer only sent the second player off after a TV cameraman rushed up to the linesman to intervene.The ‘Daily Sketch ‘ headline the next day screamed, ‘TV SNOOP GOT QUIXALL SENT OFF!’

For the record, Quixall claimed it was not a kick but a ‘little push’, although he admitted it was stupid in a ‘friendly’ of this nature.

There was general dismay at the controversial nature of the match and both clubs resolved not to let anything disturb continuing good relations. Busby said, ‘For this to happen in this match and in this place is most unfortunate. We have more than ordinary friendships here, and everybody is determined to keep them’. Bayern were clearly just as embarrassed and withdrew the ref’s invitation to join the teams for the offical dinner and declared that they would not be supporting him in his report to the FA (‘Even the Germans snub the ref’ – Daily Sketch).

One of the most regrettable things about the double sendings-off was that they completely overshadowed United’s stunning winning goal, which involved a then world-record – for the fastest goal after a kick-off.

This is how it happened.

Quixall’s 58 Yard Wonder Goal

United had taken the lead in the first half with a brilliant solo goal by Dennis Viollet, a harbinger of things to come as he was to go on to score a club record breaking 32 league goals in the coming season,1959/60, a record which still stands.(See my ‘Watching United 50 Years Ago’)

During the half-time interval United’s goalkeeper Harry Gregg pointed out to Quixall that his opposite number in the Bayern goal, the Hungary international Arpad Fazekas, had a habit of standing almost on the edge of his penalty area. ‘Blow me,’ Quixall said, ‘We were just restarting and I again saw Fazekas standing just behind his centre half. I asked Dennis Viollet to give me the ball so I could take pot luck. We scored!’

This was the fastest-ever goal from a kick-off, with the perfect lob measured at 58 yards and officially timed at four seconds from the start.Some stop watches even said three seconds.

United 3 Bayern 1 (November 1960)

Albert Quixall seems to have had something of a hex over Bayern, as he showed when the two teams next met on November 21st 1960 at Old Trafford. This was another friendly aimed at cementing, in Busby’s words in the match-day programme, ‘the bonds of friendship between Munich and Manchester.’ This was a day of comings and goings, with full-back Noel Cantwell – a future FA Cup-winning captain – just signed from West Ham making his debut, while Albert Scanlon, the famous ‘Babe’ who died recently, was making his last appearance before his transfer to Newcastle.(See my Remembering Albert Scanlon). This was a United very much in transition, and Busby was determined to keep exposing his players to the latest continental styles, even if qualifying for European competition was still a remote dream. Real Madrid were the other team who were particularly helpful to United in this period arranging friendlies at reduced rates for the cash-strapped United.

United demolished Bayern 3-1 in a compelling team performance full of attacking football , largely orchestrated by Quixall, who tended to blow hot and cold throughout his United career. This was one of the occasions he really turned it on, as summed up in the Daily Mirror headline, ‘That old ‘Quix’ magic all over again’. In his report Frank McGhee said: ‘Albert Quixall has suddenly found again the magic ‘extra’ that separates the ordinary from the special , the good from the great.’

This is the Quixall I like to remember, at his best one of the most gifted and skillful players I have seen with United. He always had ‘Golden Boy’ star quality with his shorts hitched up improbably high on his smoothly pink thighs and his blonde hair always somehow immaculately quiffed up like some teen-idol singer. Some dismiss his time as a failure at United, but in his five years at the club he helped the youngsters coming through after Munich learn the finer arts of ball control and movement, switching position, passing and shooting. He was a great schemer as a deep-lying inside forward, but one never afraid to let fly from distance. As Bayern found to their cost.

I didn’t witness any of these friendlies involving Bayern Munich but they have historic significance as part of the process by which Matt Busby kept his vision of progressive, world class football alive, by broadening his players’ education, even when the club was struggling to recover from the trauma of Munich. It’s fun to remember these encounters for their own sake but more pressingly we should remind ourselves that we have plenty in our track record against Bayern to show there’s no reason to fear they might have some kind of German hold over us.

Giggsy’s effort from the halfway line in 2000

I didn’t see Albert Quixall’s Golden Goal against Bayern, but I think I know what it must have been like. I’ve seen Beckham’s wonder-goal countless times on television of course, but I wasn’t there in person. So the closest for me was actually an unsuccessful attempt from close to half way by…Ryan Giggs. It was against Charlton Athletic in December 2000 on the way to another Premiership title during a 3-3 draw at The Valley.There seemed no danger to either side when Giggs picked up the ball near the halfway line but somehow, with his usual radar-like awareness he must have noticed that the Charlton keeper was fractionally off his line when he looked up and suddenly took aim. I was myself high up in the stands with a panoramic view of the whole thing, roughly parallel to Giggs, and I’ll never forget how the ball seemed to hang in the air for an eternity as the keeper scrambled back. The whole crowd went momentarily silent as the ball moved through the air in an inexorable arc, up, over and then then abruptly downwards, with sudden violent acceleration. We must have all been thinking, has Giggs got his trajectory right? Will the keeper get back to save it? Will we all applaud a moment of magic that was simply a glorious miss? The answer came in a sudden blur. Giggs’s shot came hurtling down at an almost perfect angle, but then cannoned against the crossbar bar and spun outwards. And who should be there following up to put the ball into the Londoners’ net with a perfectly timed volley, but Ole Gunnar Solskjaer…

So, there you have it, some historical reminders of United players who have ‘put the ball in the Germans’ net’, all the way back to Albert Quixall half a century ago. That’s without mentioning Ole’s unforgettable Treble-winning stretched-leg hoof into the roof in ’99 which should inspire the current generation. He’s sadly gone, but there’s still the eternal Ryan Giggs. Now there’s a man with a sense of history.

Come on United!

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Written by Giles Oakley