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!

—————–

Written by Giles Oakley

As the Manchester United supporters’ unprecedented Green & Gold protest movement gathers momentum , consciously rooted in the club’s Victorian origins as Newton Heath, there has seldom been a better moment to explore the Red Devils’ sometimes tragic history and sense of identity.

In that spirit I am here offering some personal memories of a period which is often neglected in official accounts and may seem impossibly remote to younger RoM regulars.

I watched Manchester United for the first time in the flesh 50 years ago this month and it was an occasion that was just as magical as I’d always dreamed it would be, even though no trophies were at stake and United were languishing in mid-table mediocrity at the time. What gives the match wider historical significance however was the fact that when Dennis Viollet scored two goals that afternoon he overtook Jack ‘Gunner’ Rowley’s club record of 30 league goals in a season, previously set in 1951/52. Astonishingly, despite the prodigious achievements of United goal-scorers since, such as the electrifying Denis Law, the bewitching George Best,the lethal Ruud Van Nistelrooy or the unstoppable Cristiano Ronaldo, Viollet’s record still stands, half a century later.

That goalscoring landmark helps lift the match out of humdrum anonymity and enables me to make the proud boast that, ‘I was at the match when the great Dennis Viollet broke the United all-time league goalscoring record’. The only problem is, I didn’t actually witness either goal. Oh dear.

I’ll come to why in a moment, but first let me go a bit further back.

By the time I finally got to see United for the first time, out there on the muddy, scuffed-up Craven Cottage pitch on March 26th, 1960, I had been a supporter for over two years, feeding on a meagre diet of ‘highlights’ coverage on TV and commentary on the radio. I felt a fraud never having seen the Red Devils in person.

As with so many others, my allegiance to United was born and sustained two years earlier, following the terrible Munich Air Crash of 6 February 1958, when I was aged 11.The deaths of those 23 people, including 8 United players and three members of the coaching staff made an enormous emotional impact on me and I came to identify myself as a supporter ever more passionately over the following months. I was transfixed from afar as the club rose from the dead, reaching the FA Cup Final less than three months after the crash, an eye-opening achievement in the circumstances. When United were beaten 2-0 by Bolton Wanderers in that Wembley Final it was the first time I’d been able to see United live on TV.

Out in the sticks, 30 miles from ‘the Smoke’

After seeing United in the Cup Final I was naturally desperate to get to an actual match and see my heroes up close. One major problem was that I lived out in ‘the sticks’ in Amersham, a commuter town some thirty miles from London and far from any big clubs. Worse, I went to school in Berkhamsted where we were forced to play rugby or go on long dreary runs on Saturday afternoons. No doubt this was all good ‘character building’ stuff (‘moral fibre’ was a favourite term) but it cut drastically into my ability to go to football, let alone see United.

When I was growing up it was actually pretty rare for kids to go ‘up to town’ from Amersham for football matches, or indeed anything else, despite only being about 35-minutes away by rail or Underground to central London. I knew plenty of people who had never been to ‘the Smoke’, such as the legendary hard man, Big Pete, who finally made the trip for the first time in his mid-30s. He went up to the ticket office at Amersham station and curtly demanded, ‘ Give me a ticket to London’. The man patiently responded by asking, ‘Where in London would you like to go, sir?’ to which Pete replied with a menacing Roy Keane-glare, ‘To the fucking station, you stupid cunt!’

Say it Again, Sam

When I was planning my journey to Fulham to see United for that first time in 1960, I sought the advice of my friend Sam Vince, a somewhat ferrety character with a slyly subversive, back-of-hand sense of humour, now sadly passed away from a surfeit of fags and greasy spoon fry-ups. He was not only a Fulham fan, rare enough in Amersham, but he also had an amazing knowledge of all the wheres and hows of getting anywhere, including how to sneak in free at Stamford Bridge.He later became a long-distance lorry driver and was like a human SatNav (not that there were such things then) and used to write travel tips in Watford FC programmes for their away matches, complete with the inevitable cheap cafe details thrown in.

On the day of the Fulham match I managed to persuade my sceptical mother to write me an ‘off games’ sicknote so I could get away from school in the afternoon, without telling her I’d be off to see United. I bunked off early without lunch, terrified my absence would be noticed by one of the ‘beaks’ swishing about the school perimeters in their hawk-like black gowns. Sam had advised me what route to take, most of which took me me through entirely new territory, all on my own, a shy, awkward kid just turned 14 a few days earlier. The only problem was Sam hadn’t taken account of the infrequency of trains from Berkhamsted to Euston, or how slow they were. I have a vivid memory of how anxious and agitated I got throughout the journey , with time running out before kick-off. Yet I still somehow managed to take in what a fantastic view one got of the ancient ruins of Berkhamsted’s Norman Castle from the train. Such are the small incidental pleasures of football fandom.

A Walk in the Park

The journey took far longer than I’d expected and I was in a right old panic by the time I got to Putney Bridge Underground station , the nearest to Fulham’s ground. I grabbed the preview souvenir editions of all three London evening papers from the news-stand, Star, News and Standard , each with a spread of team photos and star player pics. Sam’s words were ringing in my ears, ‘Cross the road, walk though Bishop’s Park, keep going close to the River and you’ll come to Craven Cottage, you can’t miss it’. The Park seemed to go on forever, with me increasingly fearful that I’d somehow taken a wrong turning. Despite my mounting anxiety, such was the intensity of the experience I still somehow managed to take in what a beautiful Park it was, with glimpses of the silvery Thames through the trees. By this time it was already long past kick-off and I was just desperate to see United, even if it was only to see them walk off the pitch at the end.

As I ran through the Park, expecting to see floodlights like all the big football grounds I’d been to so far, the stadium suddenly loomed up at me, but with no floodlights in sight (they were built a year or two later). It’s one of the smaller top-division grounds, but it was still a pretty impressive place, with a neat ornamented brick frontage. To my horror I found all the turnstile entrances closed. How was I going to get in? Was it all a terrible waste of time? To make it even more tantalising I could hear a mighty roar from the crowd, making me fear, have Fulham just scored? Not only was I going to fail to get in, United were going to lose.

Knocking on Heaven’s Door

I rushed from door to door until I found some larger gates and there was a crack. I peered through and could see some vaguely official-looking bloke. I called him over and pleaded with him to let me in, blushing with adolescent fear of making a spectacle of myself. A little reluctantly but very kindly he opened up just wide enough for me to squeeze in through the exit gates , and he generously waved away my offers of money. I found myself below what I now know is the Hammersmith End, then all steep terracing and no seating.

I breathlessly pushed my way through the dense crowd and took in the wondrous view. There they were, my heroes, all arrayed in the famous V-neck ‘Busby Babes’ cherry-red shirts with white shorts (or ‘knickers’ as the match programme quaintly put it) and plain white socks. They looked fabulous, and so did everything, I felt intoxicated by it all. Then , somewhat embarrassedly, I turned to the man next to me and asked what the score was, as though it was the most natural question in the world half an hour into a match. ‘Two-Nil’ he said, with a broad grin. ‘Er, who to?’ I asked, nervously. ‘To United of course’, came the reply. In a pattern to be repeated many times over the next 50 years I’d found myself next to a ‘closet’ United fan, in the heart of enemy territory. As it happens, there was no segregation of support in those innocent times, just co-mingling. Few tickets in advance or seats in the stands, largely just rough concrete steps. Almost everyone had to queue to get into football matches in those days so the trick was to rush for the shortest line at games like this, when United would draw large attendances.

It was relatively rare for there to be much travelling support for United in 1960, although then, as now , there were plenty of ‘Cockney Reds’, some in red & white scarfs, and they kicked up a pretty good racket every time United’s attack poured forward. They weren’t all packed together then, unlike today, so the support was not so compressed but more evenly spread around the ground. Today the United section of maybe 2000 away fans always creates a fantastic sound at Craven Cottage , in victory and defeat, but in the 1960s you could be suddenly amazed at just how many Reds there were round a stadium as soon as United scored. The cheering often sounded as loud as the home support.

The Sound of a Broken Record

Getting my quick update from my new friend on the terraces I gathered that Dennis Viollet had just scored his second goal of the match (in the 34th minute) so it was undoubtedly the big roar I’d just heard as I was bargaining my way in. Dennis ‘s two goals against Fulham took him to 31, breaking the club record for a season and only bad luck prevented him added many more to the total.He scored one further goal in the next match but unluckily got injured at the same time. He only played once more that season, leaving his record as 32 goals in 36 league matches.It’s astonishing to think the record from 1959/60 still stands, given that Dennis was playing in a largely unsuccessful team still suffering from the aftermath of Munich. Of course I’d love Wayne Rooney to break the record this season, but in a way I’d also be sad . It’s a treasured memory for me and I love being able to boast , ‘I heard Dennis Viollet breaking the record for United.’

On the train back to Manchester after the match, Matt Busby brought out Champagne to toast Viollet’s tremendous achievement. The modest Dennis thanked his team-mates, singling out Albert Quixall (injured that day) for his selfless contribution to his record-breaking run. His praise is worth recalling as Quixall is too often dismissed as a failure at Old Trafford.

Munich Survivors

As the first half neared its end, I scanned all the players in red, especially looking for Munich-survivors and heroes of the ’58 FA Cup campaign. I instantly identified Bobby Charlton, star of current newspaper adverts for the Flour Advisory Council announcing that ‘Bobby Charlton Uses His Loaf’. He’d only recently switched to playing out on the left wing at the expense of fellow Busby Babe Albert Scanlon ( who died a few weeks ago) . There was the great Harry Gregg in goal of course, clad in the famous green sweater, sleeves rolled half-way up his fore-arms and the teak-tough ex-coal miner, Bill Foulkes at right back. Up front there was the goal-scorer Viollet gliding in and out like a red-shirted Cobra, scheming away, orchestrating everything, unlucky not to get his hat-trick with a pin-point 25-yard daisy-cutter which was just tipped round the post at full stretch.

United looked almost casually in control as they passed the ball about at pace in mesmerising interchanging movements. Almost before I could take it all in it was half time. Wow, here I was, at last seeing the Reds for real. In the ten minutes I’d seen, they looked fantastic. Could they keep it up?

Tales of the Riverbank

At half time I began to relax and take in my surroundings. The stadium, which overlooks the Thames, looked packed full (the attendance was 38,250, nearly double what Fulham get now, with all-seating) and I was amazed to see that there really was a Craven Cottage, a strangely rustic structure in one of the corners of the stadium somewhat like a cricket pavilion. The stadium construction was supervised by Archibald Leitch in 1905, five years before he oversaw the creation of the far more majestic Old Trafford, whose centenary is being celebrated this year. It should be more widely recognised how many classic football grounds were down to him.

Up on the Cottage balcony I caught a glance of the famous Fulham Chairman, Tommy Trinder, a ’50s comedian known for his big-chinned Cockney spiv persona, with rakishly angled trilby hat, ‘wide-boy’ suit and ‘You lucky people!’ catch phrase.These days it’s Mohammed al-Fayed who likes to play the role of comedian, just as visible as showman Tommy Trinder used to be, usually parading round the pitch before kick-off brandishing a Fulham scarf.

Johnny Haynes’ Fulham

Of course I was mainly at Craven Cottage to see United but it’s worth saying something about the Fulham team that day, which included some excellent players.Only recently promoted into the top division, they were led by the marvellous Johnny Haynes at ‘inside left’, poster boy for Brylcreem hair oil, soon to be England skipper and the first £100-a-week footballer after the abolition of the minimum wage. The wider union campaign for that historic concession was led by Fulham’s inside right, the jut-jaw, bearded Jimmy Hill, leader of the PFA, later famously called a ‘prat’ by Sir Alex Ferguson after comments about Eric Cantona in the ’90s. Hill missed a sitter against United that day in 1960 after a Haynes shot rebounded off a post into his lap, with him on his arse. No sign of Trinder’s Fulham being ‘lucky people’ at that moment.

Fulham had other good players, such as ex-England centre forward Roy Bentley and the pugnacious Scottish International, Graham Leggat on the wing, who’d scored a hat-trick in a 3-3 draw at Old Trafford earlier in the season. There were a couple of England U-23 Internationals in defence. The right back George Cohen is now revered as an England World Cup Winner in 1966 , and on this occasion he did much to keep his future team-mate Bobby Charlton quiet. In goal was Tony Macedo, who unfortunately seemed to reserve his worst performances for United, despite being a top keeper. He had been at fault with more than one goal in the epic FA Cup Semi-final replay with United in 1958, when Alex Dawson scored a hat-track in the 5-3 victory which took United to Wembley.Charlton had scored three across the two ties against Macedo.

Another excellent Fulham player in 1960 was the forceful right half Alan Mullery, who went on to fame with Spurs, and was a key member of England’s World Cup squad in 1970. Like Jimmy Hill, he often still crops up as a media pundit, perhaps a little too keen to dispense ‘In my day…’ lamentations.Mind you, my brother once played with him in some charity match and he found him very down to earth and friendly.

So, although Fulham were not a top side they had good players and on their day they could challenge the best, having held Tottenham to a 1-1 draw at White Hart Lane the previous week, at a time when Spurs were on the rise, becoming the first ‘Double Winners’of the 20th Century the following season.

New Babes

Fulham were no mugs and United must have known they could not afford to be complacent, even with their two-goal half-time lead . I was in a fever of anticipation for the second half. Having taken in all the older Babes and Munich survivors I next wanted to scrutinise the next generation, including the promising understudy ‘inside forward trio’, Giles, Dawson and Pearson, youngsters who could step in for the normal first team combination of Quixall, Viollet and Charlton. As it happened, as a result of injuries and loss of form the kids were all playing, but with Giles wide right and Charlton wide left.This new formation had only appeared together once before, beating Nottingham Forest 3-1 a week previously. At left back was another player who’d come up through the ranks, Joe Carolan, who played for Ireland at right back a couple of times around that time. He made a respectable 71 appearences for United, and seemed pretty good, but he was not quite the long term answer to United’s defensive frailties.

This was a transitional period of intense experimentation for United , with players switching positions from week to week as Manager Matt Busby tried to re-build his shattered team, still recovering from the trauma of Munich. It could be a testing time for supporters, as the constant changes sometimes unsettled the players, and results swung about alarmingly.

The Shay Brennan Story

Against Fulham there was a typical example of this restless search for perfection, which only began to pay off about three or four years later. Playing at left-half was Seamus Brennan, who’d joined United as an inside left yet made his debut as a make-shift left winger in the emotional cauldron of United’s first match after Munich. Despite never having played on the wing in his life, he scored twice that night against Sheffield Wednesday in the FA Cup, in a jaw-dropping 3-0 victory that made people like me sit up and take notice. Then, when Wilf McGuinness broke his leg (and had to quit) Brennan was drafted in as a left half late in1959, his third position so far. He generally did OK as a half back, as he did at Fulham, but it was only when Busby tried a couple more switches the following season that he eventually came into his own. First he had a brief spell at left back and then, when Bill Foulkes definitively moved to centre half, Shay finally found his best position as a right back. Not only did he become a regular international with Ireland he established himself as a core player in the United team that won league titles in 1965 and 1967 and the European Cup in 1968. In my eyes he was among the best right backs I’ve seen with United in over 50 years.

It’s worth making the point that only two other players from that Fulham match in 1960 were still there to secure that historic European Cup victory against Benfica at Wembley eight years on: Bobby Charlton and Bill Foulkes. That just shows how unpredictable the game can be. No-on, absolutely no-one would have predicted from his performance against Fulham in 1960, good though it was, that the much-loved Shay Brennan would be in such elite company eight years later. In a way it’s an important lesson for impatient fans today. All we are saying, is give kids a chance. Let them make their mistakes, let them try out different roles. Don’t write anyone off too early.

The Second Half : A 3-Goal Thriller

At the start of the second half Fulham made a spirited come-back without ever threatening United’s classily complete dominance. Then came disaster for the Londoners when their centre half Derek Lampe went off with concussion. Worse was to follow when Jimmy Hill injured his knee and was more or less a passenger on the wing. In those pre-substitute days Fulham never really had a chance after that. Sure enough, relentless United pressure through wave after wave of attack finally crushed the team in white, effectively down to nine men. United’s recent signing, the tough-tackling right half Maurice Setters, whose gnarled and bandy ‘cowboy’ legs looked ideal to hook down opponents if they had the temerity to pass him, had completely bossed Johnny Haynes out of the game. No Haynes, no Fulham was the perception then, borne out against United that day.

United scored three quality goals in the final quarter of an hour, and I was thrilled, to say the least. It made all the aggravation of getting to Craven Cottage worth while. At long last I’d seen United, I’d seen the surviving Babes, I’d seen the post-Munich heroes, I’d been (sort of) present for a record-breaking moment of history.The long-suffering and disgruntled Fulham fans began to leave and there was some slow-handclapping, which I thought harsh in the circumstances.Nonetheless, in general I’ve always liked Fulham supporters, who are passionate about the game, appreciate good football and are fanatically loyal to their team, year in, year out, despite never winning a major trophy.

The Goals

The first second half goal was a peach by Johnny Giles, scored in the 76th minute, the one I can remember best from the game. He cut in from the right wing and hit a surprise curve-ball with the outside of his left foot to swerve the ball past Macedo from the narrowest of angles. That was Johnny’s first goal for United.

By now the pressure was really relentless and the next goal was inevitable, scored by Mark ‘Pancho’ Pearson, the sideburned youngster who’d once been so unfairly dubbed a ‘teddy boy’ by Burnley’s chairman Bob Lord in 1958,after he’d been sent off in a bad tempered match. Lord, a fat, thick-necked meat merchant always gave the impression that he resented United’s popular youth appeal after the crash and was one of the first to have a pop at the youngsters as the team began to re-build.Pancho never shook off the hooligan tag, although he was quite a favourite of mine, perhaps precisely because of the sideburns, which in a faintly rebellious rock ‘n’ roll way I was myself growing, to the despair of my teachers in Berkhamsted.

The third second half goal was scored just before the final whistle by Alex Dawson, sealing a brilliant 5-0 victory with a fierce 20 yard drive. He was a powerful, rugged Scottish centre forward who never stopped battling and fighting for every ball and I was delighted to have seen him score because he was another Babe, having made his debut in 1957.

I could hardly believe my luck. I’d missed about a third of the match, I’d missed two goals, and yet I’d still seen United score three and deliver an outstanding victory away from home. What a début for me as a supporter.

The Shadow of Munich

I was delighted not only with the 5-0 victory but also because I’d seen so many pre-Munich players, Charlton, Gregg, Foulkes, Dawson, not forgetting Ronnie Cope, the youthful centre half. I’d also seen some of the most significant post-Munich, Class of ’58 players, plus the new kids like Johnny Giles and Joe Carolan. I felt as though I’d now already become authentically immersed in the history of Manchester United.

But, as I made my weary way home I also thought about what it must be like, living with that extraordinary weight of expectation on all the players, young and old. It’s demanding enough at any top club, but here at United players not only had to live up to Busby’s profound footballing ideals they were also constantly being measured against the memories of those who had been killed.

What must it have been like for those like Shay Brennan, Mark Pearson and Alex Dawson who all played in that first match after the crash? It must have been a uniquely weird and disorientating experience for them all. How do you cope with having to suddenly fill the boots of some of the most worshipped footballers of a generation? How do you manage to convince yourself you’re entitled to be there if you’ve never even played a first team match before ? How do you cope emotionally , knowing a crowd of 60,000 people is grieving for the loss of the young heroes you have replaced?

In a way it’s no surprise that so many of the players I saw at Fulham 50 years ago didn’t ultimately make it to the top with United. But I prefer to look at it the other way. It was a miracle that so many of these previously untried youngsters did so well for United, keeping the club afloat at a time of incomparable stress and trauma. Even the less successful ones played 70, 80 or 90-odd games for United and I feel privileged to have seen them all, at Fulham and on other occasions in the pre-trophy early Sixties. It’s important to remember how much they contributed to the historic entity that Manchester United have become in the past half century, mostly without gaining any of the acclaim of the big-name super-stars.

When I now see the inspirational sea of Green & Gold scarves and ‘Love United, Hate The Glazers’ banners raised in mass protest at Old Trafford, I cast my mind back to the distant time when I began supporting the club over half a century ago. I reflect on what an important place United have had in my life, and I give thanks to the kids I saw that time in March 1960 when I saw my heroes for the first time.

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Hitting the Fan With United: Part One: Homage to Harry Gregg

Following United: 50 Years of Disappointment

Remembering Albert Scanlon: A fan’s Tribute

The singing of The Flowers of Manchester will take place under the Munich plaque at 2pm before the Portsmouth home game. The singing will be conducted by Pete Martin of the folk group Hanky Park.

The lyrics can be found on the Munich 58 website so if you’re going down to the ground, print out a copy of the lyrics so you can sing along, and if possible, print out copies for others.