Making the Legend Live
On the evening of Feb. 6, 1958, a chartered plane carrying United's young team — England's champions, known as the Busby Babes, after their manager, Matt Busby — stopped off in Munich on its way back from Belgrade, where United had drawn with Red Star, securing a place in the semifinals of the European Cup (the precursor to the Champions League). Conditions were dire, with slush on the runway and snow in the air, but after two failed attempts to take off, the pilots tried again. The plane never made it, clipping a house at the end of the runway and crashing. Seven of United's players were among those who died in the crash. An eighth, Duncan Edwards, just 21, who men of a certain age will tell you with iron conviction was the greatest footballer England ever produced, died two weeks later. Busby was terribly injured and was administered last rites but survived.
The horror shocked Britain. Even those who didn't follow football or weren't from Manchester had loved the Babes, who had brought a sense of glamour to a nation that was still struggling to lift itself from the drabness of the postwar years. I was just 6 at the time, and the Munich disaster was the first time I realized that really bad things could happen. We lived in the suburbs of Liverpool — both my parents had been born in the streets next to Liverpool's stadium — so United wasn't our team. But our next-door neighbors, a retired railroad worker and his wife, were big United fans, and I can remember, when I got home from school the day the news broke, feeling a child's surprise at seeing adults so visibly distressed. A few weeks later, we all crowded into the only house on our street with a TV to watch United's second string try to win the FA Cup, only to cruelly lose to Bolton Wanderers.
Yet out of the ashes, Busby rebuilt the club. By the mid-1960s, he had formed a thrilling new team around three players known in United legend as "the Holy Trinity": George Best, Denis Law and Bobby Charlton, who was just 20 when he was hauled from the wreckage of Munich. Even I, a die-hard Liverpool fan (which is why this article is written through gritted teeth) loved seeing them play. In 1968, 10 years after Munich, they positively murdered Portuguese champions Benfica to become the first English side to win the European Cup. As the game ended, Busby marched across the field to embrace Charlton, two survivors united in a moment of shared joy and grief.
On the evening of Feb. 6, 1958, a chartered plane carrying United's young team — England's champions, known as the Busby Babes, after their manager, Matt Busby — stopped off in Munich on its way back from Belgrade, where United had drawn with Red Star, securing a place in the semifinals of the European Cup (the precursor to the Champions League). Conditions were dire, with slush on the runway and snow in the air, but after two failed attempts to take off, the pilots tried again. The plane never made it, clipping a house at the end of the runway and crashing. Seven of United's players were among those who died in the crash. An eighth, Duncan Edwards, just 21, who men of a certain age will tell you with iron conviction was the greatest footballer England ever produced, died two weeks later. Busby was terribly injured and was administered last rites but survived.
The horror shocked Britain. Even those who didn't follow football or weren't from Manchester had loved the Babes, who had brought a sense of glamour to a nation that was still struggling to lift itself from the drabness of the postwar years. I was just 6 at the time, and the Munich disaster was the first time I realized that really bad things could happen. We lived in the suburbs of Liverpool — both my parents had been born in the streets next to Liverpool's stadium — so United wasn't our team. But our next-door neighbors, a retired railroad worker and his wife, were big United fans, and I can remember, when I got home from school the day the news broke, feeling a child's surprise at seeing adults so visibly distressed. A few weeks later, we all crowded into the only house on our street with a TV to watch United's second string try to win the FA Cup, only to cruelly lose to Bolton Wanderers.
Yet out of the ashes, Busby rebuilt the club. By the mid-1960s, he had formed a thrilling new team around three players known in United legend as "the Holy Trinity": George Best, Denis Law and Bobby Charlton, who was just 20 when he was hauled from the wreckage of Munich. Even I, a die-hard Liverpool fan (which is why this article is written through gritted teeth) loved seeing them play. In 1968, 10 years after Munich, they positively murdered Portuguese champions Benfica to become the first English side to win the European Cup. As the game ended, Busby marched across the field to embrace Charlton, two survivors united in a moment of shared joy and grief.
