Not a day goes by when Wilf McGuinness doesn\u2019t think of the friends and teammates he lost when the Munich air crash ripped the heart out of Manchester<\/p>\n
United\u2019s \u201cBusby Babes\u201d.<\/p>\n
The disaster, 60 years ago this week, killed eight of the young, vibrant side who had won successive league titles and left manager Matt Busby fighting for his<\/p>\n
life.<\/p>\n
The events of February 6, 1958 are woven into the fabric of the club, who recovered to become the first English team to lift the European Cup 10 years later on<\/p>\n
a deeply emotional night at Wembley.<\/p>\n
McGuinness, now 80, was not on the plane\u2014which crashed on the third take-off attempt in terrible weather conditions\u2014because he was injured. The ill-fated<\/p>\n
aircraft was bringing the team back via Munich from Belgrade after they had reached the European Cup semi-finals. Twenty-three people died in total.
\n\u201cYou think of the ones who went, you don\u2019t think of yourself escaping or not going on the trip,\u201d says McGuinness, who was in hospital following a cartilage<\/p>\n
operation when he heard the terrible news. \u201cI was thinking how great they were, it will never ever stay out of my mind. It is the number one thing that remains with<\/p>\n
me. \u201cThey were extra-special and so young when they died… unbelievable.\u201d<\/p>\n
For McGuinness, whose own career ended prematurely aged just 22 when he broke his leg, the two standouts were the halfbacks, \u201ccheeky chappie\u201d Eddie<\/p>\n
Colman and Duncan Edwards, \u201ca giant\u201d, to whom McGuinness played understudy.<\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t have licked their boots,\u201d says McGuinness modestly at his home in Sale near Manchester in the northwest of England.<\/p>\n
Colman\u2019s parents did not have a telephone and only learned of the accident through his close friend and Manchester City goalkeeper Steve Fleet as he ran to<\/p>\n
their corner shop to tell them. Edwards survived the crash but died two weeks later in hospital.
\n\u2018BEST-EVER UNITED TEAM\u2019 –<\/p>\n
\u201cThey would have been the best-ever United team, in fact they were the best ever. They would have won everything,\u201d says McGuinness, who attended all his<\/p>\n
teammates\u2019 funerals. \u201cBut then the crash happened and eight were killed and two never played again. It was a very difficult time, even now,\u201d he adds with tears<\/p>\n
welling in his eyes.<\/p>\n
United, featuring the likes of Bobby Charlton and George Best, with Busby still in charge, famously lifted the European Cup at Wembley in 1968.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe did think of the players (after the 4-1 European Cup victory over Benfica) and said \u2018this is for them\u2014it is not for us, it is for them\u2019,\u201d says McGuinness.<\/p>\n
\u201cReally, the players who died, they made United,\u201d adds McGuinness, who was on the United coaching staff when they won the European Cup and later<\/p>\n
managed the club.There is a clock at Old Trafford stuck at four minutes past three, the time when the plane crashed and the club has a Munich Tunnel that<\/p>\n
includes an eternal flame in memory of those killed. But McGuinness, who at the tender age of 31 was handed the unenviable task of managing United after<\/p>\n
Busby stepped down, says it is a shame that the Busby Babes are lost in time.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey (the young) missed them,\u201d says McGuinness. \u201cThere wasn\u2019t enough footage of them, they were magnificent players.\u201d He describes a different era, far<\/p>\n
removed from the wealth and glamour of the modern Premier League. \u201cI couldn\u2019t have a car, they wouldn\u2019t let us,\u201d says McGuinness, grinning. \u201cDuncan<\/p>\n
(Edwards) rode a bike to training as he couldn\u2019t afford a car.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe coaches, Bert Whalley (who also died in the crash) and Jimmy Murphy, were magic with us, they knocked us and bullied us into being players. \u201cI liked<\/p>\n
being pushed around because it meant I learned how to do it to the others. We trained sometimes in the Old Trafford car park where we kicked ourselves to<\/p>\n
death.\u201d<\/p>\n
McGuinness pays special homage to Murphy for pulling the side together in the aftermath of the crash and with Busby\u2014who twice received the last rites from a<\/p>\n
priest\u2014near death.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe two of them (Busby and Murphy) were totally different. Matt would put his hand on your back and say \u2018do this\u2019 and Jimmy would do the opposite and yell at<\/p>\n
you. \u201cOne was a bully and the other a father. We had a wonderful staff that made us feel \u2018United, United, United\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Not a day goes by when Wilf McGuinness doesn\u2019t think of the friends and teammates he lost when the Munich air crash ripped the heart out of Manchester United\u2019s \u201cBusby Babes\u201d. The disaster, 60 years ago this week, killed eight of the young, vibrant side who had won successive league titles and left manager Matt […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20999,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20998"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21000,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20998\/revisions\/21000"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}