Munich disaster changed Manchester United forever

By Mike Collett

MANCHESTER (Reuters) - Manchester United stopped being just another football club on the afternoon of February 6 1958 when the plane carrying them home from Belgrade crashed after a refuelling stop at Munich.

A transformation took place in the national consciousness as a stunned public learnt by wireless and news flashes on small grainy television sets of the tragedy that had wiped out the cream of a generation, the Busby Babes.

People who had no interest in soccer began following the fortunes of United, neutrals willed them to win. The players who survived the crash, such as Bobby Charlton, won a special place in people's hearts and United itself became an icon of hope born of tragedy.

Matt Busby's young team, champions of England in 1956 and 1957, died in the slush and snow of Munich after their twin-propped Elizabethan aircraft crashed on a third take-off attempt.

If the immediate loss of seven players killed outright in the crash was extremely hard to take, another devastating blow followed two weeks later when 21-year-old Duncan Edwards, the heart of the team, died in the Rechts der Isar Hospital in Munich as a result of his injuries.

He was the eighth player to die and the 23rd and last life lost out of the 44 passengers on board.

The young players who died were England international and club captain Roger Byrne, 28, Eddie Colman, 21, England's centre-forward Tommy Taylor, 25, Mark Jones, 24, David Pegg, 22, Irish international Billy Whelan, 22, Geoff Bent, 25, and Edwards, who in 1955 aged just 18 had become the youngest player to appear for England in the 20th century.

Three United club officials, eight journalists including Frank Swift the former Manchester City and England goalkeeper, the co-pilot, a crew member and the travel agent who arranged the trip also died.

Now, on the 50th anniversary of the tragedy, their legacy lives on, undiminished by time.

In the last 15 years under manager Alex Ferguson, the modern United have won the European Cup, three League and FA Cup doubles and far surpassed what Busby's ill-fated Babes achieved. But the question that never goes away, and can never be answered is... would the Babes have done the same ? Or even more ?

TRAGIC CROP

Charlton, who survived the crash to become England's most famous footballer, was the flower that bloomed from that tragedy.

Charlton believes they would have prevented Real Madrid winning the first five European Cups and become the first English team in the 20th century to have won the FA Cup and League double, rather than Tottenham Hotspur in 1961.

He believes England, with Edwards, Byrne and Taylor, might have won the World Cup in Sweden in 1958 rather than Brazil.

"I do believe we would have won the European Cup in 1958," he said as the anniversary approached.