Anniversary of the Munich Air Disaster this day 6th Feb 2011

[manchesterunitedman1]

Just a few thoughts on this special date for everyone associated with Manchester United and anyone else who is a sensible and genuine football fan no matter who you follow.

53 years have now passed and this anniversary looks like simply fading into nothing, as I had hoped the club would have played with Black armbands at Wolves last night in rememberance of the Disaster.


What would happen today if such a tragedy would happen, which football team can lose 8 players overnight and continue to fight a championship or a relegation battle without hardship-even if you have the money to spend-who can you buy?.

Roger Byrne-Captain, Geoff Bent, Eddie Colman, Duncan Edwards, Mark Jones, David Pegg, Tommy Taylor, Liam "Billy" Whelan and all the officials and press men and supporters who also perished on that fatefull flight, may their dear souls rest at peace with their Gods.

[Molineux Phil]

Tragic day ,i can still recall it although i was only nine years old at the time.
Afraid the game has changed out of all recognition from the late fifties .
RIP.

[Wulfrunian]

I too was hoping to see both sides in black arbands, and utd in red at least, but these things are too easily forgotten in the muti million pound media frenzy that is todays top flight football.

nights game should have been all the more poignant as it was Wolves that United were supposed to play immediately after the crash, and so with them clashing almost exactly on the anniversary you would have expected some kind of memorial.

I clearly remember the news coming through, and the whole of the country, not just the footballing fraternity, seemed stunned.

I am surprised that teams like man utd, Arsenal etc are all allowed to travel together on the same bus/flight these days as the insurance payout for a similar incident today would be unreal.

RIP
_________________
FPC Predictor Cup Winner 2013

"You only have one life, I gave mine to the Wolves" - Stan Cullis 1916 - 2001

[PABLO76]

Not all of us youngsters disregard the Munich disaster as something confined to history. I myself am all too aware that this dark day has sculpted our club in one way or another for generations to come. And is very relevant to this day.

I was born 18 years after this event and my dad told me all about it, and I my son too. When my then 8 year old boy asked me why our Utd were playing city in a plain red and white kit. As I explained to him that it was 50 years to the day that we lost 8 of our greatest players, including the greatest player of all time and future England captain, Duncan Edwards, it genuinely bought a tear to my eye.




Did you know Duncan Edwards, Dad, I mean really really know?
It’s just you’ve kept so many cuttings from all those years ago.
And were the babes the greatest, the greatest ever team?
Or just enshrined here in this history, just a bygone boyhood dream.
Now I know you idolised them, Dad, you gave each one their own page,
the pictures are well faded now, but I suppose that comes with age
Dad, did Tommy Taylor really head a ball against the bar,
which Harry Gregg collected, it had rebounded back so far?
And was Duncan Edwards really, the greatest of them all,
with silken skills and feathery touch, thirteen stone and six foot tall?
Now there’s a contradiction surely Dad, but I’m going to let it pass,
but Billy Whelan must have played once, without first going to Mass.
And was Harry Gregg a goalkeeper supreme?
Were Eddie Coleman’s hazy runs like red blurs on swards of green?
And Dad can you explain to me how it ever came to pass,
that Roger Byrne, just five foot nine, covered every blade of glass?
Or how David Pegg whose swerving runs, like a scorpion you said,
always struck the ball with venom, yet left no one for dead?
Or how it was that big Mark Jones could soar into the sky,
yet still patrol his area, so that nobody got by?

Then there’s the team of Sixty Eight, and Dad I’d like to know,
how George Best was always missing, yet played five hundred games or so?
And how was it Bobby Charlton, who played so many vital roles,
could be both a great goalscorer and a scorer of great goals?
Or how Denis Law had chipped a ball from forty yards or more,
it came back off the crossbar, and yet Law was there to score?
What use was it that Pat Crerand could split defences with one pass,
when the ball only ever landed on a sixpence on the grass?
And was Stepney’s save at Wembley, the best you’ve ever seen,
or was it just that it resulted in the fulfilment of a dream?
So now to Matt Busby, or Sir Matt as he’s now known,
from a mining town in Scotland, yet still one of our own?
Then finally there’s the Munich clock, the disaster time still shown.
why do people say that they never intended coming home?

The boy looked up with pleading eyes, and his father gently said.
There’s a lifetime of old memories in the scrapbook you’ve just read.
And of course there is some fiction, most fact, some strange yet true,
that’s what makes players into legends, now I’ve passed them on to you.
Those pictures may be faded son, but I can see them all so clear,
as if it were just yesterday, and I hold each memory dear.
Now I’ve passed this scrapbook on to you, to treasure for all time,
And you too will find your heroes and build to them a shrine,
and you’ll add your bits of fiction, but don’t worry son that’s fine,
to make legends of your heroes and then place them alongside mine.
And you’ll understand in years to come, as you watch great United teams,
why it is we call Old Trafford, The Theatre of Dreams.

RIP. Never forgotten.

[Wulfrunian]

_________________
FPC Predictor Cup Winner 2013

"You only have one life, I gave mine to the Wolves" - Stan Cullis 1916 - 2001

[poprstick]

Every Red Star fan in this date are with Manchester United.

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http://www.crvenazvezdafk.com/

[reddevilsineurope]

Sad to report the manchester evening news also didn't pay any tribute to the victims including the journalists,there was always a little tribute and usually in the sunday papers too.
There was however the usual in memoriam pieces placed by eddie colmans family and friends...RIP.

[Harjoe]

Manchesterunitedman as a dedicated united I am surprised that you forgot one player who died and to us in Ireland was a hero.
Liam (Billy) Whelan from Dublin lost his place on the team to Bobby Charlton but went along with the rest.
The season before he was the second leading goalscorer in the First Division
I was 14v at the time and remember it well at we had one of the early
T Vs in our town and our reception was from Belfast and very fuzzy and I still have all the newspapers from that time.

[manchesterunitedman1]

Harjoe wrote:

Manchesterunitedman as a dedicated united I am surprised that you forgot one player who died and to us in Ireland was a hero. Liam (Billy) Whelan from Dublin lost his place on the team to Bobby Charlton but went along with the rest. The season before he was the second leading goalscorer in the First Division I was 14v at the time and remember it well at we had one of the early T Vs in our town and our reception was from Belfast and very fuzzy and I still have all the newspapers from that time.

Didn't forget, i wrote David Pegg in twice in error-now been corrected-apologies.

[poprstick]

MANCHESTER, UNITED KINGDOM - FEBRUARY 08: An assistant from Goldeman James Auctions shows off an original football programme from the Red Star Belgrade game against Manchester United, the last game before the tragic Munich Disaster in 1958 that claimed the lives of 23 people on the teams aircraft at Munich. February 8, 2008, Manchester, England. The programme valued between GBP 1500-2000 was one of the many football memorabilia items on sale at the auction.


YOU MAY COMPARE ITEMS HERE:

http://www.life.com/image/79640509

http://www.footballprogrammece.....p;start=20