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The Munich Air Crash and the affect at Home Park

memory man

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It is well known that 60 years ago today a plane carrying the entire Manchester United first team, most of the management and a high number of national and local journalists crashed at Munich. At that time the manager at Argyle was former Manchester United player Jack Rowley, who had arrived from Old Trafford three years earlier. In the summer of 1957 he returned to United to recruit fringe players Bryce Fulton and Tommy Barrett. In any other era they would have been part of United's first team but at this time the exceptional number of high quality young players, known as the Busby Babes, held them back. As the details of the severity of the crash became known, all three Argyle men found it hard to comprehend. Rowley had only been released from United as a thank you for his work with the famed Busby Babes. Fulton for his part had been part of the hugely successful United youth team that won the first FA Youth Cup in 1953. The two wing-halves in that side were Eddie Colman and Duncan Edwards. The inside forwards were Billy Whelan and David Pegg. Now, at 5 o'clock on 6 February 1958, Colman, Pegg and Whelan were known to be victims of the crash and Edwards was fighting for his life in a German hospital. In 2008 Rowley's daughter Susan remembered her Dad being absolutely grief-stricken. In 2012 Bryce Fulton's widow explained to me that Duncan Edwards and David Pegg were particularly close friends with Bryce and were regular visitors to his home. During a visit to Home Park fin 2009 Tommy Barrett remembered being in a daze. "I saw it on a billboard on Royal Parade but it was a few hours before the enormity of it became apparent. There wasn't the TV and radio then. Argyle immediately offered us back to United and gave us time off to go to the funerals. Jack was distraught - he had known these lads from their first day at Old Trafford. Bryce was close mates with several of them and took it very badly. It was very upsetting for all of us and it is something you never forget. I knew them all. Believe you me, they were definitely as good as everyone says and they were getting better every year. And no airs and graces either, just ordinary lads who were extraordinary footballers."
 

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memory man":1iqz71mq said:
It is well known that 60 years ago today a plane carrying the entire Manchester United first team, most of the management and a high number of national and local journalists crashed at Munich. At that time the manager at Argyle was former Manchester United player Jack Rowley, who had arrived from Old Trafford three years earlier. In the summer of 1957 he returned to United to recruit fringe players Bryce Fulton and Tommy Barrett. In any other era they would have been part of United's first team but at this time the exceptional number of high quality young players, known as the Busby Babes, held them back. As the details of the severity of the crash became known, all three Argyle men found it hard to comprehend. Rowley had only been released from United as a thank you for his work with the famed Busby Babes. Fulton for his part had been part of the hugely successful United youth team that won the first FA Youth Cup in 1953. The two wing-halves in that side were Eddie Colman and Duncan Edwards. The inside forwards were Billy Whelan and David Pegg. Now, at 5 o'clock on 6 February 1958, Colman, Pegg and Whelan were known to be victims of the crash and Edwards was fighting for his life in a German hospital. In 2008 Rowley's daughter Susan remembered her Dad being absolutely grief-stricken. In 2012 Bryce Fulton's widow explained to me that Duncan Edwards and David Pegg were particularly close friends with Bryce and were regular visitors to his home. During a visit to Home Park fin 2009 Tommy Barrett remembered being in a daze. "I saw it on a billboard on Royal Parade but it was a few hours before the enormity of it became apparent. There wasn't the TV and radio then. Argyle immediately offered us back to United and gave us time off to go to the funerals. Jack was distraught - he had known these lads from their first day at Old Trafford. Bryce was close mates with several of them and took it very badly. It was very upsetting for all of us and it is something you never forget. I knew them all. Believe you me, they were definitely as good as everyone says and they were getting better every year. And no airs and graces either, just ordinary lads who were extraordinary footballers."

Nice post Steve,
What we will never know is how the English league and the England team in particular would have turned out if this terrible accident never happened, I was 14 at the time and still remember the somber news on the radio, from that day on I have always looked out for Man U results.
 
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I was in my Form 11 at school and remember hearing the news on the radio that evening circa 1900hrs after The Archers, which was my parents' obsession. I had a near 4 mile coach trip to school in the morning after, and I remember all the chatter amongst the boys on the school bus concerned the disaster. I felt it absolutely remarkable that the scratch side pulled together by Man U to compete in the FA Cup match soon after, made it all the way to the Cup Final. It was just a pity that there was no fairy tale end to that season for them
 
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Slightly off topic but... I once had the pleasure of sharing a few drinks with Harold Riley who some might know as a reasonably famous golf artist - at The Belfry he has a bar named after him. He’s a Salford lad who was signed for United in his youth and played alongside many of the Busby Babes. As a talented artist he was unsure whether to accept an offer from The British Council to spend a year studying in a Valencia which is renowned for the quality of its light.
After seeking advice from Matt Busby he accepted the offer but remained friends with Edwards and Coleman who arranged to visit him in the Valencia fishing village where he had been lodged. It so happened that their visit coincided with the annual challenge match between the village and their fiercest rivals representing the ‘toffs’ from the nearest inland town. Riley persuaded the visiting Babes to turn out for the fishermen s team which, unsurprisingly, ended in a clear victory for the fishing village team. The Mayor was so pleased with the win that he presented Riley with a plot of land at the edge of the village.
He also had a very funny story about being late to play golf with Prince Andrew at Royal Liverpool but that would be totally off topic ...
 

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bringonthemilkman":2yvprqyl said:
Slightly off topic but... I once had the pleasure of sharing a few drinks with Harold Riley who some might know as a reasonably famous golf artist - at The Belfry he has a bar named after him. He’s a Salford lad who was signed for United in his youth and played alongside many of the Busby Babes. As a talented artist he was unsure whether to accept an offer from The British Council to spend a year studying in a Valencia which is renowned for the quality of its light.
After seeking advice from Matt Busby he accepted the offer but remained friends with Edwards and Coleman who arranged to visit him in the Valencia fishing village where he had been lodged. It so happened that their visit coincided with the annual challenge match between the village and their fiercest rivals representing the ‘toffs’ from the nearest inland town. Riley persuaded the visiting Babes to turn out for the fishermen s team which, unsurprisingly, ended in a clear victory for the fishing village team. The Mayor was so pleased with the win that he presented Riley with a plot of land at the edge of the village.
He also had a very funny story about being late to play golf with Prince Andrew at Royal Liverpool but that would be totally off topic ...
Excellent. In amongst the memorabilia Brenda Fulton had retained was a post card from Eddie Colman - sent from somewhere in Spain when United were playing in a youth tournament.