Wilf McGuinness: The Busby Babes would have played everyone off the park... I never ever forget them
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He held it together as he reminisced about the Busby Babes and how great they would have become had tragedy not cut them down in their prime.
But when he recalled the coffins of his Manchester United team-mates returning to Old Trafford, the glint in Wilf McGuinness ’s eyes was replaced by an aching sadness as he fought back tears.
“Even now, it’s very difficult,” said McGuinness, reflecting on the Munich air disaster of 1958, which claimed the lives of eight United players and 23 people in total.
McGuinness, 20 at the time, missed the trip because he was injured, having travelled abroad with Sir Matt Busby’s United squad on all of their previous European Cup ties that season.
“I was very fortunate to be injured, because I’d been on every trip, and it will never, ever stay out of mind,” recalled McGuinness, ahead of Tuesday’s 60th anniversary of the crash.
(Image: Popperfoto)
“It’s the No.1 thing that’s in my mind - those wonderful lads. The worst experience ever was the plane crash, when players died and some never played again.
“Thinking about how great they were will always stay in my mind. They were extra special and so young when they died.
“They would have been the best-ever United team and they would have won everything.
“The sad thing is there wasn’t enough film or footage of them. The fans of today missed them.
“Those players who died were magnificent, some of the best players the club has ever had.
“It was a terrible, terrible time. It was like being in a fog when it happened.
“You think of the ones that went. You don’t think of yourself escaping or not going on the trip.
“I’d been on every trip, as a reserve, really, because Eddie Colman and Duncan Edwards were the wing-halves, who were ahead of me.
(Image: Daily Mirror)
“They were magnificent players. Eddie was a Salford lad, a great player and my best pal.
“But Duncan was the best player, strong, with legs like tree trunks. He could hit long balls and short balls – he had everything.”
United were back playing 10 days after the tragedy, a team made up largely of reserve and youth team players beating Sheffield Wednesday 3-0 in an FA Cup tie.
“Some clubs would have gone under,” said McGuinness. “But we had a great youth team and had to bring some of those young lads through early, and bring in some players on loan.”
The tragedy took a huge toll on those who survived it, including United great Sir Bobby Charlton, with the coping mechanism back then simply not to talk about what had happened.
There were no grief counsellors to help them through the trauma and McGuinness admitted the tragedy was off-limits when those players who had survived returned to the fold.
(Image: Popperfoto)
“Obviously we didn’t talk about it with them,” said McGuinness, who attended every funeral of his team-mates who died in Munich. “It was mentioned, but only when it had to be
“There must have been many a tear shed, but not openly. They had to carry on. What else could they do?
“Bobby was always a quiet lad, but it knocked him for six. He It was a long time ago, but I think about it and I wasn’t even on the plane.
“So imagine what they were thinking, the ones who survived?”
Winning the European Cup in 1968, a decade later, provided some form of closure for United, finally laying their hands on the trophy the Busby Babes had set out to win before tragedy struck.
“That helped tremendously and we did think of the players we’d lost,” said McGuinness, by then a member of United’s coaching staff after injury forced him to retire at just 22.
“We thought ‘this is for them’, not for us. It was special. They made Manchester United, those lads who died that terrible day.”