Jack and Bobby: A story of brothers in conflict

Still in the army during United’s championship-winning season of 1956/57, Bobby played in 14 League matches, as well as the Cup Final against Aston Villa, in which Peter McParland’s vicious, jaw-breaking challenge on keeper Ray Wood probably cost United the Double. When Wood had to go off for treatment, Bobby was an obvious candidate to take his place between the posts. He had always loved keeping in practice sessions, and, according to Bobby Harrop, ‘He could have been a professional goalkeeper. We used to stay out after training, I would go in goal while he shot and then we would change over. I said to him, “You could be a keeper.” He had it all, speed, good reflexes, could cover the ground and deal with crosses and chips.’ But on this occasion at Wembley, United captain Roger Byrne signalled the Ulsterman Jackie Blanchflower to take over.

By the middle of the 1958 season, Bobby was establishing himself in that great United team. There was even speculation about an England place. John Giles, who joined United in 1955, is full of admiration for him at this time. ‘He was only 19 but he was brilliant, absolutely brilliant. Even amidst all that talent at United, he stood out for me because he could do it on his own, instinctively. He was a very instinctive player. He had such natural ability, with pace and beautiful balance. I have to admit that he was not always so enjoyable to play with as to watch. It was hard to relate to him on the pitch, in terms of working together on the ball, because he would be doing his own thing. When I first went to Old Trafford, I was taught by Matt and Jimmy: “As soon as you get in a nice position, find another player, let the ball go simple and quick.” But playing with Bobby, I found that, sometimes, when I got in a good position, I did not get the ball from him. And I would be thinking, “Oh come on Bobby.” Then I saw that he had suddenly gone past three or four players and was threatening the goal. He could break all the rules because of his individualism.’

Giles also remembers Bobby, in this period, as a ‘shy individual but always friendly. We got to know each other because we were both young, living in separate digs and, in the evening, there was often very little to do. So we would wander up to the park and play bowls. In the right company, with people he trusted, he was one of the lads, enjoyed a drink, a game of cards, a song – he loved Frank Sinatra and had a good voice. He could be funny as well, with a dry sense of humour. Yet if a stranger came into the group, he would switch off immediately. He just would not be the same. And he could also be moody. If someone said what he considered to be the wrong thing, then he would take it to heart. Again, he was not a big drinker, but he liked a beer.’

Wilf McGuinness, one of his closest friends at this time, agrees about his shyness. ‘Bobby used to come in to Mrs Watson’s, just pick up a paper and start reading it. He did not converse that well, partly because he had a very strong Geordie accent.’ But, for all his shy nature, Bobby should not be thought of as a loner. For he revelled in the company of the Babes. It is no exaggeration to say that this period was probably Bobby’s happiest in football, when he was surrounded by friends of his own age and was enjoying the first freedom of adulthood. In later years, he would use the word ‘paradise’ to describe the pre-Munich years he spent with Duncan Edwards, Eddie Colman and the other United greats of that era. He was particularly fond of the streetwise Eddie Colman, as he told Eamon Dunphy: ‘I had come from the north-east which was, I suppose, a bit parochial and Eddie was the flash little townie. He was the first person I ever saw in drainpipe trousers. But he was brilliant. I was very close to Eddie. We were all close at that time. At Christmas I would stay with him. We’d play in the morning, then go back to his place for the turkey. His family were nice, lived in a tiny little street, where there was a real community spirit.’

The Babes also enjoyed the Manchester nightlife, going to the Bodega jazz club or the Plaza, run by Jimmy Savile, or the Continental, run by Eric Morley. Bobby’s Manchester in the 1950s was a much more exciting place than Jack’s Leeds. Wilf McGuinness recalls: ‘We were just ordinary lads. We’d go to the Plaza, have a bit of a snogging session, if we were lucky. Maybe we would see them again, maybe not.’ A more sedate activity was going to the pictures. As one of the perks of being on the staff, United players had free passes to all the cinemas in the city, as well as to the dog tracks at Belle Vue and the White City. ‘You’d be in the cinema on Saturday night, and suddenly you’d hear an “aaah” and a big “uggh”. It was the sound of footballers with cramp in their thighs and their hamstrings. We didn’t have rubdowns as they do today,’ remembers McGuinness. Bobby adored the cinema, according to Albert Scanlon: ‘A perfect day for Bobby would go: training, lunch in town, and then, in the afternoon, a visit to the News Theatre on Oxford Street to watch cartoons. He loved cartoons and would watch any that were showing. He regularly went into town two or three times a week, even by himself.’

Bobby could be high-spirited as well. Ronnie Cope, who was at United between 1950 and 1961, told me, ‘Bobby was a cheeky little kid. He, Wilf and Shay Brennan were so close, they always liked a joke, taking the mickey out of someone. We used to call them “The Three Musketeers”.’ Twice as a young player Bobby was hauled up before Matt Busby for rather puerile offences. The first occurred when he and some other young players, travelling through Manchester by bus, started firing off water pistols at pedestrians in the street. In fact, according to Ronnie Cope, the toy guns contained urine rather than water, which made the incident all the more serious when it was reported to Old Trafford. The second difficulty arose when, still under the legal age limit, he was reported for having a beer in a pub. As Busby wrote in his memoirs, Soccer at the Top: ‘When he was a mere lad, I had to put him right. He was very young and I heard he had been seen to have a drink of beer. So I sent for him and I told him, “If I ever hear you have been drinking beer again before you are old enough, you will be for it.” It was a long time before he had his next glass of beer.’

On a more sophisticated level, Bobby further incurred the disapproval of Matt when the manager found out that he, Shay and Wilf McGuinness were planning to open a nightclub in Manchester. McGuinness explains, ‘Wherever we went, there were always a lot of girls around, especially because Shay was a good looking lad. We thought we could make some money out of our popularity.’ So in the summer of 1959 negotiations were started with local businessman Nipper Leonard to take over his nightclub in Queen Street, with an agreement concluded late one night. Yet when McGuinness turned up at training the very next morning he was confronted by an angry Busby: ‘What’s this I’ve heard about you buying a nightclub?’ McGuinness continues, ‘I could not believe how he knew because it was after midnight when we had reached the deal. By 9.45 the next morning it had got back to Matt. But he had a lot of informers all over the place. He warned me: “I think you three go into enough nightclubs without owning one. Just take a look at your contracts.” We had to have permission if we wanted to go into another business. That was the end of it. It was never discussed ever again.’

Nor, in his less serious youth, did Bobby always show the commitment that was later to mark him out as a model professional – especially if he was not being supervised by Jimmy Murphy. ‘I used to clown around with Dave Pegg and Eddie Colman. Even when we were training we used to lark about. Our trainer, Tom Curry, was getting old and he couldn’t get around with us kids. He used to have a terrible time with us ducking out of training periods,’ said Bobby in an interview in 1961. John Docherty says that Bobby, for all his quietness, was just like any other young lad. ‘He would sometimes get pissed out of his head. I remember after a European Cup game, in 1957, we were in a nightclub, chatting up a few birds. Then an argument started and all of a sudden we’ve wrecked the place. Bobby was involved in that. He was no different.’

Interestingly, Jack and Bobby were probably closer in this period than they were at any other time in their lives. After years of moving in different directions, their lives were now dominated by the same adventure into professional football. At last they had something truly in common, and they began to enjoy each other’s company. Jack would travel over to Manchester or Bobby to Leeds. Sometimes, they would go to David Pegg’s house in Doncaster. Together, they played golf, went to the pictures or the pub, listened to Bobby’s collection of records, took girls on dates or even went fishing, more happily than they had ever done in childhood. On occasional Sundays, Bobby would drive with Jack to Ashington to see their parents – this was when Bobby, before the rift with his mother, was still very happy to visit his home town. In a reflection of this better relationship, when Jack got married to his girlfriend, Leeds shop-worker Pat Kemp, in January 1958, Bobby was his best man at the wedding. As Jack told the journalist Norman Harris, ‘It was not through convention but because he was my best friend.’ Yet even in the new mood of harmony, some still detected a sense of distance between them. Laura Crowther, the daughter of Jack’s landlady in Leeds, saw Bobby on his regular visits and knew the Charlton family well. She told me, ‘Bobby came over a lot and stayed here the night of the wedding. But I’ll tell you something, he and Jack never appeared close. He was very quiet, still seemed a bit of a mother’s boy and that would get on Jack’s nerves.’

With Leeds having won promotion in 1956, Jack and Bobby played regularly against each other in the last four years of the 1950s. In one game at Elland Road in 1958, Bobby humiliated Jack by nutmegging him. ‘Come back, you little bugger,’ cried Jack as his younger brother raced towards the goal. But Jack has always maintained that he felt no jealousy towards Bobby, only delight in his achievements at United. What he did feel envy towards was the glamour of Bobby’s club compared to his own. ‘It didn’t worry me at all when our kid began to get write-ups as the greatest thing since the Archangel Gabriel. All I was jealous about was the club he had joined – Manchester United. I was jealous about their success, their traditions, the way people thought about them as a team. That’s the way I wanted people to think about Leeds,’ he said in 1970. John Giles recalls, ‘I met Jack at Old Trafford a few times because he would come over and see Bobby. I used to feel a bit for him then, because he was out of it, while Bobby was starting to do so well. I don’t think Jack liked the way that he was always referred to as Bobby’s elder brother. I don’t think it was jealousy – he was proud of Bobby and wished him all the best – but he found it awkward.’

Though he was sympathetic to Jack, Bobby could not have been happier in his own position. He loved the whole unique atmosphere of the Babes, their special companionship on and off the field. Tragically, that idyllic life was about to be shattered.

CHAPTER FIVE The Victim (#ulink_ee6b31ea-96c1-566f-aacf-720665e4ad86)

The United players were in high spirits as they gathered at Manchester’s Ringway airport on Monday 3 February 1958, ready for the long flight to Yugoslavia for a vital European Cup tie.

The Busby Babes were in the form of their lives, having just achieved a sensational victory over Arsenal at Highbury two days earlier. It had been the most exhilarating game of the season, with United 3–0 up at half-time before winning 5–4. And victory had been won in the daring style that epitomized the Babes. Never once, even after Arsenal had equalized, did United seek to consolidate in defence. Instead, they stepped up their attacks, with Duncan Edwards and Eddie Colman continually driving through the midfield, while Kenny Morgans and Albert Scanlon mesmerized the Arsenal full-backs as they tore down the flanks. ‘They just kept coming at us, and the score could have easily been 10–7. It was the finest match I ever played in,’ said Arsenal keeper Jack Kelsey. Bobby Charlton, fast becoming a regular member of the side, played his part in this dramatic win, scoring United’s second after a brilliant run by Scanlon. Charlton later gave this description of the goal, recalling how exhausted he was by the hectic pace of the game: ‘After reaching the corner flag, Albert crossed a perfect pass for me. My breath was coming in great gasps and my stockings were sagging around my ankles, but somehow I managed to muster some reserve strength to hit the ball into the back of the net.’

United might have been enthralling crowds at home and across the continent, but, with typical narrow-mindedness, the English football establishment had not approved of the foray into European competition. When the European Cup was established in the 1955/56 season, the Football League refused permission for the reigning champions, Chelsea, to take part. It was the same insular attitude that had prevented England participating in the World Cup before 1950 and its spirit was encapsulated by the words of Alan Hardaker, League Secretary, about continental football: ‘too many wogs and dagoes’. But Matt Busby, a far more cosmopolitan, expansive figure than most League mandarins, had no time for such an isolationist mentality. So when United were crowned champions in 1956, Busby defied the League and took up the challenge of Europe. The first season proved memorable. Through a string of brilliant performances, most notably a 10–0 demolition of Belgian champions Anderlecht at home, United reached the semi-finals, where they were narrowly beaten by the mighty Real Madrid.

Now there was a chance of reaching the semi-finals of the European Cup again. Making the second visit of that season behind the Iron Curtain, having earlier beaten Dukla Prague, United took a 2–1 lead into their away fixture with Red Star Belgrade. Though Bobby had played the previous year against Real Madrid at home, this was to be his first trip to Europe. His naivety about travel led to some ribbing from his team-mates, as Jackie Blanchflower recalled: ‘He had been kidded about the shortage of food in Eastern Europe and packed his suitcase with biscuits and sweets.’

But, in taking such precautions, Bobby had not been as foolish as his colleagues imagined. For when the team arrived from Manchester after an uneventful flight, they found Belgrade to be a city of depressing bleakness and poverty. The icy grip of totalitarian communist rule could be felt everywhere, as Albert Scanlon recalls: ‘We arrived in Belgrade at Monday teatime and went to this hotel. For some reason there were armed guards on every floor. By the time we got our meals they were stone cold. After we unpacked, a few of us went out for a walk and we saw people wearing shoes from old car tyres. It was incredible, and in all the shops people had to queue for everything. On the whole, Belgrade was a dismal place with not much to do and nowhere to go.’

The arrival of the United team was the most exciting event to happen in the city for years. As the team coach made its way to the stadium for the match against Red Star, thousands lined the streets to try and catch a glimpse of the players, all the while shouting out, ‘Busby Babes’ and ‘Red Devils’. Immediately after the kick-off United showed why they had built such a reputation. As against Arsenal, they were 3–0 up before half-time, and, again, Bobby Charlton played a vital role, scoring two goals. Frank Taylor, the journalist with the News Chronicle, wrote of his second effort, ‘Out of his goal came the acrobatic Mr Beara in his black jersey, to be shattered by a pile-driving shot which hurtled from Charlton’s boot well outside the penalty by some 25 yards – to thud into the back of the net. Belgrade couldn’t believe it. No-one ever shot from so far out and beat Beara. But Charlton did.’ Albert Scanlon says of Bobby in that game: ‘It was probably the best I had ever seen him play. He was just outstanding. His shooting was so ferocious, his balance so perfect.’ Though Belgrade stormed back in the second half, supported by some rather dubious refereeing, United managed to draw 3–3, maintaining their aggregate lead.

There were a few sore heads the next morning when the United party made its way to Zemun Airport. The night before, the celebrations, which had started with an official banquet at the British Embassy, had gone on into the early hours of the morning. It was 3am when captain Roger Byrne and centre-half Mark Jones finally arrived back at the team hotel, two hours later than Matt Busby’s imposed curfew. More sedately, Bobby, David Pegg and Dennis Viollet had been drinking at the hotel bar, while goalkeeper Harry Gregg – the big Ulsterman recently bought by Matt Busby from Doncaster Rovers – organized a serious card school in his room.

As they prepared to embark on the journey home, there was a delay over Johnny Berry’s papers, as Harry Gregg remembers: ‘Digger Berry had lost his passport and you didn’t get out of there without it. So everybody’s pockets were turned out – no luck. It was a huge, overbearing lady who handled the immigration and eventually it was decided to unload the hold, where they found Johnny’s passport in his suitcase. So we set off late.’ Already tired and hungover, the team had seen quite enough of Belgrade by the time they were finally allowed to get on board the plane, a BEA twin engine Elizabethan specially chartered by United for the Yugoslavian trip. Those in the know were pleased to be flying in an Elizabethan, for not only was this the aircraft used by the Queen, but it also had an excellent safety record. Not one of this type had ever crashed.

After the exertions of the last few days, the passengers were only too anxious to get home, especially because United had an important League game against Wolves, their biggest rivals, on Saturday. But the journey back to Manchester was not a direct one, for the plane had to stop for refuelling at Munich. It was a bright, crisp morning when the airliner left Yugoslavia. As the Elizabethan made its way across the German border, however, the sky began to darken, turning from blue to dull grey, while the temperature fell dramatically. By the time the pilots began their descent, a thick layer of snow and slush was forming on the tarmac of Munich airport. Once the plane had landed, the passengers were told to disembark, for the refuelling was due to take at least 40 minutes. The Chronicle journalist Frank Taylor described the experience of leaving the cabin: ‘As soon as the door was opened the wind gusted in, bitingly cold, as though it had blown in from the frozen wastes of Siberia. Duncan Edwards led the rush down the airliner’s steps, with sleet lashing into the face like a razor. “Get your snow shoes on, lads. Short studs are no use in this stuff,” he called over his shoulder as he picked his way carefully over the squelchy treacherous surface of slush into the warmth of the airport lounge.’

Inside the airport, Bobby, like some of the others, wandered around the shops looking at souvenirs, and then had a coffee. At 2.15pm, an announcement was made that the refuelled aircraft was now ready for boarding. As the players trooped back through the biting gale, Roger Byrne noticed that the wheel tracks of the plane, made only 40 minutes earlier on landing, were now almost invisible because of the snow. Yet, despite the poor weather, there was little sense of unease amongst the passengers. They were looking forward to lunch, a game of cards, and a kip. ‘We’ll be landing in Manchester around 7pm,’ a steward told Bill Foulkes, the big full-back.

At 2.19pm, the pilots, Captain James Thain, the commander of the flight, and his co-pilot, Captain Ken Rayment, were given permission to taxi for take-off. The passengers heard the familiar purr of the engines revving up, and then the Elizabethan began to move down the runway. ‘I remember looking out of the window as I always did to see the wheels leave the ground and mark the moment we became airborne. But just as the twin engines burst into a full-throated roar and we started to gather speed, the brakes were jammed hard and the Elizabethan came to a grinding halt. Dennis Viollet and I grinned at each other as we were jolted forward and everybody laughed and joked about the incident. We had stopped halfway down the runway – nobody knew why,’ wrote Bobby later.

The reason the plane had stopped was because the pilots had noticed an uneven tone in the engines and a sudden fluctuation in the port pressure gauge. This was caused by a problem known as ‘boost surging’, as Captain James Thain later explained: ‘Boost surging was not uncommon with Elizabethans at the time, particularly at airports like Munich because of their height above sea level. Over-rich mixture caused the power surge, but though the engines sounded uneven there was not much danger that the take-off power of the aircraft would be affected. The Elizabethans were very powerful in their day and you could have taken off on one engine.’ Confident in the effectiveness of his aircraft, Thain decided to make a second attempt at taking off. But this time, he and Rayment agreed to open the throttles more slowly, because a quick opening was known to be one of the causes of boost surging.

At 2.34pm, the plane raced down the runway but once more the take-off had to be abandoned halfway down the runway when Captain Thain noticed that the port pressure was still fluctuating wildly. There was now a mounting sense of anxiety in the cabin. ‘What the hell is going on here!’ yelled Frank Swift, the huge former England goalkeeper who was now working for the News of the World. Some of the passengers lapsed into empty theorizing – one journalist suggested the sludge had short-circuited the plane’s electrical system, a patently absurd idea given that the lights were still working in the cabin. Then a stewardess emerged to tell everyone that there was a slight technical fault. ‘We hope to have it corrected soon but, in the meantime, please disembark and wait in the airport for a further announcement,’ she said. Once again the players and press marched through the snow. ‘Don’t worry, no matter what the fault is, we’re not in any danger. There is a point of no return on the runway where, if the pilot is not happy about the plane, he can still pull up quite safely,’ Frank Taylor, who had served in the RAF, told Bobby as they walked together to the terminal.

It was at this moment that a fateful decision was made by the crew of the Elizabethan. William Black, the station engineer, had been summoned to the cockpit to discuss with Captains Thain and Rayment the problem of boost surging. The pilots explained that they had taken all the recommended steps – such as the more gentle release of the throttle – to eliminate it. Black said that the only alternative was to re-tune the engines, but that would involve an overnight stop. ‘I don’t think that is necessary. After all, the starboard engine has performed normally,’ replied Captain Thain, who decided he would have another go at take-off. He was only reflecting the desire of everyone, manager, players and reporters, to be in Manchester by nightfall.

The passengers, who had just reached the terminal, were now told to return. ‘We had ordered coffees, but we never got them because we had to go back on to the plane,’ recalls Ray Wood, the United reserve keeper. Bill Foulkes felt that the order to return came too suddenly. ‘There was something wrong. I wasn’t happy.’ Some of the journalists were equally surprised that a mechanical fault could have been mended so quickly, for it was barely ten minutes since they had last left their seats. Frank Taylor, with his wartime flying experience, was also worried about the possibility of ice on the wings. In appallingly cold, snowy conditions, he did not see how the wings could have been properly cleared of ice in such a short space of time. He was right to be concerned, for Captain Thain later admitted: ‘Ken and I had not been out of the cockpit but we talked about the snow and looked at the wings from the flight deck. We had lost the film of snow we had noticed before our first departure and decided not to have the wings swept.’

There was now a palpable sense of nervousness as the passengers took their seats. ‘I went into the aircraft and saw the steward, Tom Cable, white as a sheet, strapping himself into the very rear seat. I thought to myself, “There’s something seriously wrong here,” ‘ recalls Harry Gregg. It was often asked later why none of the travellers simply refused to board the plane. ‘We were footballers. We just did what we were told,’ says Albert Scanlon, though he does remember Frank Taylor telling him, ‘Sod this. If you don’t take off first time in the RAF, you scrap it.’ Most of the passengers went back to the same places they had taken throughout the journey, but, crucially, Bobby and Dennis Viollet decided to move further up to the front of the plane, swapping with Tommy Taylor and Dave Pegg, who – in a tragic miscalculation – believed they would be safer at the back.

There was a brief delay when it was discovered, after a headcount, that one of the passengers was missing. True to his journalistic instincts, Alf Clarke of the Manchester Evening Chronicle had got on the phone the moment he arrived in the terminal to give his paper the story of the aircraft’s problems. He arrived just as the plane was about to taxi. ‘I had to tell the office. After all, we might have had to stay in Munich all night,’ he explained. ‘Oh, blimey, don’t say that, Alf,’ came a chorus from the other newsmen.

At 2.56pm Captain Thain requested permission to move out to the runway. It was immediately given and, after further routine checks, the aircraft started rolling. At precisely 3.02pm came a vital message from the control tower: ‘Your clearance void if not airborne by zero four,’ In effect, Thain had been given just two minutes to decide whether to make another attempt at take-off. If he was not in the air within the next 120 seconds, then there was little chance that the Elizabethan would be heading for Manchester that day.

Captain Thain decided to press ahead. A hush descended on the passengers. The usual footballers’ banter had disappeared completely. ‘I tightened my safety belt and glanced at my watch,’ recalled Bobby Charlton later. ‘It was just after three. There was a nervous kind of quietness in the cabin. I turned to Dennis Viollet and said, “I’m not taking my coat off this time.” Once again we set off down the runway, the fields slipping past the window in a kaleidoscope as we gathered speed. I looked out of the window to see the wheels lift and I am sure they didn’t rise more than two inches. Then, as I moved my head, I saw the fence at the end of the runway and I knew we couldn’t clear it.’ Up in the cockpit, the two pilots knew only too well that something was disastrously amiss. Captain Thain had watched in horror as the needle on the speed indicator reached 117 knots per hour, then suddenly dropped to 105. The plane had already passed the point of no return. He looked up from the instrument panel to see the fence looming ahead. And at that terrifying moment, he heard his co-pilot Ken Rayment scream, ‘Christ, we’re not going to make it.’

Ray Wood remembers the sense of foreboding as the plane hurtled down the runway for the third time, with one engine again sounding as if it was struggling to maintain power. He turned to Roger Byrne, who was showing real fear as he gripped the armrests of his seat, and said: ‘Roger, what’s happening?’

‘We’re all going to be killed,’ replied the United captain.

‘Well, I’m ready,’ said Billy Whelan, the devout Catholic. They were the last words that Billy Whelan ever spoke.

Seconds later, the Elizabethan drove through the perimeter fence and ploughed on across a road. Its port wing crashed into a house, setting the building on fire. Miraculously, those inside, Mrs Anna Winkler and her three young children, managed to escape without being hurt. But the impact tore off the wing and part of the tail, sending the plane spinning further through the snow. Amidst a deafening sound of grinding metal, the disintegrating fuselage then hit a tree and a wooden hut, where there was a truck filled with fuel and tyres. As the twisted wreck came to a juddering halt, flames lit up the wintry Bavarian sky.

Harry Gregg, who emerged as the real hero of the Munich disaster, gave me this account of what happened to him: ‘As we crashed, I thought I was about to die. I thought I would never see my wife and little girl again. I was thumped on the head and didn’t know what was happening. Everything was breaking up around me and there was this terrible noise, the noise of ripping and tearing. I could sense smoke and flames. Then suddenly the noise stopped. It was pitch black. I thought I must be in hell because of the blackness. I lay there for a while and felt blood running down my face. Eventually I realized I could not be dead. Above me to the right, I saw a hole. So I crawled over to it and looked out. Below me I could see Bert Whalley, one of the trainers, lying on the ground. I kicked at the hole to make it bigger and then dropped down beside Bert. In the distance, I could see people rushing away from the plane. Then Captain Jim Thain appeared with a fire extinguisher and shouted at me, “Run, you stupid bastard, it’s about to explode.’”

But Gregg ignored the captain’s advice when he heard the sound of a baby crying. (This was the 22-month-old daughter of Vera Lukic, whose husband was the Yugoslavian air attaché in London. United had agreed to give mother and child a lift back to England.) He went into the wreckage, pulled the child to safety, and then crawled back to rescue the mother. Moments later, he came across his fellow keeper Ray Wood, who recalls: ‘I was trapped in the plane, under a wheel, and Harry and some others got me out. They actually broke my leg with a crowbar as they lifted the wheel off me. I was laid out in the snow. I remember two stewardesses standing in front of me, alongside Peter Howell, the Daily Mail’s photographer.

“How are you son?”

“Peter, give us a fag.” I was shivering in the snow and I badly needed a cigarette. I was about to light it when I was quickly stopped. It would, of course, have been madness.’

Bill Foulkes was another who survived: ‘I got out and ran as fast as I could. I must have been thinking that the plane would blow up any second but I can’t remember having a clear thought in my head. I must have run about 300 yards through thick snow. When I was out of breath I stopped and looked round for the first time. I could not believe my eyes. The plane was cut in half – a mass of jagged metal. Bodies were strewn from it in a neat line in slush and water, where the snow had been melted. The tail end of the plane was ablaze in a petrol dump.’

In this scene of utter desolation lay the figure of 20-year-old Bobby Charlton. As the plane had broken up, he had fallen out of the cabin, still strapped into his seat, and landed near the tailplane. When Harry Gregg found him, lying in a pool of water made by the melted snow, he thought he was dead. Alongside Bobby was the equally cold and motionless body of Dennis Viollet. But, still fearing that the plane was about to explode, he grabbed both Bobby and Dennis by the waistbands of their trousers and dragged their bodies, like ragdolls, away from the wreckage. ‘I didn’t stop to think. They seemed to be dead. Dennis had a terrible cut on his head but Bobby was not badly marked. I pulled them through the snow and left them by a pile of debris,’ he told me. Yet again, Gregg returned to the burning mess, this time finding Matt Busby, lying in agony in the snow, and Jackie Blanchflower, with blood pouring from his arm. He continues his account, ‘Blanchy’s arm was half-hanging off. I ripped off my tie and used it as a tourniquet. I had just finished tightening it, when I turned round and got the biggest shock. There were Bobby and Dennis standing up, staring into the fire. Well, that nearly killed me. I was sure they had been dead. I sank to my knees and wept, thanking God some of us had been saved.’ Moments earlier Bill Foulkes had returned to the scene, where he had seen Bobby Charlton strapped into his seat. He then went over to Busby, and sat holding his hand. ‘At that moment, I thought Harry Gregg and I must be the only ones on our feet. And then suddenly Bobby Charlton woke up, as if he had been enjoying a nap, and without a word, walked over to us. I asked him if was all right and he just kept looking.’

It is often claimed that Bobby Charlton has never talked about his experience of the crash. Now, while it is true that he is extremely reticent on the subject, he has, in fact, given several accounts, including an interview in the Daily Mail just a day after the crash. ‘There was a terrible grinding crash as the plane went through some railings. A split second later it had smashed into a house or a building. I can remember being hurled through the side of the plane. I must have been knocked out. When I came round I was in the middle of a field about 40 yards from the wreck. I was aching all over as I tried to get up,’ In an interview in 1964, he gave this graphic description of what he felt on the moment of waking: ‘I could hear nothing but the howling of the wind, and I could see nothing but a couple of bodies. Neither was moving,’ Bobby did not know that he had been dragged away from the plane by Harry Gregg and was puzzled by the distance he had travelled. ‘Four of us were lying in the slush,’ he wrote in his 1967 book Forward for Engfand. ‘I can only guess that the aircraft had spun round as it hit the house and tipped us out. There seems to have been no other reason four of us should have got out and I cannot believe we were physically thrown all that way. I saw Dennis Viollet next to me, also still strapped into his seat, with a nasty gash on his head. The boss was lying a few yards to our right and seemed to be having trouble with his legs. I released my safety belt and stumbled over to him. I felt as if I was in the middle of a painting, standing there with the action frozen in an atmosphere of stricken unreality,’ Before he died in 1999, Dennis Viollet gave an equally vivid recollection of that devastating landscape. ‘My head was split wide open and I was covered in blood but Bob seemed to have received only a slight knock to the back of his head. It’s strange what people do in certain circumstances. I was not really conscious. I remember walking back to the plane and Bob was there with Bill Foulkes and Harry Gregg. Bob put his arm round me and I asked him a stupid question. ‘Have we crashed, Bob?’ It was then that I understood what had happened for I could see the carnage all around me. It was an absolute nightmare, a scene of utter destruction, with mangled wreckage and bodies lying in the snow. I felt terribly angry. I just wanted to dash into the plane, find the pilot and attack him.’

A Volkswagen van appeared. Matt was placed on a stretcher and put at the back along with Jackie Blanchflower and Johnny Berry, while Bobby, Dennis Viollet, Harry Gregg and Bill Foulkes were told to sit in the front. The van sped away, but before it had travelled far, it was stopped to load a stretcher carrying the badly burned Mrs Miklos, wife of the Manchester travel agent Bela Miklos. The Volkswagen moved off again, bouncing over the snow. Bill Foulkes takes up the story: ‘The driver was speeding for all he was worth and we were lurching all over the road. I must have been in a state of shock. I could not stand it. I told the driver to slow down and asked him, “What the hell are you doing? Trying to get us all killed?” I got no response, so I punched him on the back of the head. I must have thumped him half-a-dozen times, but he just ignored me. I shouted for Bobby and Dennis to do something. They just stared ahead, with a vacant expression on their faces.’

When they arrived at the Rechts der Isar hospital, Bobby, Harry and Bill initially walked round the corridors in a kind of trance, unable to grasp the enormity of what had happened. They were then seen by a doctor, who explained that they would each be given an injection. All three protested that they were not badly injured, but, without listening, a nurse got hold of Bobby’s arm and started to give him the jab. The moment the needle pierced his skin, he fainted and was caught by the doctor as he fell. Bill Foulkes and Harry Gregg were having none of this. They ran down the corridor and out of the hospital. Eventually, it was agreed by the doctors and BEA that they could stay in a hotel. Neither of them were big drinkers, but they worked their way through a bottle of whisky that night.

Meanwhile, Bobby was put in a small ward. Amazingly, given the carnage all around him, he was only suffering from shock and minor head injuries, which required just two stitches and a bandage. But, having collapsed once, the doctors wanted to keep him in for observation. The first Bobby knew of the extent of the disaster was the next day, from a German sitting in the bed next to him. As he later recalled in Weekend magazine, ‘The German began to read out loud from a newspaper. When he went on to say that Dave Pegg, Eddie Colman and Tommy Taylor were dead, I didn’t want to hear any more. I couldn’t believe it and I didn’t want to. I shut my ears to him but he just went on and on. I thought he would never stop. It was the worst moment of my life.’

Bobby was kept in for a week. During that time he and the other survivors were visited by Jimmy Murphy, who would normally have been on the flight to Belgrade but instead, in his capacity as part-time manager of the Welsh national team, had been in Cardiff for a vital World Cup qualifying tie. In the absence of Matt Busby, Murphy had the daunting task of trying to rebuild the team. In an attempt to boost the morale of those who were injured, Murphy had asked Bill Foulkes and Harry Gregg to go round the wards. They saw Matt Busby in his oxygen tent, hovering on the verge of death before making an astonishing recovery, thanks partly to the medical care of Professor Georg Maurer, the Chief Surgeon of the Rechts der Isar Hospital. Gregg remembers, too, the moment when he and Murphy came to the bed of Duncan Edwards, whose injuries were so extensive that he had been given only a 50–50 chance of survival. ‘He was lying still as we approached, then he suddenly opened his eyes. “What time’s kick-off?” Jimmy, trying to hold back the tears, just whispered, “Three o’clock son, three o’clock.” Duncan replied, “Get stuck in.’” Less than a fortnight later, Edwards was dead.

Ray Wood, who initially shared the same ward as Bobby, gave me this insight into what it was like for him in those weeks after the crash. ‘When I first woke up I saw Bobby in the bed opposite. I was absolutely freezing cold. There was a doctor beside my bed holding my hand. Now I had seen films where people have lost their leg and they think their foot is freezing. That is exactly how I felt.’ Wood’s condition worsened and he was transferred to another ward. ‘I had concussion and double vision. I could hear music playing all the time. My leg was in agony and, such was the pain, that I was drifting in and out of consciousness. I didn’t even know what day it was. When my wife turned up, I asked her, “Where did you come from?” Harry Gregg tells me that when he visited the hospital, he found me in the operating theatre, where the doctors were working on my eye. They actually had it right out of its socket, sitting on the cheekbone. Typical Harry, dear man, he says that the thought passed through his mind, “Well, Ray won’t be troubling me for the keeper’s position anymore.’”

But for all their agonies, Ray Wood, Matt Busby – and Bobby – were the lucky ones. Of the 43 people on board the BEA Elizabethan, 23 died in the crash or soon afterwards. The tragic roll call included the co-pilot Kenneth Rayment, three Manchester United officials: Walter Crickmer (secretary), Tom Curry (trainer) and Bert Whalley (coach), and eight players: Roger Byrne, Geoff Bent, Eddie Colman, Mark Jones, David Pegg, Tommy Taylor, Billy Whelan and Duncan Edwards – ‘all my mates’ said Bobby later.

Two subsequent inquiries by German investigators concluded that ice on the wings was the chief cause of the accident. This was a verdict fiercely disputed by Captain Thain, who spent 11 years fighting to clear his name. In the eyes of his supporters, he was vindicated in 1969 by an official British inquiry which stated that sludge on the runway was to blame. But there was little hope of his returning to work as a pilot. He had been dismissed by BEA in 1960 for his failure to check for ice, as well as for breaching airline regulations – his other technical offence had been to swap places with Kenneth Rayment on the journey back from Munich. BEA rules stipulated that, even if the co-pilot was flying the plane, the commander of the flight had to remain on the left-hand side of the cockpit. The enforcement of this requirement might seem the height of pettiness, and Thain put forward a strong defence for his behaviour. First, he pointed out that Rayment was an experienced pilot, indeed more experienced than he was in flying Elizabethans. Second, he argued that he had a better view of the instrument panels from the right hand side. But this did not wash with BEA, and for good reason. For the change of seats may have left, as Frank Taylor wrote in his book The Day a Team Died, ‘a suggestion of divided responsibility in the cockpit’, which resulted in a tragic disharmony of action. There is the possibility that in the last seconds on the runway, just as Thain was pushing the throttle for more power and trying to retract the under-carriage to achieve take-off, Rayment may have been working in exactly the opposite cause, slamming on the brakes to bring the plane to a halt.

Whatever the cause, Munich left a gaping wound on Manchester United, which has still not healed to this day. And, emotionally, Bobby Charlton was to suffer more than most. On 14 February 1958, he was the first of the survivors to leave the hospital. But his real pain was only just beginning.