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What was it like to see the Busby Babes play live?

Old Trafford.
by
Editorial Team
Wednesday 07 February 2024 13:00

“When I see youngsters at matches now, I am just so sad that television in the 1950s wasn’t like it is nowadays, so that they could actually see the Busby Babes as they really were.”

Manchester United fan Beryl Townsend, from Ardwick, is 86 years old and is not alone in holding such heartfelt memories of Matt Busby’s English champions of 1956 and 1957.

"We absolutely adored them and used to travel all over the country following them," she told us. "I feel privileged to have lived through it."
 
Last month, United Review invited Beryl to Old Trafford with three other supporters who also watched and cherished the Babes. She was joined by Derek ‘Digger’ Gardner (84) from New Moston, Roy Cavanagh MBE (76) from Salford, and Mike Carney (80) from Northwich.
 
Their recollections are clear, their affection undiminished. Without needing a cue to start, they are quickly eulogising about the greatest team they ever saw – their heroes back in full colour in their mind’s eye rather than the 1950s monochrome images we see today.
 
How good were the eight players we lost? What made them so special? What was it like following the Reds back then? Our quartet of time-served fans were only too happy to discuss – player-by-player – the United heroes of their youth...
Roy, Mike, Beryl and Derek (left to right) reminisce about the Babes in Old Trafford's 1878 Suite.

ROGER BYRNE

Derek: "Roger was a born leader. He was tough when he had to be tough, but he was very fair. There’s now a memorial to him at the Royal Oak pub in Gorton. When he first came to United, he played in the Central League as a wing-half, before Busby gave him his debut at Anfield in late 1951. He then played at left-back for about a season, then moved to left winger for the last six games and scored a load of goals [six goals in six games]. He finished up as the best left-back the world has ever known. I think Di Stefano said that as well – so it’s not just us saying it, but people who really knew what football was about."

Roy: "He was a leader. The England team, until Alf Ramsay was appointed manager in 1962, was selected by club chairmen. So, you could have the chairman of Sheffield United or Burnley or Birmingham City selecting the England team. It was very parochial. But if you were the Sheffield United manager, you’d want your left-back in. Caps were given like that. Roger Byrne, to sum up how good he was, played in 33 consecutive England games. If you think about those eight chairmen – none from United – picking the team, and yet he played all those games. It showed how highly he was regarded by everyone."

The players we lost in Munich

 Article

We revisit a feature in which Sir Bobby Charlton and Wilf McGuinness remember their team-mates who perished in Munich.

GEOFF BENT

Roy: "He was a lovely left-back. But in front of him he had arguably the greatest left-back in the world at the time, Roger Byrne. But there was a comradeship [at the club] and they were all mates. With the maximum wage for a player being £20, he probably thought: 'Why should I go to Sheffield? I’m playing with my mates here and I’m getting the occasional game.'"

Beryl: "Geoff was classy, wasn’t he? He was a bit like Denis Irwin, who never got the credit he really deserved at the time. He was a good player, but the trouble was that Roger Byrne was in front of him."

Derek: "He didn’t play many games, but he was one of the best. A bit like Wilf McGuinness, who also didn’t play a lot at that time. When they did stand in, they were as good as anyone."

Roy: "It might sound outrageous, but I think he would have got in any other team in the league. But he wanted to stay with his mates. You can talk about Duncan Edwards and others, but behind the best players in that team were Geoff, Jackie Blanchflower, Freddie Goodwin, Albert Scanlon, Bobby Charlton... they had players for every single position."

EDDIE COLMAN
 
Roy: "Eddie was ahead of his time. He liked fashion and he liked pop music. Him and Charlton were massive mates and Eddie lived in Archie Street, which was near Ordsall Park. He was a beautiful player. He had this swivel. It’s an old-fashioned saying... they’d say that his wiggle could have half the crowd moving the other way."
 
Beryl: "He managed to send people the wrong way quite easily, didn’t he?"
 
Roy: "How he hadn’t been picked by England then was a remarkable story to start with, but I think he would have been in the World Cup team in 1958. Certainly, he’d have been in the squad. Him and Edwards [were a great combination]. They were just perfect."
 
Derek: "In the 1950s, where the Munich Tunnel is now, what we used to do after home games was play football for about an hour. Then all the players would come out. One or two would even have a kickabout with us. Busby came out once and said: “Get off home!” But Eddie came and played with us. Even David Pegg played once or twice. They’d come out and play 20 minutes with us. They were so down to earth. I’ve got a photograph in the house, I think it was taken in Tommy Taylor’s digs, near the cricket ground. There’s about eight of them and they’re all playing instruments – Tommy’s playing a saxophone! It was not only football together; they were mates together, friends together."

Eddie Colman: The first rock 'n' roll footballer?

 Article

We salute the youngest of the lost Babes, and the embodiment of their swaggering, youthful exuberance.

DUNCAN EDWARDS

Mike Carney: "George Best was the greatest ever player, I wouldn’t argue with that. But to me, Duncan was the most complete. He had all the attributes. He could play any position, even in goal – like he did for a short while in the Charity Shield in 1956 against City!"
 
Derek: "I remember a game at Old Trafford, when we got beat 5-0 by City. Duncan played and Duncan fought his heart and soul out. We got hammered, but Duncan didn’t."
 
Roy: "Duncan was an absolutely superb footballer, who had his whole life in front of him. You just imagine what would have happened between 1958 and 1968 if he hadn’t been killed. In 1966, he would have been 29. If he’d have survived, would Bobby Moore have ever captained England? Duncan was a magnificent footballer, but he went the other way for us, he played as a team player. He didn’t think, ‘oh, I’m the prima donna; give me the ball’. He was a fundamental part of the team, and, of course, that goal he scored for England against West Germany... I mean, wow! That sums him up as a player perfectly. The sheer strength, moving forward, pushing people away, and then scoring. You can watch it on YouTube."
 
Mike: "He was the jewel in the crown of that team."

Beryl: "Duncan would have made a brilliant United captain after Roger. He didn’t even drink or anything. Though I do remember him getting in trouble for riding his bike to The Cliff with no bike lights on!"
 
Roy: "You could imagine him being captain of England."
 
Mike: "One year he finished third in the Ballon d’Or, when Di Stefano won it [in 1957]. I think Billy Wright was second. Di Stefano won it and played 42 games; Duncan played almost 100 games that year after playing for United’s first team, the youth team, England and also the army! Incredible."

Duncan Edwards: The total footballer

 Article

On the 67th anniversary of his passing, we remember a man Sir Matt Busby regarded as "the most complete player".

MARK JONES
 
Beryl: "He was lovely, a gentle giant. Very down to earth."
 
Derek: "He was what I’d call a stopper. Similar to Allenby Chilton, and another centre-half at the time, Dave Ewing at Manchester City. He wasn’t a brilliant footballer, but what a stopper. He’d stop the centre-forward playing football, and that’s what Mark Jones could do. Nat Lofthouse didn’t like playing against him, and nor did Stanley Mortensen, because he seemed to read them better than other centre-halves."

Mike: "The best comparison of recent times would be Stam or Vidic."
 
Roy: "He was just slightly older [aged 24] than Eddie and Duncan. He smoked a pipe, was married, and had a young kid. He loved budgies! He had loads of budgerigars. But he was a vital link. Wood, Foulkes, Byrne, Colman, Jones, Edwards, Berry, Whelan, Taylor, Viollet, Pegg: they all were like a cog in the right position, like a jigsaw piece. You needed players like Bill Foulkes and Jones and Ray Wood to make that team."
 
Beryl: "They were the unsung heroes."
 
DAVID PEGG
 
Beryl: "We all had our own favourites, and Olga [my sister] took a particular liking to David. Everybody always talks about Duncan [now] but the rest of them were also great. To me, it’s a bit insulting. My sister really liked David. I remember saying to her: “All the girls really like David.” But it was just the particular type of player that she liked. My sister went to David’s funeral. It cost her two days’ pay from work."

Mike: "He was a good-looking lad. They used to compare him to [actor] Victor Mature! But he could open a can of peas with his left foot. Brilliant."
 
Roy: "He was such a handsome guy. Seriously, if he had survived into the swinging sixties, he was a sponsor’s dream. Good-looking lad. He was the epitome of what a left winger or a right winger should be. Got the ball, two-footed, could beat the man on the outside, could cross the ball and find a red shirt. A marvellous player, and he made his England debut – though he only played once."
 
Mike: "Berry and Pegg were great at the most dangerous move in the game – getting the ball to the byline and crossing it for Tommy. Dave: The way he crossed the ball, Tommy Taylor would always be there [to get on the end]."

Tommy Taylor was a scorer supreme

 Article

Remembering one of United's best-ever strikers, ahead of the anniversary of the Munich Air Disaster.

TOMMY TAYLOR

Mike: "My favourite goal of Tommy’s was at my first away game, when we lost 4-3 at West Brom in 1957. I vividly remember him scoring a header – which was his masterpiece. I think it was a free-kick by Johnny Berry way out on the right. Tommy was beyond the far post when Berry started to run up to take it, and had run right across the face of the goal towards the near post. He rose like a bird and with just a little flick the ball went back where he'd come from, just inside the post. He was majestic in the air."

Derek: "They reckoned he could head the ball as far as some people could hit it."

Beryl: "Do you remember Henry Rose who used to write for the Express? He said: “If Tommy Taylor’s an England centre-forward, I’m Santa Claus!” He got thousands of responses! 'Dear Santa Claus...'"

Roy: "Tommy Taylor, in my opinion, is United’s greatest-ever no.9. But what about Ruud van Nistelrooy and Andy Cole and all the rest? Look at the ratio that Taylor scored at, goals from appearances – he’s got the highest ratio. He just beats Ruud van Nistelrooy. He was quite sublime. Right foot, left foot, majestic in the air. He had a smile too... they used to call him ‘The Smiling Executioner’. He was a quite brilliant player, and part of an inside-forward trio of Whelan, Tommy and Dennis Viollet. It was unique. We talk Best, Law and Charlton – and Best is the greatest footballer I have personally seen – but that trio was fantastic."

Derek: "What contemporary player would I liken him to? I’d say van Nistelrooy. But I wouldn’t say they were similar [in style]. I can’t see anybody similar to Tommy Taylor."

LIAM ‘BILLY’ WHELAN

Beryl: "We were struggling, and losing 5-2 in Bilbao, and Billy, who was my favourite player, picked the ball up. Apparently, Busby was shouting at him – “Get rid of it, get rid of it!” – but he didn’t. On what was virtually a mud heap, Billy scored, so it brought it to 5-3 so we only had to score three – only three! – in the second leg. Which we did, of course."

Derek: "Whelan, Taylor and Viollet. In the ’56/57 season, those three scored 90-odd goals between them in the three competitions. That’s why they were the first trinity."

Beryl: "Billy was just a class act. He was just so skilled on the ball and his ability to get so many goals... he was what I would call a cultured player, like Juan Mata. With those types of player it’s not all about them; it’s about the team. He could feed Tommy Taylor and people like that. It was never all about him."

Mike: "It was more about the guile and the skill with Billy. I don’t think he had a great lot of pace, but he was intelligent. He played in that attacking midfield [area]."

Beryl: "They absolutely adore him in Dublin. They’re so proud of him. The fact that the Brazilians were interested in Billy... that’s the type of player he was. He was so classy. He was a brainy footballer. It’s just a shame that we didn’t get to see more of him."

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