The Collyhurst youth team keeping the Busby Babes' flame alive
A girls’ team in the United-supporting heartland of Collyhurst have been learning all about the Busby Babes – thanks to our matchday programme United Review and its readers!
The Babes graced UR’s cover for the Crystal Palace match on 4 February, the closest game to the Munich Air Disaster’s 65th anniversary.
And through the efforts of Crumpsall-born Red Simon Hornby, who runs one of the teams at Collyhurst Youth Junior Football Club, scores of young fans have been using our special tribute edition to learn about the tragedy of Munich.
“We’ve got around 200 kids that train and play and I run the girls’ section,” explains Simon. “So I have 20-25 coming down every Wednesday for training and playing matches on weekends, aged from six to nine.
“Kevin Donald [a well-known Red, nicknamed ‘Barmy Kev’] is the grandparent of one of the girls. He’s a season ticket holder, like myself, and between various sources, we manage to source programmes. Sometimes we pay for them; sometimes we get given a few freebies from various friends within the club. So I put together gift bags.
“We got given a box of programmes after the Munich anniversary match, with some little booklets in, and information. So the last gift bag had Fred the Red masks in it, some colours, workbook activities, and multiple programmes. We gave them all out at training and had a little chat about Munich, to give them a bit of education.”
The poignant story has drawn a positive, if emotional, reaction from many of the girls.
“They’ve all had a read of the books, and they’ve taken a real interest,” says Hornby. “They’re shocked at how everything transpired, because nowadays that kind of accident would probably never happen. Even I can break down in tears when I talk about it!”
Collyhurst is, of course, the birthplace of United legends Nobby Stiles and Brian Kidd, and Hornby is passionate about keeping the United flame flourishing within the area.
“It’s a United area... but being so close to City’s ground, the area has turned a bit more blue. I’ve got 23-24 [players in the squad] – I’d say 20 are United. Some have turned to United through years of me, and we’ve turned a few Blues red!”
Whatever club the girls follow, it’s great to see Reds like Simon using UR to keep the Babes’ memory alive, in one of the most United-mad areas of our city.
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