Dressing room dissent led to Johnny Morris departing for Derby and Charlie Mitten exporting his wing wizardry to Colombia. Fans worried by the duo's departure were soon placated. The great Scot’s plan was to promote the youngsters he’d been recruiting and developing in the late 1940s. Jackie Blanchflower and Roger Byrne were the first to emerge and be labelled ‘Babes’ by the newspapers; in their debut season in 1951/52, United won the elusive League championship for the first time since 1911. In 1955/56 and 1956/57, Byrne lifted the Division One trophy as skipper of a fabled young side that included several more products of Busby’s youth academy. Eddie Colman, Mark Jones and David Pegg were all first-team regulars, having cut their teeth in the FA Youth Cup, which United won five years in a row from its inception in 1953. Not all the young talent was home-grown, however. The United manager was equally happy to plunge into the transfer market, as shown by the big money signings of proven internationals Tommy Taylor and goalkeeper Harry Gregg. Another young man who excelled for club and country was Duncan Edwards. So powerful, talented and mature was the Dudley teenager that Busby could not hold him back from United’s first team. In April 1953, he became the First Division’s youngest-ever player at the age of 16 years and 185 days. One match that epitomised the new Busby Babes era was against Arsenal at Highbury on 1 February 1958. In front of a crowd of 63,578 the Reds beat the Gunners in a nine-goal thriller with goals from Edwards, Taylor (2), Bobby Charlton and Dennis Viollet. Sadly, what was perhaps their greatest game on English soil was destined to be the last for that particular Manchester United team. From Highbury, the Babes headed off into Europe to play the second leg of a tie against Red Star Belgrade. Again they won 5-4, this time on aggregate but, on the way home, the celebrations were cut short by tragedy. After refuelling in Munich on 6 February 1958, the United aeroplane crashed, killing 22 people, including seven players – Byrne, Colman, Jones, Pegg, Taylor, Geoff Bent and Liam Whelan. Duncan Edwards died of his injuries 15 days later in a German hospital. The club, the city of Manchester and the English game entered a long period of mourning. It seemed inconceivable that United could recover from such an appalling loss. But as Busby defied the medics to recover from his crash wounds, the team bounced back and, patched up by Jimmy Murphy, they reached the FA Cup final in May against all odds. The Reds lost at Wembley to Bolton Wanderers, 12 months after controversially losing the final to Aston Villa. Despite the appalling devastation inflicted on United’s richly talented first-team squad, Busby and Murphy pulled together a makeshift pool of players and, remarkably, they finished second in the league in 1958/59. After the horrors of Munich, the rebuilding process had begun.
