THE
STORY OF
MAn UTD“ U nITED STARTED THE POST-WAR YEARS WITH A BAn G, FIn ISHIn G
SECOn D FOUR SEASOn S OUT OF FIVE (THEY WERE FOURTH In THE
OTHER) An D ADDIn G THE 1948 FA CUP TO THEIR HOn OURS”
Top Stan
Pearson (out of
shot) scores the
third United
goal in the 1948
FA Cup win over
Blackpool
Left Wartime
bomb damage
rendered Old
Trafford
unusable
until 1949
Top right
Duncan
Edwards signs
an autograph
for a young fan
in 1958
Bottom right
United keeper
Ray Wood is
injured in a
clash with
Aston Villa’s
Peter McParland
during the 1957
FA Cup Finalhe years between World War I and World War II were
ones of turmoil for United; eight of them (across two
different periods) were spent in Division Two and only
once in 20 seasons did they finish in the top half of
Division One – in 1925–26, when they scrapped their
way to ninth (out of 22 teams) and reached their only
FA Cup semi-final of the interwar years. Their most
important match of that period did not even come in
the top flight but in the 1933–34 season when they
had to win on the last day at Millwall’s Den to avoid
relegation to the Third Division North. They did so,
2-0, and never again came close to dropping down
that far, but it was a salutary lesson for all involved
with the club.
The lesson appeared to have been learnt, and the club decided
that the answer to their dire financial straits lay in putting in place a
structure for producing their own players. Thus was born the
Manchester United Junior Athletic Club (MUJAC), and bringing
through youth team players became a raison d’être. Johnny Carey
and Stan Pearson were two of the first to benefit from MUJAC, and
both went on to make over 300 appearances for the club. Carey had a
formidable career in football, becoming a coach and working at
Blackburn Rovers, Everton and in his native Republic of Ireland.
Pearson was a Unite d fan and lived just hundreds of yards away from
the ground. He scored 148 goals in league and cup, putting him 12th
in the list of all-time United goalscorers. If he had done nothing else
in his football career, Pearson would always have been a fan favourite
at Old Trafford for his hat-trick against Liverpool in a 5-0 win on 11
September 1946 – the last hat-trick against Liverpool until Dimitar
Berbatov in 2010.
At that time United were using Maine Road as a venue for their
home games as Old Trafford had suffered extensive bomb damage
during the war. From the ashes of the Theatre of Dreams and the
underperforming team of the 1920s and 1930s was born one of the
greatest club sides of all time. And the architect of that building work
was one Matt Busby.
Back in 1930, the club’s unofficial fixer and scout, Louis Rocca, had
recommended the club buy a 21-year-old Manchester City winger
named Matt Busby, but the club couldn’t raise the £150 transfer fee
demanded by their city rivals. The deal never happened, but Rocca
and Busby stayed in touch, and when he decided to call time on his
playing career and move into management, Rocca persuaded him to
come to United. Chairman James Gibson had the foresight to agree
to Busby’s appointment, even though Busby demanded a level of
control over the club that was almost unheard of in those days.
The final piece of the jigsaw fitted into place when Busby bumped
into Welshman Jimmy Murphy at an army football match in Bari,
Italy, in spring 1945. Recalling the many times they had met on the
field, Busby had no hesitation in offering Murphy the job of his
assistant. The Busby era, aided and abetted by Murphy, began on 1
October 1945.
United started the post-war years with a bang, finishing second
four seasons out of five (they were fourth in the other) and adding
the 1948 FA Cup to their honours. That was the famous 4-2 win over
a Blackpool side featuring Stan Mortensen and Stanley Matthews.
Blackpool led twice in the game, but goals from Jack Rowley (his
second), then from Pearson and John Anderson in the final ten
minutes, were enough to bring the cup back to Manchester.
Four years later they claimed their first league title in over 40 years,
but that was more a last hurrah than the dawning of a new age. Even
as they won the 1951-52 league title, the ever-prescient Busby couldT
see his team were ageing and were in need of new blood. Of the 24
players who made league appearances in the 1952 championship-
winning side, only six remained by the time of their next win, four
years later. In the place of departing giants such as Carey, Pearson,
Rowley and Allenby Chilton came names to conjure with: Roger Byrne,
Eddie Colman, Tommy Taylor, Dennis Viollet, Bill Foulkes and, of
course, Duncan Edwards. The Busby Babes.
The birth of the Busby Babes can be tracked back to the unlikely
setting of Kilmarnock, on 28 October 1953, in a friendly to mark the
installation of floodlights at the Scottish club’s Rugby Park ground.
Busby decided he would omit both Rowley and Pearson in favour of
Viollet and Jackie Blanchflower, both just 20. Taylor also played, and
Kilmarnock FC historian John Livingstone recalls his father saying that
Taylor was ‘the best centre-forward he had ever seen’. The youngsters
played well in a 3-0 win and Busby decided to give youth its head.
Over the following couple of seasons he did occasionally have second
thoughts as to whether he had gone too far down the youth route14 The Story of Man Utd FourFourTwo.com