THE
STORY OF
MAn UTD“ FOR CHARLTOn , THE VICTORY
REPRESEn TED THE COMPLETION OF
A LOn G An D PAIn FUL JOURn EY”
Top Nobby
Stiles, Bobby
Charlton and Bill
Foulkes
celebrate
winning the
European Cup
on a lap of
honour of
Wembley
Above left
George Best
scores against
FK Sarajevo in
the second
round of the
European Cup
Above right
Denis Law leads
United out
before the first
leg of their
semi-final
against Real
Madrid at Old
Traffordn a humid May night at Wembley, when the final
whistle blew to confirm Manchester United as the
first English side to win the European Cup thanks to a
4-1 victory over Benfica after extra time, the first
thought of their exhausted players was to share the
moment with their emotional manager Matt Busby.
By the time many of them got to him he was
already surrounded by a gaggle of photographers
and jubilant fans who had got on the pitch, but they
waded their way through the crowd to each hug him.
“This was unquestionably the pinnacle of his
football life,” his captain on that night Sir Bobby
Charlton has recalled. “For days he had been
reminded of the meaning of the game, the legacy of
Munich and how his boys had died in pursuit of this trophy. So many
people believed this night was for him and about him, so it was
natural everyone wanted to touch him at the end of the game.”
A glowing George Best, who had scored United’s crucial second
goal in the final, also tightly embraced his manager. “I can still see
Matt’s face at the end as if it were yesterday,” Best said before his
death in 2005. “He wasn’t crying, that came later, but he looked as if
he should have had a halo over him. He had one of those faces that
lights up, like the pictures you see of saints... He had achieved
something which had almost cost him his life.”
As his celebrating players later went on a lap of honour holding the
European Cup, the football correspondent of the Manchester
Guardian Eric Todd speculated Busby would look to the heavens
seeking the approval of what he called “the spirits of Munich”.
“The moment Bobby took the cup it cleansed me,” said Busby. “It
eased my pain of the guilt of going into Europe. It was my
justification... [It was] the greatest night of my life, the fulfilment of
my dearest wish to become the first English side to win the European
Cup. I’m proud of the team, proud for Bobby Charlton and Billy
Foulkes who have travelled the long road with me.”
Busby’s journey had begun in the summer of 1956 with his
decision to take his young side, then the champions of England, into
the European Cup for the first time. Less than two years later 23
people, including eight of his players, would die in a plane crash on a
snow-covered airfield in Munich as they travelled back from a game
against Red Star Belgrade.
As he lay in a German hospital bed, where he twice received the
last rites, he resolved to honour the deceased by winning the
European Cup.
As league champions in 1967, United were ushered back in to the
European Cup for only the second time since the Munich air disaster.
In this era chances to win the trophy were rare and precious, and
Busby was determined to finally grasp it.
In the first round United were handed the relatively easy task of
getting past the part-time Maltese champions Hibernian, who they
proceeded to comfortably beat 4-0 in the first leg at Old Trafford, with
two goals each from Denis Law and David Sadler, before coming
through unscathed with a goalless draw on a sandy pitch in the
second leg in front of an excitable crowd of 23,000 at the Empire
Stadium in Gżira.
In the next round United faced the bigger test of FK Sarajevo and
were relieved to come through a physical encounter with a goalless
draw in the first leg in Yugoslavia.
United would take an 11th-minute lead in the second leg back at
Old Trafford through John Aston before Sarajevo were reduced to ten
men when their captain Fahrudin Prljača was sent off for kicking
George Best. The Northern Irishman would exact his revenge by
scoring a decisive second after 65 minutes, and though Sarajevo
pulled a goal back United held on.
United gained a 2-0 win over Górnik Zabrze of Poland in the first leg
of their quarter-final at Old Trafford, with an own goal from Stefan
Florenski and a strike from Brian Kidd. It should have been more, but
they were thwarted by an incredible performance from the Górnik
goalkeeper Hubert Kostka.
“A Christmas card scene” is how The Times’ Geoffrey Green
described what greeted United when they arrived in southern Poland
for the second leg two weeks later, but when Busby saw the snow-
covered pitch he asked for the game to be postponed.O
The Italian referee Concetto Lo Bello dismissed this request and
the game went ahead with a disciplined United determined to
protect their lead, which they managed until the Poles scored 19
minutes before the end. It proved too little, too late and United went
through 2-1 on aggregate. “We came to contain the foe and did the
job we set out to perform,” said a relieved Busby.
United were now in the semi-finals of the European Cup for the
fourth time, and standing in their way of making it to the final for
the first time was Real Madrid, who had already lifted the trophy
on six occasions.
United secured a 1-0 win in the first leg at Old Trafford with a goal
from George Best to set up a mammoth game at the Bernabéu in
Madrid three weeks later (see page 25). “If we can survive there, we
have a good chance in the final,” said Busby. And so they did.
Awaiting United in the final at Wembley were the formidable
Portuguese champions Benfica, who had won the competition in
1961 and 1962, and boasted the great Eusébio, the leading scorer in
that season’s competition.
But a sense of destiny emboldened United. “I just couldn’t see us
losing a European Cup final against Benfica at Wembley... I can
remember thinking that we had come too far and been through too
much to fail,” said Charlton.
But the United captain also acknowledged such certainty was “a
dangerous feeling”, and they would need to be at their very best in24 The Story of Man Utd FourFourTwo.com