Crazy Horse's Content - Page 234

Saturday, 11 February 2006 Arsenal 2-1 Bolton, Aston Villa 1-1 Newcastle, Everton 1-0 Blackburn, Fulham 1-0 West Brom, Middlesbrough 0-1 Chelsea, Portsmouth 0-1 Man Utd, Wigan 0-1 Liverpool, Sunday, 12 February 2006 Man City 2-2 Charlton, Sunderland 1-0 Tottenham, Monday, 13 February 2006 West Ham 2-1 Birmingham,

February 8, 2006
39 replies

Munich Air Disaster Anniversary

Crazy Horse replied to a topic in General Football Discussion

Maybe I spoke too soon on the class act bit, read this....in fairness, I bet no clubs gave much of a s*** about their players in those days. http://www.sundaylife.co.uk/news/story.jsp?story=678138 Theatre of broken dreams Sunday Life Sports Editor Jim Gracey, a lifelong Manchester United supporter, takes a critical look and finds a case to answer 05 February 2006 The word hero is strewn about like confetti these days, nowhere more than in sporting terms. And in my role as Sports Editor of this newspaper, I have been fortunate to meet a procession of personal 'heroes'. Only one, however, truly fits the dictionary definition: 'Courageous, daring; one greatly regarded for achievements and qualities'. Harry Gregg, I know from personal testimony, does not regard himself as such. Yet how else can you describe a man who, having escaped a burning aeroplane, goes back not once, but twice, into the wreckage to rescue stricken pals and fellow passengers, one a baby girl? 'Daft' is one of his own more printable self-assessments. "If I'd thought it through, I'd never have done it," he once told me. "I acted on the spur of the moment. I don't consider myself any braver than the next man." Like it or not though - and believe me, the hero label does not sit easy with a sometimes-prickly Harry - all the evidence stacks up to the contrary. Thankfully, still alive and well and approaching his 74th birthday up on his beloved north coast, the former Manchester United and Northern Ireland goalkeeping legend remains, 48 years on, the central figure of one of the world's most emotion-stirring sporting disasters. Tuesday sees another anniversary of the Munich air crash when eight of the famed Busby Babes were wiped out as their plane came to grief while attempting take-off on a snowbound runway en route from a triumphant European Cup game in Belgrade. In all 23 people died - but the focus to this day has tended to be firmly fixed on the cream of young Manchester United footballers who perished and whose fate arguably made the world-famous club the wealth-creating icon it is today. Other than Harry Gregg, made more famous than his wishes in the weaving of the legend, few are aware of the trials and tribulations endured by the less fortunate survivors, including our own Jackie Blanchflower, tipped to follow the path to glory of his illustrious brother Danny (of 1961 Spurs double-winning fame), but doomed never to play again from the age of 25, due to his crash injuries. Bitterness, hardship and grievance are the common threads running through the stories of the lives of some of those 'lucky' to have walked away. They became forgotten, in some cases penniless and in poor health as a result of the crash, while the club mushroomed into a multi-million pound business. And for that oversight, a new book certain to become a best-seller, puts mighty Manchester United and those who made fortunes from the football giant firmly in the dock. On the evidence presented by The Lost Babes, there is certainly a case to answer. For nearly five decades, Harry Gregg, reasonably well-off by comparison but by no means wealthy, has championed the cause of his struggling pals and their families, less from bitterness, he insists, than from a sense of injustice that a football club could grow immeasurably rich while some of those whose suffering helped make it so were left to scrape a living. He has a point. For years, Harry has been the social and moral conscience Manchester United must wish would go away. No surprise then to find him figuring prominently in the pages of The Lost Babes. Harry would have been driven particularly by the plight of his lifelong friend from Northern Ireland schoolboy days, Jackie Blanchflower. He tells how at times, Jackie, who he pulled from the crash wreckage, "lived like an animal" as he was first forced to vacate his club house not long after and then lurched from one failed venture to another. Down the years he and his family felt let down time and again by the club. The only work they offered him was loading meat pies onto lorries owned by late, autocratic chairman Louis Edwards who seemed immune to the increasing poverty of those who had helped build his empire. Blanchflower was even refused tickets for games and while his mementoes sit proudly on dispay in the club museum (turnover £1.3m a year), his family are charged a fiver to see them. Neither does Edwards' son and successor as chairman, Martin, emerge with great credit in his portrayed attitude to the Munich unfortunates. Despite having made £35m from selling shareholdings in the club, Edwards jnr is reported to have asked, when the question of a testimonial and restitution for the Munich survivors and their families was put to him: "But why now after all this time?" In fairness to the present-day United, the book paints a picture more of crass, insensitive behaviour by individuals than a club policy of deliberate neglect. It must be remembered, too, that at the time of the crash and for many years after, compensation, counselling and after-care were virtually unheard of. Harry Gregg tells in his own compelling autobiography, published two years ago, how he was transported from the airfield with the dead and injured on the back of a coal lorry. Left alone that night in a strange hotel room, he was taken back the scene of the carnage next day to be photographed beside the shattered plane with the cries of his injured and dying mates still ringing in his ears. And when his modest insurance claim for lost luggage finally came through from the airline, BEA, £3 was deducted in excess baggage charges. Some would say Harry carries excess baggage to this day in his crusade for justice for those whose careers he saw cut short in a few terrible, chaotic moments long ago on an airport runway. But even after all this time and despite the recriminations the publication of this book will again stoke up, there is still time for right to prevail. How ironic that United's new owners, the American Glazers, having risked their fortune on the purchase of the club, find themselves less loved across a worldwide fan base than the universally-disliked Martin Edwards who made himself £35m on the back of it? When you are seeking acceptance, it helps when you know the history. The distant Mr Glazer could do worse in his quest than pick up this book... Or lift the phone to Harry Gregg.