Bobby Charlton
Times December 11, 2006
Even in my brief experience of flying before Munich, I had noticed something about the twin-engined Elizabethan. It struck me that
it was a plane which took a long time to get off the ground. Going out for the game in Belgrade, I’d thought to myself as the plane
accelerated down the runway at Ringway Airport: “This is a long one.”
That was one reason why I wasn’t overly concerned by the aborted take-offs after we stopped in Munich to refuel on the way home.
When we returned to the terminal and had some coffee while they looked at the plane, there was still great excitement among the lads
about the fact that we’d played so well the night before to get past Red Star and into the semi- finals of the European Cup.
We had another big game on Saturday against Wolves, one that could put us back on course to win our third straight title. That was
something to anticipate and talk about with Dennis Viollet, who was sitting with me on the flight home.
In Munich it was different from other take-offs we’d experienced because it was snowing and there was slush on the runway. But for
me at least there was no feeling of apprehension. Indeed, I can still feel the excitement when we got back on the plane, the
exhilaration of young lads for whom everything was going as great as it possibly could go.
Then we went down the runway again and the captain slowed down and said: “We’re going back.” We stayed on the plane now, talking,
some playing cards, and then we were told: “Right, we’re off again.” Later I heard some of the boys had been anxious and there had
been some seat-changing. But as far I was concerned it had been a full flight and Dennis and I had just returned to our original
seats.
You trust airlines, don’t you? They knew what they were doing. Normal service had been resumed. But not quite. There was another
aborted take-off, another delay, and then we heard: “OK, everything has been fixed.” At the third attempt we went on and on; it was
taking so long to get off the ground, and suddenly I was aware that everyone felt the same. Then it went really quiet and as I
looked out of the window we hit a fence.
The fence looked so small. We knocked it flat and then everyone knew that this was really serious. You put your head down and I don’
t really remember anything else other than a lot of noise, a lot of clanging. I didn’t hear any cries or shouting. It was just a
blank, and then I woke up. I was still in my seat, some way away from the plane, and Harry Gregg told me I’d been flat out for ten
or 15 minutes. It turned out that I’d suffered concussion, nothing more.
I must have had a bang on the head because it all seemed like a dream. I just couldn’t understand anything that was happening. I
looked around and saw personal injuries I will never describe. At that time I didn’t know what had happened, or how brave Gregg had
been going back into the plane and pulling people out.
Bill Foulkes, Gregg and I got into some kind of pick-up van. They took us to the hospital. There they gave me an injection which put
me straight to sleep and I didn’t wake up until the following day. Then I got my first full picture of what had happened. It was
provided by a German lad in the opposite bed, who said he was sorry. I asked him if he had a paper and he showed me one which had a
picture of the plane and the headline was obviously about the crash. Suddenly I wanted to know what happened, every detail.
I asked first about the people who were really quite personal to me — Tommy Taylor, David Pegg, Eddie Colman. They were close,
really close. I spent so much time with them. Tommy and David and me were in digs in the same area and we all had mining
backgrounds. We were all such friends, so when the German lad read out that they were all dead, I couldn’t understand how I could
have been 50 yards away from the aeroplane, still strapped in my seat, without suffering anything but a bang on my head which needed
a few stitches. How could that be? How could I feel myself all over and find out that I was all right, completely whole, and my pals
were dead? I think about this fact every day of my life.
I didn’t think I was lucky or anything like that, I never gave that aspect a thought. What it was was just one basic question: how
can it be that I’m all right and all these other lads have gone? And you know, you feel a bit guilty. I do feel guilty, even now.
I didn’t have any religious feelings, I never thought about saying my prayers or anything like that. I just kept thinking over and
over again: “Well, what can we do?” But they wouldn’t let me do anything. They kept me in hospital for nearly two weeks. Jimmy
Murphy and all the people from Old Trafford came to my bedside and one of the questions I kept asking was: “Where’s Duncan Edwards?”
When I learnt that he was in the hospital and still alive, I said I had to see him.
As soon as they let me put my clothes on I went upstairs to find him — and then he gave me a bollocking. He said: “Where the bloody
hell have you been?” — just as he had that day when I reported late at the Army camp in Shropshire where we did our National
Service, and he went off to find me a better mattress when he saw that the one I’d been given had bits falling out of it.
It’s so hard to talk about Duncan — what a great player, what a great tragedy. Really, it’s difficult to talk about any of Munich. I
understand that people want to know about it and sometimes I think: “Am I being stupid?” But some things are very personal and that’
s why I’ve never talked about what happened that day in this much detail before.
One of the amazing things is that, for a period, I just didn’t remember; I didn’t know what had happened. Obviously, people lying in
the snow, that stays with you, but maybe grasping it all was too much. They were young lads, your pals, and there were the
journalists you’d got to know, men like Tom Jackson and Alf Clarke and Donnie Davies. You would talk about the game with them and
when you read their articles, you never thought they were trying to do you down, they were friends really.
There were people on the plane I’d never met before, some fans, some friends of directors, people from the embassy in Belgrade, but
we were all thrown together on that runway.
Eventually my mother and brother Jack came and I went home to the North East — by train and ferry. For a while I suppose I felt
sorry for myself, thinking: “OK, you’re entitled to a break, away from all that’s happened.” Even though I had a full medical
examination and was pronounced quite fit, that feeling that I needed some time and space of my own wasn’t easy to shake off.
But then I thought: “If Harry Gregg and Bill Foulkes are coming back, I’m fit to play.” That feeling intensified when I heard that
Duncan had died. I had to go to the first match United played after Munich — the fifth-round FA Cup tie against Sheffield Wednesday
at Old Trafford. Thirteen days had passed since the crash, mostly in a blur. An uncle, Tommy Skinner, drove me down. When we arrived
at the ground, the atmosphere was so extraordinary.
Nearly 60,000 people seemed to be saying: “Whatever’s happened, we’ve just got to win.” Harry and Bill were back in the side and the
entire team played brilliantly. We won 3-0 and I went into the dressing-room afterwards and the emotion was so strong, I still feel
it now. There were tears in my eyes, as there always are when I think of that day, and I wasn’t the only one.
When I saw Jimmy in the dressing-room I blurted out: “I’m coming back on Monday.” Suddenly it was the thing I most wanted to do.
Above all else, I wanted to play again. I suppose I wanted the release. Today I suppose it would be described as a need for therapy.
After Munich a terrible question crossed your mind: would the club survive? What would happen if we got relegated or thrown out of
the league because we didn’t have any players? But it made you think: “Well, we haven’t got to let that happen.”
Fortunately there were some good kids around, lads who came in and did well, and Jimmy was doing a fantastic job. The best therapy
for everyone was to be involved, to be striving to win matches.
Obviously life had changed and it would never be the same again for anyone at the club. It wasn’t for yourself any more; you weren’t
trying to build a career or anything like that. You were giving everything you had for Manchester United and the lads who didn’t
make it at Munich. My first game back was at West Brom in the sixth round of the Cup — three weeks after Munich. We drew 2-2, then
won the replay at Old Trafford with a minute to go. We drew with Fulham in the semi-final, then scored five against them in the
replay at Highbury.
Even so, it was a kind of miracle, getting to Wembley. We just had to do it. There was no other way. We had to get back there, we
had to show we were still going and it wasn’t for personal reasons. It didn’t matter who you were, you knew you had to do it. Of
course you still had to live your life, you still had a wife and a family who you wanted to do the best you could for. But the
closer we got to Wembley, the more I felt we were doing it for those lads who died at Munich and who we would always love so much.
By the time we got to Wembley I think it was incidental whether we won the final. We might have done so but for a bit of bad luck,
and maybe a little bit of bad refereeing, but that wasn’t the thing that we dwelt upon. The real point was that we had survived.
The greatest bonus of all was that the Old Man was back. Matt Busby came into the dressing-room before the game and it was another
occasion when the emotion was unforgettable. He looked around the dressing-room and his lads weren’t there. You could see that on
his face. When he came back from Germany he’d said he felt responsible for everything that had happened but now, in the Wembley
dressing-room, he just wanted to have a few words with the players who were going out to represent Manchester United on one of the
great days of the season.
He didn’t say much. He didn’t have to. It was enough that he was back — the chief, the father of the club. Time, we know, heals all
kinds of wounds and as the years passed we did get going again. I always remembered what The Boss said when he left the hospital in
Germany for home and a reunion with what was left of his team at Wembley. He was asked how long it would take to restore the club’s
position and he said, after a pause: “It will be five years.”
It would be five years before he could ever hope to have a team that was anything like the one he once had. It would, of course, be
five years almost to the day when we would return to Wembley and win the FA Cup. Denis Law was a star of the team. George Best would
make his debut at the end of that summer. Nobby Stiles was about to break into the team and find the form that would carry him into
England’s World Cup team.
In the hospital, along with the other survivors, I had asked the question: what can we do? It was simple enough, really. We could
just play in a way that showed we would never forget the lads who died at Munich.
