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Cherishing the memory of Manchester United s Busby Babes Friday 5 February 2021
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Exactly 63 years have passed since the tragic plane crash in Munich in which eight Manchester United footballers and three club officials were among the 23 victims – and the Manchester Munich Memorial Foundation is firmly committed to preserving the memory and legacy of those who lost their lives.
Article top media content The Old Trafford mural: Manchester United s team lining up before the match in Belgrade on 5 February 1958. Bottom right: The statue of Sir Matt Busby. Getty Images
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On the afternoon of Thursday 6 February 1958, the Elizabethan charter airliner carrying Manchester United’s party home from their successful European Champion Clubs’ Cup quarter-final second leg against FK Crvena zvezda in Yugoslavia crashed on take-off in wintery conditions at Munich-Riem Airport in Germany after a refuelling
The Busby Babes & Munich Air Disaster: European pioneers who were denied their chance at glory
Manchester United players lined up for the final time in Belgrade | Aleksandra Grujic/Getty Images Oh, England’s finest football team its record truly great,
its proud successes mocked by a cruel turn of fate.
Eight men will never play again, who met destruction there,
the flowers of English football, the flowers of Manchester
- The Flowers of the Manchester
The story of the Munich Air Disaster in 1958 is well known around the world, a tragedy that resulted in the deaths of 23 of the 44 people on board a flight from Belgrade to Manchester that had stopped in southern Germany for a scheduled refuelling.
Tony Dunne asked for a gun to end his torment, Bill Foulkes thought he still played in his 70s and David Herd didn t recognise his own face. the 1968 Man United team has been decimated by dementia, here the families tell us their heartbreaking stories
Tony Dunne, Bill Foulkes and David Herd were part of famous 1968 United team
They all won the European Cup with United and all tragically died with dementia
Dunne s wife revealed he would hallucinate and ask for a gun to end his torment
In his 70s, Foulkes thought he still played while Herd began defacing his photos
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The consultant neuropathologist, whose groundbreaking study has already found that ex-players are three and a half times more likely to die of a neurodegenerative disease than the general public, told the family he had completed his analysis, that the damage to Nobby’s brain was ‘very severe’ and that it ‘could only have been caused by heading the ball over a sustained period’.
Stiles died in October aged 78 after battling the disease for many years. He had also suffered from prostate cancer. His son John, himself a former professional footballer, told this newspaper that there was a ‘mixture of anger and vindication’ at the news.