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United Treated Us Like Vermin
From the Daily Mail, August 14th 1998
For over forty years, Elizabeth Wood has lived a life that has been ripped apart by mental torment and tragedy. Even now as she sits in her modest ground floor flat in West London, she can still see in her mind the apocalypse that was the Munich Air Crash. She can hear the screams of the dying and the terribly injured.
It has eaten away at her good humour and the remarkable resilience, affecting her health so badly that she needs the support of a day to day carer. But it has also given her an awesome inner strength to seek justice for those she feels were betrayed.
Hers is a compelling need to bring Manchester United to its knees in supplication. She feels that the club has failed in its duty to the bereaved.
Elizabeth is the former wife of Ray Wood, the goalkeeper severely injured in the disaster. She is now divorced but for three and a half years she has campaigned tirelessly to prompt the club to raise money for the families whose lives were torn asunder.
You might think that next Tuesday will be her red letter day when she will witness the harvest of her labours, with United holding a testimonial at Old Trafford. Sadly, she does not see it that way.
For United are still prevaricating on whether to underwrite the expenses for the game, in which Eric Cantona plans to make a farewell appearance. So far the club are refusing to contribute to the costs of the two teams - possibly £50,000 - so the fund will have to meet the expenses from ground receipts received from what will be a sell-out attendance.
"We just want the club to give the game some dignity. Offer some recognition to those who died, who gave their lives for Manchester Unite and gave birth to a legend".
Although United have sent train tickets for here and her carer, as yet Elizabeth is unsure whether she will attend the match at Old Trafford. "It depends where they put me - in the Director's Box with all the other grandees, or somewhere else."
"But why shouldn't I go? I am every bit as good as them and if it wasn't for me getting involved, this game would never have got off the ground"
She has no axe to grind with Alex Ferguson and admires what he has done and what he stands for, however, she is perplexed that a national institution like United should be so reluctant to give financial assistance to the fallen heroes and their families.
It appears that so far United have agreed only to donate the match receipts plus profit from food and drink sold at the testimonial match.
Elizabeth adds "What the plc is doing is immoral, leaving us as just rubbish, simple vermin. And as for Eric Cantona, it was his decision to retire. Suddenly, the game has become the Eric Cantona roadshow, while the survivors are like dancing bears at a circus."
With her disability precluding her from any form of work, she finds herself overdrawn at the bank and being pressed for repayment. "I dropped a line to Martin Edwards, asking him if it was possible to have a couple of thousand pounds in advance (of the payout from the testimonial match) to meet my commitments but he said it was not club policy."
"It's not just me that has been affected. Other families have been torn apart, yet all these years and not a penny from United to ease the suffering. The club believe they have no financial or moral obligation for the Munich disaster. Everyone connected with the game receives enormous salaries, even complete strangers whose lives have not been damaged by Munich."
"I saw those terrible scenes in the hospital after the crash. I stayed at Ray's bedside for eight weeks and I was there when Duncan Edwards died. Ray would ask me every day who was the next to have died."
"The airline flew us out to Munich and gave us daily expenses. Even my local priest offered financial help - but there was nothing from United."
"United have handled things so badly that some of the survivors and their families want nothing to do with Tuesday's match. I'm not sure that Ray wants me at the match but I feel that I have every right to attend."
United were unavailable for comment.
