Munich Anniversary

[AliBobbyJ]

Willing to wage anything from Chevrolet to tampax

Shame that people tarnish the memory of a sad & terrible event with cynicism/sarcasm like this, just let the Busby Babes be mourned and remember they were the finest English football team of their era. And to add to my post above, Byrne, Edwards & Taylor were the spine of the England national team that would likely have won the 1958 World Cup in Sweden had those three been present.

 

[Maly]

Shame that people tarnish the memory of a sad & terrible event with cynicism/sarcasm like this, just let the Busby Babes be mourned and remember they were the finest English football team of their era. And to add to my post above, Byrne, Edwards & Taylor were the spine of the England national team that would likely have won the 1958 World Cup in Sweden had those three been present.

& your post is sponsored by AIG

You are aware of the facts with regards to the post aren’t you?

Yes it’s a sad tragedy, but it was United themselves who decided to use it as a marketing tool, not the poster you have a problem with, so why not call United out about it?

The fact United did that is the sad thing, not someone calling them out for it in my opinion

How much do you think AIG paid United for the privilege?

 

[Berts Neck]

Shame that people tarnish the memory of a sad & terrible event with cynicism/sarcasm like this, just let the Busby Babes be mourned and remember they were the finest English football team of their era. And to add to my post above, Byrne, Edwards & Taylor were the spine of the England national team that would likely have won the 1958 World Cup in Sweden had those three been present.

Oh come on... how many older posters watched Love thy Neighbour, Rising Damp and laughed at the time..we were all racists for sure.. I am sorry but if you expect me to say because I laughed at those programmes, sang about 6/2/58 I am a racist or bigot you are mistaken..just different times..people putting graffiti on Churchill's statue, statues coming down all over the country do not understand history..the issue about 6/2/58 is not about disrespecting losses because it was a tragedy.. My old man used to do the City/Utd games alternate weeks.. how many people now do that ?? it's about football rivalry,taking the Mickey,trying to upset your opposing fans..and by the way Mickey relates to micturition not the Irish..Read this forum,dippers, rags,c*nts,thats all ok ? Believe me in a few years half the people on this forum will be excluded, me included. Orwell was so right.

 

[Centurions]

Oh come on... how many older posters watched Love thy Neighbour, Rising Damp and laughed at the time..we were all racists for sure.. I am sorry but if you expect me to say because I laughed at those programmes, sang about 6/2/58 I am a racist or bigot you are mistaken..just different times..people putting graffiti on Churchill's statue, statues coming down all over the country do not understand history..the issue about 6/2/58 is not about disrespecting losses because it was a tragedy.. My old man used to do the City/Utd games alternate weeks.. how many people now do that ?? it's about football rivalry,taking the Mickey,trying to upset your opposing fans..and by the way Mickey relates to micturition not the Irish..Read this forum,dippers, rags,c*nts,thats all ok ? Believe me in a few years half the people on this forum will be excluded, me included. Orwell was so right.

It's not the 70s anymore though, and yet you're still making 'jokes' about it.

 

[Spurs quarter 69]

It's not the 70s anymore though, and yet you're still making 'jokes' about it.

Anyone who lived through the seventies knows it was a great time to be alive and especially to be young for reasons I've outlined elsewhere.

 

[northstander62]

my 1 st derby was early 80's and the munich songs were rife, also at every home and away match either in the grounds or pubs, and yes i learnt a many of them. But as we get older we stop, however at the 50th anniversary, many derbies before and since, its not us that do the aeroplane, arms stretched out, its them trying to get a reaction, which i haven't witnessed us react to for a long time

 

[Berts Neck]

It's not the 70s anymore though, and yet you're still making 'jokes' about it.

Not at all.Just pointing out that times have changed and what we chanted doesnt make us bad people..just very different times when people generally did not pander to those who are most easily upset.

 

[Mike Cledford]

Well said..

One of my earliest memories is being hoiked up onto The Old Man's shoulders to see United's 1958 Cup Final team being greeted at the Town Hall in Albert Square. To give him a rest, our neighbour from Hulme (who was a season ticket holder at Old Trafford along with his wife, both of them watching United home and away for many years) also let me sit on his shoulders to see above the crowd. My aunts and uncles were there too, all Blues mixing with their Red friends to honour the team that had defied the odds after that dreadful air disaster.

Because it was the city's disaster as much as anything else. We shouted for Matt Busby because he had been a Blue in the great City side of but 20 years before, along with Frank Swift who had died in the crash. Nearer to home, my mother had been a babysitter as a young woman to Albert Scanlon, who survived the crash. She would have been devastated if he'd been one of those who lost their lives that day.

Growing up in the 60s, the disaster only came back into our consciousness as kids when on February 6th notices would appear in the Manchester Evening News' 'In Memoriam' column. There would always be something from Duncan Edwards' family, together with Roger Byrne's, David Pegg's and Tommy Taylor's families. I recall as a student on the 15th anniversary in 1973 posting a newspaper clipping which had the complete poem 'Flowers Of Manchester' on a university noticeboard. Nobody touched it or desecrated it. Because it was the city's tragedy.

Sadly, United haven't covered themselves with glory in dealing with the tragedy. In the 60s, the treatment of the players and other staff was frankly appalling (forcing players and their families out of club houses, minimal financial support, not even a whiff of a testimonial to generate funds to support those affected and so on and so on). The initial 'strategy' always seemed to be 'benign ignorance' and not to allow themselves to be opened up to legal challenges.. if we don't mention it, it and everyone will go away.. and our supine press/media was complicit in this, never highlighting what was going on, hardly ever mentioning the Munich disaster until February 6th loomed again..

I spoke with Albert Scanlon on a few occasions in the 70s when I was a student and would occasionally meet my parents in town of a Saturday night for a drink with them at Sinclair's Oyster Bar when they would often bump into Albert. He was clearly very upset about the way he and others had been treated by United post-Munich. On the other hand, they had put up a clock at Old Trafford, so that was that, then..

Fast forward to the early 90s. Time had passed, fans from various clubs including our own had long begun the dreadful chanting that referenced the Munich air disaster and football was beginning to gear up for the modern age that we now know, involving not just mega-bucks sponsorships and tv deals but also Stock Market flotations of clubs and the like. United led the UK charge on all of these things. And that's when the Marketing Johnnies started taking over our great game. It isn't unfair, I believe, to state that this was the time when the Munich air disaster was slowly turned into a marketing tool by these people, becoming part of the legend of the club alone, when it became all about United and nothing and no-one else.

And as usual when people at a distance from the thing get their greedy marketing mitts on something like this, they messed it up, culminating in the farce that was the 1998 testimonial on behalf of those who had lost their lives 40 years before. The obscene amount of money paid to secure Eric Cantona's involvement in that game when, yet again, ordinary people were asked to dip their hands in their pockets, was grossly insulting. 'Munich' has become, in the hands of these people, part of the 'branding' to be exploited, that is quite clear..

However, none of United's actions/behaviours justifies anyone chanting vile obscenities regarding the Munich air disaster. When I hear our fellow Blues use this awful event to poke fun at our Red rivals, I despair at their stupidity and crass insensitivity. Like other Blues on here today, I've noticed that it has reduced over recent years (largely, I think, because of the outstanding behaviour of Blues at the 2008 50th commemoration at the OId Trafford derby). I hope it will disappear completely. And when Munich is commemorated in the future, I also hope it will be the city's loss at the heart of it.

I have just recalled another sad item about this generally sad story. According to the author of 'The Lost Babes', a United fan, the club were against any form of memorial act at Old Trafford by fans and even families in the early years following the crash. Even when they relented and allowed a small service by a determined group each anniversary, the club removed the wreaths and other tributes as if it was some sort of rubbish as soon as the mourners had gone a very callous act and hard to understand.
There is quite a lot on the book about the financial arrangements surrounding the testimonial match. Harry Gregg and Albert Scanlon are quoted a lot and it is fair to say they were not happy with the club at that time or the many years preceding. I was working in the Quays and we went in the pub by the swing bridge after work. It was full of United fans with a range of accents excited by 'Cantona's Return' with little consideration for the real reason behind it and the dent in the monies raised by the costs of getting Cantona and his retinue there and accommodated at Mottram Hall.
So much of this is completely at odds with the feelings of the citizens of Manchester as a whole at the time of the crash. Even to a schoolboy the pain and numbness of the city was obvious. My dad took me to the first match at OT with a patched up team and a programme with the United lineup represented by 11 blanks. I recall my childish wonder as grown ups were crying in public both in the long queues to get in and inside the ground.

 

[JCB001]

Probably the best post I've read on here for a long time.

I can second that

 

[Centurions]

Not at all.Just pointing out that times have changed and what we chanted doesnt make us bad people..just very different times when people generally did not pander to those who are most easily upset.

Yes, they were the good old days when you could call a N***** a N***** and everyone could have a good laugh about it.

It did make us bad people regardless of what decade it was, our only redeeming grace is that (hopefully) we've changed along with society and realise the harm we did (I include myself in that as I'm coming up to 60).

Some people are justifying singing Munich songs because United monetised it, whether they did or not it doesn't excuse our behaviour.