My Heroes

Yesterday my favorite football team, (soccer for my American friends) Manchester United, qualified for the final of the European Champions League. They did so by beating Spain’s champions, Barcelona in the semi-final. In the final, set for Moscow in May, they will meet the winner of Liverpool V Chelsea, who are playing their game as I write. It has been quite a year for English club football in the world’s premiere club football tournament. This is like the Superbowl, the World Series and the Olympics rolled together. There will be billions of people around the globe watching this game.

All four of the English qualifying teams made it to the final stages of the competition, a feat never been achieved before by any national league’s representatives. In this sport England is treated as a separate nation from the other parts of the UK, so Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all have their own leagues and representation.

There is a special importance for me related to Manchester United’s accomplishment this year that transcends normal soccer elements such as skill, tribal passion and athleticism.

The first game of football I was taken to by my father took place almost exactly a half -century ago. My family all supported one of the great old London teams, Arsenal. They were going to take me to see Arsenal play Manchester United so that I, like them, would naturally become a fan of the Arsenal.

How were they to know that, at age 8, I was to fall under the magic spell of the Red Devils, the nickname of Manchester United. They were led by a colossus who was then aged 21, called Duncan Edwards. Perhaps one of the best soccer players in the world, ever, he was already a star of the full England team. He was capable of playing in every position of the team. That’s like being an American football quarterback who could also kick all the goals and be a wide receiver!

I was a small kid but was soon spellbound by this giant Edwards. He led this team of precociously brilliant young talent, which had been assembled by one of the best managers the game had ever been graced by, Sir Matt Busby. The team he had brought together was collectively known to the world as the Busby Babes. They were the youngest team in the top division of English football and had already won the competition the previous year. I remember watching them beat Arsenal 5 – 4 in one of the greatest games I was ever to see. I was in awe of them, as was the rest of the world. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that they would dominate world soccer for the next decade.

They were due to play in the quarterfinal of the European Cup the following week in Eastern Europe against Partisan Belgrade in Yugoslavia. The game resulted in Manchester United qualifying for the semi-final. On the way home the team’s airplane had to refuel in Munich, Germany. It was snowing and icy. The first two times the plane tried to take off there were problems. The third time the plane was destroyed.

The result was a catastrophe. Several journalists, team officials and eight players from the squad, the backbone of the team, were to die, including Duncan Edwards. He fought a long, hard, heroic but ultimately futile battle against his terrible injuries whilst his manager, Matt Busby, was read the last rites. It was the older man, forged in the tough working class of his native Scotland, who survived. He was fated to lead his club to greatness.

Within weeks the club managed to put together a scratch team, which got to the final of the English Cup, the semi final of the European Cup and a respectable finish in the League. Within another decade there was a Manchester United team winning that European Cup. The first English team ever to do so. They won it again, along with the English League and Cup in 1999, the only team to have ever won all three competitions in the same year.

The club just held the dignified memorial for the 50-year anniversary of that awful tragedy and, as fate would have it, the team has again made it to the final of the competition. Win or lose the club has already won. They are already the best-supported, biggest sports team in the world, a testament to what can be achieved against the odds.

Like the Red Devils of the past they play sweeping, attractive football, which captivates the world. Their concept is buccaneering, attack minded and based on the concept that they are simply better than anyone they ever play, now all they have to do is prove it, again!

Manchester United, the best sports team in the world.