February 6, 1958 — 3:04 PM

Sixty-eight years ago today, at 3:04 PM on a grey, slush-covered afternoon in Munich, British European Airways Flight 609 failed to gain altitude on its third takeoff attempt from Munich-Riem Airport. The Airspeed Ambassador tore through the perimeter fence, struck a house and a fuel storage hut, and broke apart. Twenty-three people would not survive. Among the dead were eight of the finest young footballers England had ever produced.

The Manchester United team on board — the Busby Babes — were returning from a European Cup quarter-final victory against Red Star Belgrade. They were reigning English champions. They were the most thrilling young side in European football. And in the space of a few terrible seconds, they were gone.

Every year on this date, Manchester United stops. The clock on the south-east corner of Old Trafford reads 3:04. Scarves are laid. Songs are sung. The Flowers of Manchester are remembered.

Today, on the 68th anniversary, we remember them again — not just as names on a plaque, but as men, as players, as the foundation on which everything this football club has become was built.

The Busby Babes

To understand what was lost at Munich, you have to understand what Matt Busby had built.

When Busby arrived at Old Trafford in 1945, the ground was bomb-damaged, the club was in debt, and first-team football was played at Maine Road. Busby’s vision was radical for its time: rather than buying established stars, he would develop his own. He invested in scouting networks, in youth coaching, in a philosophy that trusted young players with the biggest matches on the biggest stages.

By the mid-1950s, that philosophy had produced something extraordinary. The average age of United’s first team was just 22. They played with a freedom and attacking verve that set them apart from every other side in England. They won the First Division title in 1955-56 and retained it in 1956-57 — the first back-to-back champions since Arsenal in the 1930s. They reached the FA Cup final in 1957 as well, chasing a Double that had not been achieved in the 20th century. They fell just short, losing to Aston Villa, but nobody doubted they would be back.

More significantly, Busby had defied the Football League to enter the European Cup. The League had pressured Chelsea into withdrawing from the inaugural competition in 1955-56, but Busby insisted United would compete. He understood, long before most English football administrators, that the future of the game was continental. In 1956-57, United reached the European Cup semi-finals, losing narrowly to Real Madrid — the dominant force in European football at the time. The defeat only sharpened Busby’s ambition. This team, he believed, would conquer Europe.

They were not just good. They were beloved. Crowds across England came to watch them. Journalists wrote about them with an affection rarely afforded to any club side. The Busby Babes were English football’s golden generation — and everyone knew it.

The Day

On February 5, 1958, United travelled to Belgrade for the second leg of their European Cup quarter-final against Red Star. They had won the first leg 2-1 at Old Trafford, and a 3-3 draw in Yugoslavia — with goals from Bobby Charlton, Dennis Viollet, and a late equaliser to avoid defeat — was enough to send them through to the semi-finals. The mood on the plane home was buoyant. United were one step closer to Busby’s dream.

Flight 609 made a scheduled refuelling stop at Munich-Riem Airport. Snow was falling. The runway was covered in slush.

The pilots, Captain James Thain and Captain Kenneth Rayment, made their first takeoff attempt at approximately 2:31 PM. The engines produced an uneven note — a phenomenon known as “boost surging” — and Thain abandoned the attempt. A second attempt followed, with the same result. The passengers disembarked while the pilots consulted with ground engineers. Most of the team went back into the terminal. Some played cards. Others drank coffee and made nervous jokes.

The pilots decided to try once more rather than stay overnight. The passengers reboarded. At 3:04 PM, the aircraft began its third takeoff run.

This time, there was no boost surging. The engines sounded normal. But the aircraft was not accelerating as it should. The layer of slush on the runway was dragging at the wheels, preventing the plane from reaching the 117 knots needed to lift off. By the time Thain realised they would not make it, it was too late to stop safely. The aircraft overran the runway, crashed through the airport perimeter fence, crossed a road, and struck a house and a wooden hut that contained fuel. The port wing and part of the tail were torn away. The fuselage broke open.

The time was 3:04 PM, Central European Time.

Those We Lost

Twenty-three people died as a result of the crash — some instantly, some in the hours, days, and weeks that followed. Their names deserve to be known.

The Players

Roger Byrne (28) — Captain, leader, England international. Byrne had won 33 caps and was the defensive cornerstone of the team. A full-back with intelligence and authority, he was the on-pitch embodiment of everything Busby was building. He was killed instantly.

Tommy Taylor (26) — Centre-forward, bought from Barnsley for £29,999 in 1953 (Busby deliberately avoided a round £30,000 to spare Taylor the pressure of the fee). He scored 16 goals in 19 England appearances — a record that spoke to his predatory instincts. Tall, powerful, magnificent in the air, Taylor was the spearhead of the attack.

Duncan Edwards (21) — More on Edwards below. The greatest loss of all.

Eddie Colman (21) — “Snakehips.” A local lad from Salford whose body swerves and ball control made him a crowd favourite at Old Trafford. Colman was small, fearless, and played with an infectious joy. He was 21 years old.

Mark Jones (24) — Centre-half, dependable, brave, a fierce competitor. Jones had established himself as Byrne’s partner in the heart of United’s defence and was widely expected to earn a place in England’s 1958 World Cup squad.

David Pegg (22) — A left winger of pace and trickery who had already won an England cap. Pegg was the kind of player who got fans out of their seats — direct, exciting, always willing to take on his man.

Liam “Billy” Whelan (22) — An inside forward from Dublin, quiet and deeply religious. Whelan had scored 52 goals in 98 appearances for United. He reportedly told a teammate in the terminal, “If this is the time, then I’m ready.” He was 22.

Geoff Bent (25) — A left-back and a reserve player who was only on the trip because first-choice Roger Byrne needed cover. Bent was a loyal, uncomplaining professional — the kind of player every squad needs and every club mourns the hardest, because the wider world never got to see what they could do.

Club Staff

Walter Crickmer (57) — Club secretary for over 30 years. Crickmer had been the man who kept United running through two World Wars and countless financial crises. He was the administrative backbone of the club.

Tom Curry (58) — First-team trainer since 1934. A beloved figure in the dressing room, Curry had helped develop every one of the Busby Babes from boys into men.

Bert Whalley (45) — Chief coach and Busby’s right hand in youth development. Whalley had been instrumental in the scouting and coaching systems that produced the Babes. His loss was felt not just personally but structurally — United lost one of the architects of their entire philosophy.

The Journalists

Eight members of the press corps who had travelled with the team were killed. These were not distant observers — they were men who knew the players, who ate with them, who told their stories to the world:

Alf Clarke (Manchester Evening Chronicle), Don Davies (Manchester Guardian), George Follows (Daily Herald), Tom Jackson (Manchester Evening News), Archie Ledbrooke (Daily Mirror), Henry Rose (Daily Express), Eric Thompson (Daily Mail), Frank Swift (News of the World).

Frank Swift deserves particular mention. A former Manchester City and England goalkeeper — one of the finest of his generation — Swift had retired from playing to become a journalist. He survived the initial impact but died on the way to hospital. He was 44.

Others

Captain Kenneth Rayment — Co-pilot, who survived the initial crash but died in hospital five weeks later from brain damage. Tommy Cable — Airline steward. Willie Satinoff — A close friend of Matt Busby and a Manchester businessman. Bela Miklos — A travel agent. William Rodgers — The aircraft’s radio officer.

Twenty-three lives. Husbands, fathers, sons, friends. Every one of them irreplaceable.

Duncan Edwards: The Lost Genius

Of all those who perished, it is Duncan Edwards’ death that haunts football the most — not because the others mattered less, but because Edwards’ talent was so vast, so undeniable, that even those who never saw him play understand that something truly exceptional was lost.

Edwards was born in Dudley in 1936. He signed for Manchester United as a schoolboy and made his first-team debut at 16 years and 185 days — the youngest player to appear in the First Division at the time. By 18, he was an England international. By 21, he had won 18 caps, two league titles, and was the most complete footballer in the country.

He could play anywhere. He was usually deployed at left half, but he had the vision of a playmaker, the tackling of a centre-half, the shooting of a striker, and the engine of a marathon runner. He was 5'11" and built like a middleweight boxer — powerful, balanced, and relentless. Bobby Charlton, who played alongside him and survived the crash, said simply: “He was the best player I ever saw.”

Bobby Moore, who would captain England to the 1966 World Cup, said Edwards was “the only player who made me feel inferior.” That Moore never actually played against Edwards at senior level — he was making the point about Edwards’ sheer reputation and presence — only underlines how extraordinary the man was.

Edwards survived the crash but suffered catastrophic injuries, including severe damage to his kidneys. He fought for 15 days in the Rechts der Isar Hospital in Munich. At one point, he reportedly asked assistant manager Jimmy Murphy: “What time is the kick-off against Wolves, Jimmy? I mustn’t miss that match.” He never regained consciousness after that. He died on February 21, 1958. He was 21 years old.

“If Duncan Edwards had lived, I believe England would have won the World Cup not just in 1966, but in 1962 as well.”

— Bobby Charlton

The Heroes

Harry Gregg

The 25-year-old Northern Irish goalkeeper had been named the best goalkeeper at the 1958 World Cup just months later — a measure of his quality. But it is what Gregg did in the minutes after the crash, not what he did on the pitch, that defined his legacy.

Gregg crawled from the wreckage and, rather than running to safety, went back. He found Bobby Charlton and Dennis Viollet lying in the snow and dragged them clear, believing initially that both were dead. He then heard the cries of Vera Lukic, a Yugoslav woman, and her baby daughter Vesna, who were fellow passengers. Gregg returned to the burning fuselage and pulled them both to safety.

He then went back again — into an aircraft that could have exploded at any moment — to pull out other survivors. When rescuers finally arrived, Gregg was standing in the wreckage, covered in fuel and blood, refusing to leave until he was sure no one else could be saved.

Harry Gregg never spoke of himself as a hero. He carried the psychological scars of Munich for the rest of his life. He died in February 2020, aged 87.

Bobby Charlton

Charlton was thrown clear of the wreckage still strapped to his seat. He suffered head injuries but survived — and what he did with the rest of his life became the living embodiment of Munich’s legacy. He went on to make 758 appearances for Manchester United, scoring 249 goals. He won the European Cup in 1968, the World Cup in 1966, and the Ballon d’Or in the same year. He was knighted, beloved, and revered.

But those who knew him said he never fully recovered from the guilt of surviving when so many friends did not. He rarely spoke of Munich in detail. When he did, he wept.

Sir Bobby Charlton died on October 21, 2023, aged 86. Following Harry Gregg’s death in 2020, Charlton had been the last surviving member of the United squad that boarded Flight 609. His passing severed the final living link to the Busby Babes and to Munich itself.

Bill Foulkes

The Lancastrian defender walked from the wreckage largely unscathed. He played in United’s next match, 13 days later, and barely missed a game for the rest of the season. A decade later, it was Foulkes — the Munich survivor, the man who had been there — who scored the crucial semi-final goal against Real Madrid that sent United to the 1968 European Cup final. Foulkes passed away in 2013.

The Other Survivors

Beyond Gregg, Charlton, and Foulkes, five more players survived: Dennis Viollet, who recovered to score 32 goals in the 1959-60 season; Albert Scanlon, who also returned to first-team action; Kenny Morgans, the youngest player on the trip at 18; Ray Wood, the goalkeeper; and Jackie Blanchflower and Johnny Berry, both of whom suffered injuries so severe they never played professional football again. All carried Munich with them for the rest of their lives.

The Aftermath: Jimmy Murphy and the Impossible Task

Matt Busby lay in a Munich hospital bed, given the last rites twice. His chest was crushed. His lungs were damaged. Doctors did not expect him to survive.

Back in Manchester, the task of keeping Manchester United alive fell to one man: Jimmy Murphy, the assistant manager. Murphy had not been on the flight — he had been managing Wales in a World Cup qualifier against Israel. When he arrived at the hospital in Munich and saw the scale of the devastation, he broke down.

But Murphy was made of iron. He returned to Manchester and, with only two fit senior players — Gregg and Foulkes — set about assembling a team. He called up reserves. He signed emergency loans. He begged, borrowed, and improvised.

Thirteen days after Munich, on February 19, 1958, Manchester United played Sheffield Wednesday in the fifth round of the FA Cup at Old Trafford. The team sheet read like a roll call of unknowns. The programme had blank spaces where the names of the dead should have been. Sixty thousand people packed into Old Trafford, and thousands more stood outside, unable to get in.

United won 3-0. Shay Brennan, a 20-year-old reserve making his debut, scored twice. The ground shook with emotion. Thousands wept openly in the stands.

That makeshift team, driven by grief, adrenaline, and Murphy’s fierce will, went on an extraordinary FA Cup run. They beat West Brom, then Fulham in the semi-final, to reach the final at Wembley against Bolton Wanderers. The fairytale ended there — Bolton won 2-0, and the emotional tank was finally empty — but the point had been made. Manchester United had survived.

When Busby finally recovered and returned to the dugout, he was a changed man. The guilt of having taken his players to Belgrade, of having insisted on the European Cup campaign, weighed on him terribly. He considered resigning. His wife Jean persuaded him to stay. And slowly, painfully, Busby began to rebuild.

The Promise Fulfilled: Wembley, 1968

It took ten years.

Busby rebuilt the team twice. He signed Denis Law from Torino in 1962 and George Best emerged from the Belfast shipyards of his youth to become the most dazzling talent of his generation. Together with Bobby Charlton — the Munich survivor — they formed a holy trinity that carried United back to the summit.

On May 29, 1968, Manchester United faced Benfica in the European Cup final at Wembley. It was exactly the stage Busby had dreamed of reaching when he defied the Football League to enter the competition twelve years earlier. The Babes were supposed to have conquered Europe. Now, it fell to their successors.

The match went to extra time. Charlton scored twice. Best danced through the Benfica defence to score a third. United won 4-1. As the final whistle blew, Busby stood on the Wembley pitch and wept. Charlton wept. Foulkes, the other Munich survivor in the squad, wept. The entire stadium knew what this meant.

Manchester United were the first English club to win the European Cup. But this was never just about football. It was about a promise — made in a hospital bed in Munich, carried through a decade of grief and rebuilding — finally fulfilled.

“The moment we won the European Cup, I thought of all the lads who died at Munich. This was for them.”

— Matt Busby

The Memorials

Old Trafford

The Munich Clock on the south-east corner of Old Trafford is permanently set to 3:04 — the time of the crash. It is the first thing many fans look at when they arrive at the ground, and the last thing they see when they leave.

The Munich Tunnel, through which players walk from the dressing rooms to the pitch, bears a memorial plaque. Every player who has ever pulled on a United shirt has walked past those names before stepping onto the turf.

The memorial plaque on the south stand lists all 23 victims. Fresh flowers are placed there year-round, not just on the anniversary. Red and white scarves accumulate throughout the season, left by supporters from around the world.

A stained-glass window in the Munich Suite depicts the clock face and the names of those who died. It was designed by the artist Francis Sheridan and installed in 2008, on the 50th anniversary.

This year’s memorial service at Old Trafford, marking the 68th anniversary:

In Munich

At the site of the old Munich-Riem Airport — now a residential area — a memorial stone marks the spot where Flight 609 came to rest. The street was renamed Manchesterplatz in honour of the victims, and for United fans it has become a pilgrimage site. Every February 6, supporters travel from Manchester and around the world to lay scarves, shirts, and flowers at the memorial. What was once a small gathering of survivors and family members has grown, decade by decade, into one of football’s most moving annual traditions.

In 2004, a permanent memorial was officially dedicated at the site, and the area around it has been maintained as a place of remembrance by the city of Munich.

The Legacy in the Modern Club

It is February 6, 2026, and Manchester United find themselves in another period of turbulence. Ruben Amorim’s fourteen-month tenure ended with yet another managerial sacking. Michael Carrick, the former United midfielder, has stepped in as interim — a familiar figure steering the ship through unfamiliar waters. INEOS, the club’s new football operations leadership under Sir Jim Ratcliffe, are overseeing a painful but necessary rebuild. Results have been inconsistent. The squad is in transition. The mood around Old Trafford oscillates between cautious hope and weary frustration.

And yet today, all of that falls silent. Because today is February 6.

The parallels between 1958 and 2026 are not exact — no footballing crisis can compare to the loss of human life — but the echoes are there. A club in crisis. A need to rebuild from the foundations. A reliance on youth, on character, on the sheer stubbornness of refusing to accept that Manchester United can be anything other than what it was meant to be.

The Youth Philosophy

The Busby Babes were the original proof that young players, trusted and developed properly, could compete at the highest level. That philosophy did not die at Munich. It was carried forward through the decades — through Busby’s rebuilt side in the 1960s, through the fallow years of the 1970s and 1980s, and into the era of Sir Alex Ferguson, who produced the Class of ‘92: Beckham, Scholes, Giggs, the Nevilles, Butt. “You don’t win anything with kids,” Alan Hansen famously said on Match of the Day in 1995. Ferguson proved him spectacularly wrong.

Today, Kobbie Mainoo carries that torch. An academy product who broke into the first team as a teenager, he represents the continuation of a philosophy that stretches back to the 1950s and the training pitches at The Cliff, where Bert Whalley and Jimmy Murphy shaped boys into Busby Babes. When Mainoo scored the winning goal in the 2024 FA Cup final, he was writing himself into a lineage that runs through Edwards, Charlton, Giggs, and Scholes. The thread is unbroken.

The Never-Give-Up Mentality

If Munich gave United anything beyond grief, it was an identity. The idea that this club does not accept defeat — that it fights to the last second, that it comes back from the impossible — is woven into the culture. It manifested most famously in “Fergie Time,” those extraordinary late goals and comebacks that defined the Ferguson era, culminating in the two injury-time goals against Bayern Munich in the 1999 Champions League final at the Camp Nou. But it did not begin with Ferguson. It began with Murphy fielding a team of reserves and unknowns 13 days after Munich and winning 3-0. It began with Busby dragging himself out of a hospital bed and rebuilding from nothing.

That spirit is needed now more than ever. The current rebuild is not going to produce instant results. There will be bad afternoons, frustrating defeats, moments when the gap between where United are and where they need to be feels impossibly wide. But the club has been here before — in circumstances far worse than a poor run of form — and it survived.

European Ambition

Busby’s insistence on entering the European Cup, against the wishes of the Football League, cost him his team. A lesser man might have turned away from European competition forever. Instead, Busby made the European Cup the centrepiece of his rebuilding project. He understood that Manchester United’s destiny was not merely domestic — it was continental, it was global. That belief carried through to Ferguson’s obsession with the Champions League, to the treble of 1999, to three European Cup finals in four years between 2008 and 2011.

United’s current absence from the Champions League is felt acutely — not just as a commercial or competitive failing, but as a betrayal of something fundamental to the club’s identity. When United return to Europe’s top table, as they inevitably will, it will be because that ambition was hardwired into the club’s DNA at Munich.

Rebuilding in Crisis

There is something poignant about observing the Munich anniversary during a period of institutional upheaval. INEOS are attempting to modernise the club’s football operations — new sporting director, new coaching structures, new transfer strategies. Carrick, as interim manager, is a bridge between eras. The squad is being reshaped. Some players are leaving. Others are arriving. The identity of the team is still forming.

It is, in its own way, a rebuilding from the ground up — not unlike what Murphy and Busby faced in 1958, though obviously without the incomparable human cost. What Munich teaches is that rebuilding is possible. That clarity of vision, strength of character, and faith in young talent can take a club from the lowest point imaginable to the highest. It did not happen quickly. It took Busby a decade to win the European Cup. But it happened.

The February 6 anniversary is observed every year regardless of results, regardless of league position, regardless of managerial upheaval. That consistency — that refusal to let the present obscure the past — is itself a form of the Munich spirit. It says: we know who we are, we know where we came from, and we will not forget.

The Flowers of Manchester

Every year, on the anniversary, the old song is sung. Written by Eric Winter, a Mancunian journalist and folk singer, shortly after the disaster, “The Flowers of Manchester” has become United’s hymn of remembrance:

One cold and bitter Thursday in Munich, Germany, Eight great football stalwarts conceded victory. Eight men will never play again, who met destruction there, The Flowers of English football, the Flowers of Manchester.

Matt Busby’s boys were flying, returning from Belgrade, This great United family, all Masters of their trade. The Pilot held her steady, a Loss Loss Loss Loss Loss Loss, But the Runway was too icy for to leave the ground at all.

Big Duncan he went too, with an idealist’s mind, And Roger Byrne and Tommy Taylor, who left a gap behind, And Billy Whelan and Geoff Bent and David Pegg also, And Eddie Colman and Mark Jones will never play no more.

The song ensures that their names are spoken aloud, year after year. It is not a polished piece of music. It is rough, simple, heartfelt — and that is why it endures.

The Roll of Honour

We remember:

Players: Geoff Bent, Roger Byrne, Eddie Colman, Duncan Edwards, Mark Jones, David Pegg, Tommy Taylor, Billy Whelan

Club Staff: Walter Crickmer, Tom Curry, Bert Whalley

Journalists: Alf Clarke, Don Davies, George Follows, Tom Jackson, Archie Ledbrooke, Henry Rose, Eric Thompson, Frank Swift

Crew and Others: Captain Kenneth Rayment, Tommy Cable, William Rodgers, Bela Miklos, Willie Satinoff

“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old. Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, We will remember them.”

Gone but never forgotten. The Flowers of Manchester.