The Team That Wouldn't Die

THE BUSBY BABES remain unique in British football. Emerging in a post-war 1950s era of austerity and rationing, they gave a glimpse of the youthful enthusiasm and talent that would emerge a decade later in music and art, while their untimley deaths, at the end of a snowy runway in Munich, inspired a devotion to Manchester United Football Club at odds with staid 1950s behaviour. In this, his fi nal update on his classic work, John Roberts revisits the original interviews he undertook with the relatives of the deceased and the survivors. What emerges is an unsentimental work that remains the greatest account of the tragedy.

The 6 February 1998 marks the 40th anniversary of the Munich air disaster. Twenty three people died as the plane carrying Manchester United home from a Euopean Cup tie crashed after refuelling in Germany. Eight of those were United players. This is a tribute to those who died.