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Join Date: Dec 2008
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Part Three: 1930 - 1949
The decline that had started in the 1920's continued at the outset of the 1930's. United finished 17th in 1929/30, to fill their fans with dread.
Their fears were realised in the next season, when United made the worst start in their history by losing their first twelve league matches in a row. The dozen defeats included back-to-back thrashings at Old Trafford, 6-0 by HuddersfieldTown and then 7-4 by Newcastle United. The season was into November before Herbert Bamlett's team took their first points, by winning 2-0 at home to BirminghamCity.
United eventually lost 27 of their 42 league matches in 1930/31, conceding 115 goals. Their relegation led to Bamlett bowing out, and secretary Walter Crickmer taking charge of team affairs. There was to be no immediate improvement, however. United lost their opening two matches of 1931/32, in the Second Division.
The patience of the supporters was being severely tested, and many of them did not hang around - only 3,507 turned up for the opening match. As the season went on, the situation deteriorated. By December, there was no money to pay the players wages. Bankruptcy was a real threat.
The club's saviour came in the shape of James Gibson, a manufacturer of army uniforms. He invested £30,000, paid the players and got the club back on track. He appointed a new manager, Scott Duncan, who was given money to spend. However, he did not make the most of it.
A dreadful run under Duncan in 1933/34 took United to the brink of being relegated into the Third Division for the first time in the club’s history. Survival was only secured on the last day of the season, when they won 2-0 with goals from Tom Manley and JackCape to send their opponents, Millwall, down instead. In that same week, ManchesterCity had won the FA Cup, with a man named Matt Busby in their side.
United finished the 1934/35 season in fifth place, and then in 1935/36 claimed their first silverware of the decade. Unbeaten during the last 19 games of the campaign, they secured the Second Division Championship with a 3-2 win over Bury at Gigg Lane, thanks to goals from Manley and George Mutch.
Their end-of-season form in the Second Division suggested United would do well on their return to the First, but by Christmas they had only won four matches, including one on Christmas Day itself! Only ten wins in the whole season meant relegation, with City again providing stark contrast as the League Champions. The relegated United team included Walter Winterbottom, who would later be knighted after managing England for 16 years.
The yo-yoing continued as United were promoted again the next season, 1937/38, as runners-up to Aston Villa. Scott Duncan could only claim some of the credit, as he left the club in November 1937 to become manager of IpswichTown. Walter Crickmer again stepped into the breach as United's caretaker manager.
The highlight of Duncan and Crickmer's season was the discovery of Johnny Carey, who would later be recognised as one of the greatest full-backs in football history. Playing 32 games and scoring six goals, Carey helped United to stay up this time, finishing 14th, while City took their turn to be relegated! There was no time to gloat, however - the outbreak of war put the Football League on hold again, for several years.
World War 2
The outbreak of the Second World War forced football to the very back of people's minds between 1939 and 1946. But even in the absence of League football, Old Trafford was still the focus of attention.
On 11 March 1941 the stadium was bombed during a German air raid. The attack destroyed the main stand, dressing rooms and offices. It was a devastating blow, but within a few years, there would be optimism again around the famous old ground.
It came with a man named Matt Busby, who would prove to be the most important figure in the history of Manchester United. A former ManchesterCity and Liverpool player, Busby served in the Ninth Battalion of the King's Liverpool Regiment where his leadership qualities shone through. These qualities did not go unnoticed by United.
Busby joined the Reds in 1945, initially on a five-year contract. Little did he know he would still be managing the club 25 years later!
Busby didn't waste any time in making his mark, altering the positions of several key players. He also founded the "Famous Five" forwards when he brought together Jimmy Delaney, Stan Pearson, Jack Rowley, Charlie Mitten and Johnny Morris.
Perhaps the most important signing Busby made, however, was on the coaching staff. Matt had met Jimmy Murphy during the war, and identified him as his perfect right-hand man. The pair formed a partnership that would see United become a power in world football.
Busby and Murphy's first step on the road to glory was to build a team that was capable of challenging for domestic honours. They succeeded almost at the first attempt, as United finished second to Liverpool in the first Football League campaign after the war, 1946/47. It was the club's highest placing for 36 years, and there was extra cause for optimism when the Reserves won their (Central) League Championship in the same season.
Busby's mix of young local lads and established players won their first trophy the following year, when they beat the Blackpool side of Stanley Matthews, Stan Mortensen and Harry Johnston in the 1948 FA Cup Final. It was 39 years to the day that United had previously won the Cup, in 1909.
The FA Cup was also the club's first major honour since winning the League Championship in 1911, and recapturing the title would now become the number one target for Matt Busby's men. During the first five seasons of his post-war reign, United finished second on four occasions, and fourth on the other (1949/50).
The thrill of the chase for honours brought the fans flooding back – more than one million of them passed through the turnstiles in the 1947/48 season, dragging the club out of debt. Surely these fans wouldn't have to wait long to be rewarded with the prize they all craved….
Part Four: 1950 - 1959
If all good things must come to an end, it was certainly true of Matt Busby’s first post-war United side at the dawn of the 1950’s.
Dressing room dissent led to the break-up of the 1948 FA Cup winning team, with Johnny Morris departing for Derby and Charlie Mitten exporting his wing wizardry to Colombia. Some United supporters were worried to lose star players of that calibre, but any fans that placed their faith in Busby were soon rewarded.
The great Scot’s plan was to promote the youngsters he’d been recruiting and grooming in the late 1940’s. Jackie Blanchflower and Roger Byrne were the first to emerge and be labelled ‘Babes’ by the newspapers; in their debut season 1951/52, United won the League Championship for the first time since 1911.
United 2000th game was at Old Trafford. We entertained Arsenal and won 1-0. Attendance was 55058.
Byrne, aged 21, played a big part in that success, making 24 appearances, including the final six on the wing, from where he scored seven goals. He then returned to his customary left-back role, and captained the side for four years from February 1954.
In 1955/56 and 1956/57, Byrne lifted the Championship trophy as skipper of a great young side that included several more products of Busby’s youth academy. Eddie Colman, Mark Jones and David Pegg were all first team regulars, having cut their teeth in the FA Youth Cup, which United won five years in a row from its inception in 1953.
Not all the young talent was home-grown, however. The United manager was equally happy to plunge into the transfer market, and in March 1953, he spent one pound short of thirty thousand on Tommy Taylor, the prolific Barnsley striker. He proved to be an excellent signing, as he continued to knock in the goals for United and England.
Another young man who excelled for club and country was Duncan Edwards. So powerful, talented and mature was the Dudley teenager that Matt Busby could not hold him back from United’s first team. In April 1953, he became the First Division’s youngest-ever player at the age of 16 years and 185 days.
One match that perhaps epitomised the new Busby Babes era more than most was against Arsenal at Highbury on 1 February 1958. In front of a crowd of 63,578 the Reds beat the Gunners in a nine-goal thriller with goals from Edwards, Taylor (2), Bobby Charlton and Dennis Viollet.
Sadly, what was perhaps their greatest game on English soil was certainly to be the last for that particular Manchester United team. From Highbury, the Babes headed off into Europe to play the second leg of a tie against Red Star Belgrade. Again they won 5-4, this time on aggregate, but on the way home their celebrations were cut short by tragedy.
After refuelling in Munich on 6 February 1958, the United aeroplane crashed, killing twenty-two people, including seven players – Byrne, Colman, Jones, Pegg, Taylor, Geoff Bent and Liam Whelan. Duncan Edwards became the eighth player to die of his injuries, fifteen days later in a German hospital. (This is detailed in a separate thread in this section.)
The club, the city of Manchester and the English game entered a long period of mourning, and it seemed inconceivable that United could ever recover from such an appalling disaster.
But as Matt Busby defied the medics to recover from his crash wounds, the team bounced back and, patched up by assistant manager Jimmy Murphy, they reached the FA Cup Final in May 1958. They lost at Wembley to Bolton Wanderers, twelve months after losing the final to Aston Villa.
To continue the theme of finishing a close second, the Reds were also runners-up in the League Championship of 1958/59. By then, the team was again in a transitional period, as Matt Busby constructed another great team for another great decade.
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