Sporting Bygones: Memory of Munich helped bind a nation as they shared in Busby’s Wembley joy

Manchester United will be urged on by their innumerable army of fans as they attempt to reach the promised land of a fourth European Cup triumph but those not in their camp will be wishing, if not for a plague of pestilence then certainly an outbreak of Messi magic.

Almost two decades of domestic dominance, spiced with two successes in the Champions League and one in the European Cup-winners’ Cup – plus triumphs in two forms of the World Club competition – have seen United become revered and reviled in equal measure on these shores.

It seems the footballing world is divided into two camps, Red Devils worshippers and ABUs (Anyone But United), and reaching the showpiece of European club football for the third time in four seasons has agitated the fervour on both sides of the divide.

It will be difficult, therefore, for anyone under 50 to assimilate the concept that 43 years ago, when United stood on the brink of their first European Cup final, also at Wembley, the country was almost as one in its support for Sir Matt Busby’s team as they prepared to take on the Portuguese champions Benfica.

While United under Sir Alex Ferguson have found a reservoir of resentment towards them swell with every moment of triumph, Sir Matt’s men faced Benfica drawing on a fund of goodwill into which most football followers had made at least occasional deposits for 10 years since the awful day in February 1958 when the Munich Air Crash put paid to the Busby Babes.

These were players who, in 1956, had been the first to carry the English flag into European Cup competition – on Sir Matt’s insistence and because of his pioneering spirit but strictly against the Football League’s wishes – and, as such, were seen by most on these occasions as ‘their team’.

The human tragedy which saw 22 lives lost as a result of the air crash in Munich on the way home from a European Cup tie with Red Star Belgrade, including eight Busby Babes, meant Manchester United worked their way deeper into people’s hearts and became the most popular choice of ‘second team’.

The players had gained the Babes tag as they won the First Division championship in 1955-56 with an average age of 22 – fully 40 years before Alan Hansen’s now infamous comment ‘You’ll win nothing with kids’ about another United side which would go on to do the League and Cup double.

The Babes retained the title in 1957 and, such was their ability, European glory was believed to be their destiny until fate dealt them such an unexpected and desperately cruel hand.

Sir Matt, whose injuries when he was catapulted from the plane left him hospitalised for more than two months, later admitted to periods of self-torment, not

just for having been the man who led United into Europe but wondering whether he should, as manager, have said anything after two aborted take-offs.

He later told fellow survivor and journalist Frank Taylor: “It would have been as pointless for me to ask the pilot if everything was okay as if he had asked me whether I had picked the best team for Manchester United. After all, no pilot would take a chance, for his life is just as much as stake at yours.”

Over the decade that followed, Sir Matt fashioned another exciting and successful team, albeit one by 1968 which, while still including youngsters such as John Aston, teenager Brian Kidd and the precocious George Best was also marbled through with experience, including two other Munich survivors – Bobby Charlton and Bill Foulkes.

It was defender Foulkes who had scored United’s third goal in the second leg of the semi-final with Real Madrid which had ended 3-3 after the Red Devils had trailed 3-1 at half-time.

Best’s goal at Old Trafford in the first leg meant United advanced so that – on May 29, 1968 – they had the chance to become the first English winners of the European Cup.

More importantly for the club was the opportunity to provide an abiding tribute to those whose lives had perished on that icy runway in Germany, and the emotional load on the shoulders of Foulkes and Charlton was only evident once they had helped United to a 4-1 triumph in extra-time against a side containing the incomparable talent of Eusebio.

Charlton, who had scored United’s first and last goals, Foulkes and Busby all wept on the pitch as they exchanged hugs and unspoken thoughts of the departed men alongside whom they thought they would have been sharing such glory years earlier.

In homes around the country, men and women crowded around their TV sets, drained by the drama of a game which had also seen a stupendously virtuoso goal from Best and a headed effort from Manchester lad Kidd – on his 19th birthday – and many of them also shed a tear for the moment and the memory of Munich.

The United team on that Wednesday night in 1968, truly united the nation.