Every successful club has a manager that is credited with turning them into the force that they are today. Would Celtic have been the powerhouse that we now consider them to be without the work of Jock Stein, for example? Where would Liverpool be if Bill Shankly hadn’t been appointed as manager? In the case of Manchester United, even Sir Alex Ferguson has to take a back seat to Sir Matt Busby, who played for both Manchester City and Liverpool before becoming Manchester United manager and leading the club to European Cup glory for the first time in its history.
Busby’s Early Life
Alexander Matthew Busby was born in the North Lanarkshire town of Bellshill on the 26th of May 1909. His father, Alexander, had been killed by a sniper’s rifle in the First World War, whilst three of his uncles were killed in France. This left his mother, Helen, to raise him and his three sisters alone, eventually remarrying to a man called Harry Matthie in 1919. Raised Catholic, he would often go down the coal mines with his father, yet he always dreamed of becoming a professional footballer. This looked impossible when his mother applied for them to emigrate in the late 1920s.
Thankfully, the processing time for such a move to the United States of America took nine months, during which time he got a full-time job as a collier and a part-time one as a player for Denny Hibs. He had only played a few times for the club when Manchester City got in touch, with the club just a few matches away from gaining promotion to the First Division. In the end, he signed for the club on the 11th of February 1928, with 18-year-old Busby being signed up to a one-year contract and earning £15 per week, with the short contract allowing him to still emigrate.
Busby the Player
Matt Busby’s debut for Manchester City came on the second of November 1929, playing as an inside left in a First Division game against Middlesbrough, which they won 3-1. He made another 11 appearances before the end of the season, scoring five goals. He was later moved to right-half, developing a reputation as a decent passer to the point that Manchester United wanted to sign him. He went on to establish himself as a fine player, to the point that the club captain needed to change his position to get into the team. With Busby playing, City won the FA Cup in 1934.
On the 12th of March 1936, Busby was sold to Liverpool for £8,000, leaving City with more than 200 appearances to his name. Two days later and he made his debut for the Merseyside club, which the Reds lost 1-0 on the road to Huddersfield Town. His first goal came in a 2-2 draw with Blackburn Rovers the following month. He rarely missed a game for Liverpool and, in news that might surprise some United fans, was made the club captain. When Bob Paisley joined the club in 1939, it was Busby that showed him the ropes, with the pair becoming lifelong friends.
Becoming a Manager
It was not long after Paisley’s arrival that the Second World War broke out, seeing Busby and many other players joining the King’s Liverpool Regiment. Although he carried on playing during the war, making appearances for the likes of Chelsea and Hibernian, his return to Liverpool in 1944 saw him become an assistant coach. He had already gained some experience in the role as the Army Physical Training Corps coach during the war, but it soon emerged that he had different ideas of how football should be run to the Liverpool manager, George Kay, so he was allowed to leave.
Having previously tried to sign him as a player, Manchester United then approached Busby about the manager’s role, referring to it simply as a ‘job’ in a letter to him in case Liverpool should find out about it. When he met the Chairman, James W. Gibson, he made it clear that he wanted to be involved in training as well as to pick the team and even decide which players to buy and sell; all things that weren’t in the manager’s remit at the time. He was offered a three-year contract but managed to turn it into a five-year deal, signing the contract on the 19th of February 1945.
Leading Manchester United to Glory Before Tragedy Strikes
In spite of when he signed the contract, his work at Manchester United didn’t actually start until the first of October. He brought in an Army Physical Training Corps comrade named Jimmy Murphy as chief coach, with the pair working together to take the Red Devils to the runners-up spot behind Liverpool in the 1946-1947 season. They repeated the trick the following year, but did win the FA Cup, also finishing second in 1949 and 1951 before finally lifting the title at the end of the 1951-1952 campaign. Busby had led the club to its first major success since 1911, returning stability to Old Trafford.
By 1952, however, the squad was ageing. It was believed that Busby would spend large sums of money buying new players, but instead, in what was an eerie foreshadowing of what would happen under Sir Alex Ferguson, he promoted and bought in youngsters. Because of their relative youth, the team became known as the Busby Babes, winning the top-flight title in 1956 and 1957 and supplementing the latter with an FA Cup win. It looked like they would conquer the world, but tragedy was to strike on the way home from a European Cup tie against Red Star Belgrade.
It was the sixth of February 1958 when the plane crashed on the runway at Munich-Riem Airport. There were 21 deaths at the scene, of whom seven were players and three were club officials. On top of that, Duncan Edwards died two weeks later and two other players suffered such terrible injuries that they never played again. Busby himself was read the last rites on two occasions, eventually leaving the hospital nine weeks later. He wasn’t told of the extent of the crash until three weeks later, with doctors initially fearing he was too weak to cope with the news.
Rebuilding After the Munich Disaster
Having been appointed Scotland manager before the Munich Disaster, Busby took charge of a couple of games and spotted a young player called Denis Law whom he wanted to buy. He returned to work, building a new team around survivors of the crash alongside new players and promoted reserves. He signed a teenager called George Best, successfully rebuilding the club to win the FA Cup in 1963 and then the league title in 1965 and 1967. The 1967 win allowed United to enter the European Cup once more, which they did in the 1967-1968 season.
The club made it to the final, beating Hibernian, Sarajevo and Górnik Zabrze on the way to a semi-final against Real Madrid. The Spanish side had tried to recruit him in 1956, the club’s President, Santiago Bernabéu Yeste, reportedly telling him that managing them was ‘like managing paradise’. Busby replied that he wanted to stay, owing to the fact that ‘Manchester is my heaven’. United won 4-3 on aggregate, putting them into the final against Benfica, which was played at Wembley Stadium. The game finished 1-1, but United won 4-1 in extra-time thanks to goals from Bobby Charlton, George Best and Brian Kidd.
Having felt like quitting in the wake of the Munich Air Disaster, reportedly feeling guilty that he had pushed the Football Association to allow the Red Devils to take part in the tournament when they hadn’t wanted them to, he had finally won the competition on the 29th of May 1968. On the 14th of January the following year, he announced his decision to retire at the end of the season. He remained as a club director, handing over managerial duties to Wilf McGuinness, but when he was sacked in the December of 1970, Busby returned to the manager’s role on a temporary basis.
Frank O’Farrell was given the role permanently the following June, although United had attempted to convince both Don Revie and Jock Stein to take the job. Busby continued as a director until 1980, at which point he was made President. Having been appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1958, Busby was knighted in 1968 and later made a Knight Commander of St Gregory by the Pope. His wife June died in the December of 1988, then Busby followed her on the 20th of January 1994, aged 84. The pair were buried in Manchester’s Southern Cemetery.
Today marks 30 years without Sir Matt Busby.
Forever missed in person but always with us in spirit.
❤️♾️ pic.twitter.com/cJnLqjVioe
— Manchester United (@ManUtd) January 20, 2024