Manchester United footballers, many of whom died in the Munich air disaster
The "Busby Babes" were the group of footballers, recruited and trained by Manchester United chief scout Joe Armstrong and assistant manager Jimmy Murphy, who progressed from the club's youth team into the first team under the management of the eponymousMatt Busby from the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s. The squad most associated with the name "babes" was that of the 1957–58 season, many of whom died in the 1958 Munich air disaster, and who, with an average age of 22, had been touted to dominate European football for the next few years.
History
The Busby Babes were notable not only for being young and gifted, but for being developed by the club itself, rather than bought from other clubs, which was customary then. The term, coined by Manchester Evening News journalist Tom Jackson[1][2] in 1951,[3] usually refers to the players who won the league championship in seasons 1955–56 and 1956–57, with an average age of 21 and 22 respectively.
A few of the players in the team at this time had been bought from other clubs. One of them, goalkeeper Ray Wood, was just 18 when he joined United from Darlington in 1949. Wood's successor in the first team, Harry Gregg, signed in December 1957 from Doncaster Rovers, as the world's most expensive goalkeeper at the time, for £23,500. Tommy Taylor had been one of the most expensive players in English football when United paid £29,999 for him as a 21-year-old from Barnsley in 1953. Johnny Berry had already been at the club for two years when Taylor arrived.
Bobby Charlton, 20 at the time of the crash, retired from playing in 1975. He had left Manchester United two years earlier, and had continued playing as a player-manager of Preston North End. As a player, he set the all-time goalscoring record for Manchester United and England. It was later broken by another United player Wayne Rooney. Charlton's appearance record was unbroken for 35 years after his last game for United. His England record was not broken until 2015, when Rooney scored his 50th England goal.
Bill Foulkes, who retired in 1970, was at the club when the European Cup was won in 1968.
Wilf McGuinness suffered a broken leg in a reserve match during the 1959–60 season and never returned to the first team. He stayed with the club as a member of the coaching staff, and spent 18 months as United's manager after the retirement of Sir Matt Busby in May 1969. Injury ended the career of John Doherty, who played his last game for Leicester City less than a year after United sold him to the East Midlands club.
Sammy McIlroy was born in Belfast and moved to Manchester United in 1969, making him Matt Busby's final signing, and "the last of the Busby Babes".[citation needed]Jeff Whitefoot has also been called "the last of the Busby Babes".[5]