‘His lifetime’s work gone, it was now up to Jimmy to keep the club functioning’

Feb 3 2008 by Chris Wathan, Wales On Sunday

MANCHESTER United. Arguably the greatest football club in the world – and forever indebted to the work of one Welshman.

Jimmy Murphy will not be one of the 23 souls remembered this week on the 50th anniversary of the Munich disaster.

But while a team – the original Busby Babes – died that night, it was Ton Pentre-born Murphy who made sure the club lived on.

In the words of Frank Taylor, a journalist aboard the plane which was carrying back the United team from a European Cup match in Belgrade, only to crash after a third failed take-off: “Three men saved Manchester United from oblivion. They are Jimmy Murphy, Bobby Charlton and Matt Busby. But Murphy was the key figure.”

Fate saw that Murphy, Matt Busby’s loyal and faithful assistant, missed that game. Rather than taking his place next to the man he had helped shape the finest side of its generation, Murphy was in Cardiff guiding Wales to the finals of the World Cup with victory in a play-off against Israel.

He had wanted to travel to Belgrade, fearing Busby was not strong enough for the trip, having only recently undergone leg surgery.

But the Scot, who first brought Murphy to United in 1946, insisted he carried on with his part-time duties with Wales and took coach Bert Whalley with him instead.

Whalley took his seat next to Busby for the flight, perishing as the plane crashed on the ice of the Munich runway. Murphy said of the time: “I will never forget that Thursday. Usually there was a lot of activity at the ground, but when I arrived everything seemed very quiet.

“It had been a long, tiring journey and I poured myself a glass of Scotch. Alma George, Matt’s secretary, came in and told me about the crash. I didn’t take it in at all. I just poured Alma a glass of sherry and carried on sipping my Scotch.

“Alma said, ‘I don’t think you understand. The plane has crashed. A lot of people have died’. She was right. I did not understand. So she told me a third time and this time she started to cry. A good few minutes had elapsed and suddenly Alma’s words began to take effect on me. I went into my office and cried.”

Very few would have not shared Murphy’s heartbreak.

While football mourned the loss of players such as Tommy Taylor, Eddie Coleman and Duncan Edwards, the latter revered as the greatest footballer England ever produced, Murphy was coming to terms with the news that players he had signed as schoolboys and forged into genuine stars had gone. Players he had dedicated his life to had now lost theirs.

“He had brought these players through the system, right from 15 and now they were gone,” said Harry Gregg, one of the survivors, who would later go on to manage Swansea. “His lifetime’s work gone and it was down to him and him alone to keep the club functioning. Just think of that for a moment. How would you feel?” Murphy visited Busby as he lay in an oxygen tent having already received his last rites (he would receive them once more before making a recovery) where the ‘Old Man’ told him to “keep the flag flying”.

And so he did. Alone in his suffering, he kept his composure, common sense and footballing philosophy.

United met Sheffield Wednesday in the cup 13 days after the crash, survivors Gregg and Bill Foulkes both featuring in a team of reserves and unheard of youngsters.

Murphy was offered players and help from all corners, but it was he who signed Ernie Taylor from Blackpool and Stan Crowther from Aston Villa, two men who would help the side to an emotional 3-0 win in front of 60,000.

Len Noad, a journalist and a close friend of Murphy, wrote before the game: “Murphy, who can play a church organ with the depth of feeling and musicianship that comes so easily to the Welsh, will throw himself into the job of resurrecting United with all the fervour of his race. I only hope somebody is good enough to give me a transcript of Jimmy’s first team-talk to the United staff – in it will be revealed his greatness.”

There had been talk of the club folding, and there would have been nothing but sympathy if United had admitted defeat and given up on their fixtures for that season, the club no doubt slipping away as a result.

But Murphy, who could not sleep as he struggled to comprehend what had happened, worked tirelessly to push on, using the FA Cup as the vehicle for the club’s rebirth.

“Jimmy, typically, was the strongest presence in those days when the Old Man was surviving only with the help of an oxygen tent,” recalled Bobby Charlton, another survivor who would return to help ensure a quarter-final victory over West Brom after a replay.

“He said that we had to fight for our existence – and the memory of the teammates we had lost.

“He had been through a war when men had to live with the loss of so many comrades, had to fight on through the suffering and live with what was left to them. It was the same now at Manchester United, Jimmy insisted.

“But later I heard that it was just a front that Jimmy put on. One day he was discovered in a back corridor of the hospital, sobbing his heart out in pain at the loss of so many young players.”

Murphy had taken his players away from mourning-Manchester for much of that time to Blackpool and inspiring a belief in his young players that United could carry, on using team talks that were accompanied by complete silence by the players, who held him in the utmost respect.

Ken Morgans, the 18-year-old from Swansea who survived the crash, has told how Murphy could make a 15-year-old convinced he could succeed.

Even with the loss of four wingers and having to constantly adapt tactics to suit those available, Murphy was able to take United to Wembley with a win over Fulham, just as Busby had promised his men a year earlier after they lost in the final to Villa.

Although with different players, the promise was kept and Murphy described the achievement as the most rewarding day in his life – and a fitting tribute to the old team.

Busby found the strength to make it to the final, although he insisted that Murphy lead the team out, complete with a badge on the famous red shirts depicting a phoenix rising from the ashes.

Bolton triumphed that day, but Murphy had given hope that United could recover from the unthinkable, forcing players and supporters to believe the club could be great again.

Privately he had his doubts, telling journalists the night before the game that his and Busby’s dream of creating the perfect team were seemingly over, given their age.

Yet, success would come again, culminating for Murphy in European triumph just 10 years later.

And all this as he suffered, revealing to Frank Taylor in a Munich hospital: “I suffered. I said cheerio to Tommy Taylor, Duncan (Edwards) and all the lads in the gym and told them I would see them on Friday... when they came back they were in coffins.”

Yet he would grieve in his own time, focusing on football and ensuring his and Busby’s earlier work was not be in vain.

Although he would not take the credit he deserved, disliking publicity, hating the term “Murphy’s Marvels” and preferring simply to be on the training field doing what he did best.

“It was a miracle,” he would later claim about that season. “Nothing to do with Jimmy Murphy; all due to our good Lord.”

Yet the humble son of the Rhondda was the man who made the miracle happen.

Football should never forget that.

l Quotes taken from Starmaker: The untold story of Jimmy Murphy by Brian Hughes (Empire), The Day A Team Died by Frank Taylor (Souvenir Press), The Autobiography: My Manchester United years by Sir Bobby Charlton (Headline), and The Team That Wouldn’t Die: The story of the Busby Babes by John Roberts (Aurum Press).