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munich58.co.ukIn memory of those who died in the munich air crash in February 1958 |
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munich58.co.ukIn memory of those who died in the munich air crash in February 1958 |
The Express
January 7, 2006
by Bill Bradshaw
Harry Gregg, one of the survivors of the 1958 disaster that killed many of the Busby Babes, reveals his anger over a new TV drama of the crash
HARRY GREGG is 73 now but he will always be a Busby Babe, one of a rare group of young footballers who flowered at Manchester United in the Fifties. He is also reluctantly known as the hero of Munich for his role in the plane crash that claimed the lives of eight of his fellow players - as celebrated in their day as stars such as David Beckham and Wayne Rooney are now - on the way back from a European Cup tie in 1958.
But Harry, retired and living back in his Ulster homeland, will not be tuning in on Tuesday night when BBC1 broadcasts the first film drama to depict the horrific events that made ordinary people weep in the street when they first heard the news.
"I will not watch it, " the legendary United and Northern Ireland goalkeeper tells me emphatically from his home in Articlave in County Derry.
"My life has been about living the truth, some of it hard to bear. I don't need to have it dramatised.
"I've never been comfortable about being portrayed as some kind of John Wayne or the hero of Munich. It's a nonsense and I don't need life turned into fiction." The events of February 6, 1958, when United's propeller-driven airliner crashed on its third attempt to take off from a snow-swept runway in Munich, shocked the nation to its core.
Manchester United's renowned manager Matt Busby had recruited a group of unprecedently youthful players to his squad and his strategy was paying big dividends. Not only was the club making great strides in Europe but team captain Roger Byrne, Duncan Edwards - the 21 year-old hailed as the finest footballer of his generation - and 26-year-old centre-forward Tommy Taylor were also members of the national squad.
It was beginning to look as if England had what it took to win the World Cup that year. In austere, postwar Britain, Busby's Babes represented hope and optimism.
But when the aircraft barrelled down the runway and never made it into the air, crashing into a house after failing to lift off and bursting into flames, that dream was shattered.
The plane had been refuelling in Munich en route from Belgrade and the players had already got on and off twice amid failed attempts to take off.
In the carnage, Byrne lay dead, along with Taylor, centre-back Mark Jones, midfielder Eddie Colman, Irish forward Liam Whelan, winger David Pegg and defender Geoff Bent.
A critically ill Busby was administered the last rites, although he eventually pulled through after months in hospital. Duncan Edwards was not so lucky. After initially surviving the impact, the brilliant young midfielder lost his struggle for life 15 days later.
Of the 43 people on the plane, 23 died - including eight of the nine top sports writers from the national press who were travelling with the team, among them Henry Rose from the Daily Express.
Harry Gregg's role in the crash is well known. Thrown clear into the snow when the fuselage split into two, he stormed back into the fiery wreckage to rescue two players as well as a woman passenger and her baby.
"I somehow found the courage to climb back into the burning wreckage of the plane, even though Jim Thain, the captain, shouted, 'Run, you stupid bastard, it's going to explode!' " he says. "I got a baby out and then a woman, too. I pulled Bobby Charlton and Dennis Viollet out of what was left of the aircraft and dragged them about 20 yards through the snow. Matt Busby was rubbing his chest and moaning, 'My legs, my legs'.
"Roger Byrne, our captain and England full-back, didn't have a mark on him and his eyes were open but he was clearly dead. I've always regretted that I didn't close his eyes. When I found Jackie Blanchflower, the lower part of his right arm had been almost severed. It was horrendous, a scene of utter devastation." Blanchflower, the United and Northern Ireland centre-half, later survived.
Harry is keen to play down his own heroics on that wintry day but when he does recount what happened - and he dug into the painful memories three years ago when writing his autobiography Harry's Game - the unvarnished truth needs no tricks from celluloid.
"Looking back, I still have a whole range of lingering emotions about it:
grief, obviously, but also anger, guilt, horror, frustration and discomfort - especially at being known as the 'hero of Munich'. I was lucky, I survived but ended up suffering from classic survivor's guilt. For 40 years afterwards I couldn't face meeting Joy Byrne, Roger's widow, Geoffrey Bent's wife, Marion, David Pegg's family and many others. I couldn't look those people in the eye knowing I had lived when their loved ones had perished."
It was not until 1998 that Harry finally confronted his demons - as he calls them - starting at the 40th anniversary memorial service at Manchester Cathedral. The next evening he finally spoke to Joy Byrne.
She said: "Harry Gregg, why have you been torturing yourself for 40 years?" For Harry, her words washed away years of guilt. He recognises that the crash has become a crucial part of United's folklore but he is frustrated by some of the distortions that have emerged over the years - and he fears that the BBC's dramatised version may make matters worse. He was approached by the film's researchers and assisted with their early work but was disappointed when he saw an early copy of the programme. "A young woman first spoke to me and she was very thorough and spent some time with me but then she had to take maternity leave. I then spoke to other researchers and by the time she came back to me she was telling me that she was not sure I'd like what I would eventually see. And I didn't, " he says.
"I don't want to protest too much because there are some good aspects to the film. It does convey the emotion and the horror of what happened. But some things are just plain wrong and jar with me. They show our trainer Jimmy Murphy addressing the team - he was not even on the flight, he was away with the Wales team. And too many people who were an important part of that group - and what happened to us all - have been ignored, simply left out of the film.
"My character comes out of it OK but I know that when real life is turned into film, there is bound to be dramatisation. Perhaps that's why I don't like it. The reality of what happened was dramatic enough without turning it into entertainment." Harry has long believed that the captain of the Elizabethan highwing monoplane, James Thain, was unfairly vilified for his role in the events of 48 years ago. He is not thrilled with how the British European Airways pilot is portrayed in the BBC film.
In the summer of 1958, the German authorities contended that ice on the wings had caused the crash and that Captain Thain was at fault in not having them de-iced before taking off. It was always Thain's position that what little ice there was on the wings was thawing and de-icing was not necessary. A British inquiry concluded years later that slush on the runway was the sole cause of the crash but that came too late to save Thain's career. He never flew professionally again, having been dismissed by BEA, and he died of a heart attack 30 years ago.
Harry says: "I did not like the way Thain was depicted in the early copy of the film. In it he was shown in conversation with my character and declaring that he did not know what had happened. In reality he and I had a conversation after the crash and he told me all about flying that plane. Jim Thain was a good man and was crucified. Private papers that were only released a few years ago show that the British government at the time did not want to embarrass the West German government so soon after the war." Harry's irritability with the distortion of the memory of Munich has even led him to confront teammates, sometimes years later, to talk through white lies or halfremembered myths. One was United centre-back Bill Foulkes, who survived as a player to help realise Busby's dream of winning the European Cup a decade later.
He recalls: "I had to talk to Bill years later when I was back at United doing some coaching. He came to the ground and we had a discussion because he thought I was having a go at him. I was not - and I never wanted to hurt him or his family. But Bill had said things such as the first time he saw me after the crash I was coming round the tail of the aircraft covered in blood with a child in my arms.
"The truth is that Bill did come back to help but when I was bringing the child out he was running away from the plane. We owe it to the memory of those left behind on that runway to tell it like it was." At a reunion in Munich, many of the survivors got together at a hotel and compared notes. "When the old players spoke publicly at that gathering, quite a few had their say in front of the microphone - Jackie Blanchflower, Bill Foulkes, Albert Scanlon and me.
"Bobby Charlton spoke too. He came on that trip with us as a fellow surviving player, not a director of United, which he was by that time.
He said there was not a morning that went by when he didn't think of the friends he had lost.Me? I don't live with it every day of my life but, when I do, it's all there. All of it.