Caoimhin O’Muraile ⚽ As Man Utd engineer yet another abysmal season we await the arrival of the new man at the helm, Erik Ten Hag. 

A relatively unknown from Ajax Amsterdam who guided the tkeam to win the Eredivisie, Dutch League Champions, so we await in anticipation for his arrival. On a brighter note the under 18s at United won the FA Youth Cup in front of over 67,000 fans at Old Trafford on Wednesday 11th May. This attendance beats by a distance the crowds attracted by all so-called Premier League clubs, bar the Man Utd first team. Perhaps instead of spending millions on player the new man should look a little closer to home. The result was Manchester United under 18s 3 Nottingham Forrest 1.

It is the past managers I want to look at in this article, who was the greatest? To many younger fans the answer will be a no brainer, Alex Ferguson. However, if trophies alone are the measure of greatness, then yes, Ferguson takes it by a mile, winning 38 trophies at United, but is winning silverware the only factor? It certainly helps because a person who wins nothing cannot be considered great or even good. Tommy Docherty, for me a potential candidate but that is all, “potential.” If he had stayed longer after the hammering of Liverpool at Wembley 1977 who knows what he might, might being the operative word, have achieved? He did not stay, due to personal issues, so cannot be considered despite producing some great football. The only other candidate to rival, and in my view beats, Alex Ferguson is the late great Matt Busby.

In 1945 Matt Busby took over the reins of a club operating out of a bombsite due to the grounds close proximity to the docks making it a target for the Luftwaffe during the war. Busby at his interview told the directors who interviewed him he wanted “full control over all team matters, who he signed and who he sold, he picks the team” and they basically keep their noses out. They must judge him on results and results alone. His office was a shed behind the Stretford Paddock, one of the few stands still in a reasonable state, and the team played for a while at Maine Road, home of rivals Manchester City.

Within three years Busby had won the FA Cup beating the then powerful Blackpool 4-2 at Wembley. All this in three years from a bombsite. United’s crowds while playing at Maine Road were higher than those of their hosts, Man City! As we moved from the forties to the fifties Matt began rebuilding again. The aging FA Cup winning side, great players like Johnny Carey, Stan Pearson, John Aston Senior, and Jimmy Delaney were aging though still had much to offer in bringing the first generation of youngsters through. In 1951-52 season Matt Busby won the first of his five league titles winning again 1955-56, 56-57, 64-65 and 1966-67. After winning the league in 1955-56 Matt Busby did the unthinkable by defying league supremo, Alan Hardaker, who took over the role of League President in 1957, Busby decided his United would enter the newly formed European Champions Cup. Chelsea who won the league in 1954-55 lacked the bottle to take the league on and therefore missed out on the chance to become England’s first representatives in the competition. That honour went a year later to Manchester United.

After winning the league again in 1956-57, the first back-to-back, United entered the competition for the second season in the 1957-58 season. After securing a semi-final spot by beating Red Star Belgrade disaster struck at Munich Airport returning from Belgrade. As most football fans will be aware what happened was a tragedy with most of the team destroyed at Munich. Even with a weakened side United gave semi-final opponents, Milan, a good go. Alas the Italians were too strong for the make shift United side. But for Munich I, and many others, believe we would have beaten the mighty Real Madrid in the final. It is all if, buts and maybes, we will never know. Real Madrid, the winners, as a gesture and a nice gesture at that, wanted to give United the trophy that year in recognition of the Munich tragedy but the rules would not allow it but the thought was what counted. 

After the crash Matt Busby received the last rites of the Roman Catholic Church, twice. He was close to death on both occasions. Great players like Duncan Edwards, Liam Whelan, Tommy Taylor and more perished at Munich. The flowers of English football who, it was expected would dominate not only the domestic scene but that of European football for the next decade, were no more! Matt Busby survived and returned to his managerial duties where he stated, “it will take five years before we are among the silverware again.” And how right he was. Five years to the season after his Munich ordeal, Man Utd were back in the FA Cup final at Wembley, the first game played under an all-covered Wembley stadium, beating Leicester City 3-1, two goals from David Herd and one from new signing from Torino, Denis Law. This was Matt Busby’s fourth great team he had built since taking over in 1945, less than twenty years previous. In 1965 United took the league again and again in 1967. Less than ten years after the Munich Air Disaster United, under Matt Busby’s stewardship, had moved mountains. In 1968 Matt achieved what, to him, was the Holy Grail, the European Cup - becoming the first English side to do so. The first to enter back in the fifties and ten years after Munch the first to win it.

Matt Busby retired in 1969 a tired man and, after all he had been through, who could blame him? He built five great teams, one of the finest stadiums, even then, in England if not Britain and all this against all the odds. He was knighted in 1968 after the European Cup destruction of Benfica and received a Papal Knighthood, “Knight of the Order of Saint Gregory the Great,” one of the highest un-ordained awards in the Roman Catholic Church in 1972. Pope Paull VI awarded Matt this which, to him, trumped his knighthood from the British Queen. There was nothing personal in this preference but Busby was a devout Roman Catholic. Five league titles, two FA Cups and the big one the European Cup, plus five Charity Shields, and, as I said, against overwhelming odds! 

On now to Alex Ferguson.

In 1986 Alex Ferguson arrived at old Trafford from Aberdeen where he built a side capable of challenging the hegemony of Celtic and Rangers. Under Ferguson the team won the European Cup Winners Cup in 1983 and his credentials were perfect. Matt Busby, now moved upstairs at Old Trafford, influenced the decision to appoint Ferguson, he once again was not wrong. Ferguson's first four years in charge at Old Trafford showed little promise. In fact, arguably, he was due for the sack according to some, if United had not won the FA Cup in 1989-90. Some say it was a Mark Robbins goal in an away cup tie at Nottingham Forrest which saved Fergusons job. Today, no doubt in what passes for Association football Alex would have been “down the road” and United would have remained in the doldrums of English football. Thankfully a certain amount of sanity still prevailed in the game in those days, before big business really moved in and fucked the game right up, and as a result of this level headedness Alex Ferguson survived.

Man Utd won the FA Cup in 1989-90 and the following season lifted the now defunct, regrettably, European Cup Winners Cup. The road to glory was now underway as from 1992-93 until Alex Ferguson's retirement in 2013 Manchester United won thirteen league titles (so-called premier Leagues). Couple this with the previous seven titles and United have a total of twenty, a record which still stands. Ferguson once said his ambition was to “knock Liverpool off their perch” and he certainly did that. Under Alex Ferguson United lifted the coveted treble in 1999 (on what would have been Matt Busby’s 90th birthday), something still to this day unmatched in the English game: that being the Premier League, FA Cup and European Cup. The nearest before this to any team doing the treble was Liverpool in 1977, stopped at Wembley by none other than Manchester United! In 2008 United lifted the European Cup for a third time in Moscow beating Chelsea on penalties, not ideal, far from it, but a win all the same. In his time Ferguson also lifted four League Cups, something Matt Busby never achieved, though in fairness the competition only came into being in 1961. In 2013 Ferguson retired satisfied he had done all he could, which nobody could deny, and knocked “Liverpool off their perch”. Since then, it has been downhill for Man Utd, though under Jose Mourinho they did lift the UEFA Cup and another League Cup, something most clubs would have been delighted with. Under Lou Van Gall we won the FA Cup, then the Dutchman was sacked. Fucking ridiculous, sacked for winning the second most prestigious trophy, after the league, in the game!

As I said at the beginning, if greatness is calculated on trophies alone then Alex Ferguson wins it by a distance, though Matt did have his share of silverware. The difference is, Matt Busby was a pioneer, he pioneered English club’s entry into the European Cup defying Alan Hardaker and the Football League. He secured FA support for this venture, and that organisation's President, Stanley Rouse, supported Busby’s quest. Against all the odds following Munich when he lost arguably and certainly potentially, the greatest ever English team known as the “Busby Babes” he masterminded another great team of the sixties, this time built around Bobby Charlton, George Best and Denis Law. He took over at Old Trafford using a wooden shed as his office. He made it clear to the board who was in charge of all team affairs, him, something again at the time considered radical. Neither Matt Busby or Alex Ferguson would have, I do not believe, this rubbish today of having a Director of Football over them, undermining their authority as team managers.

Matt Busby once commented, “if the interests of business ever take precedence over football”, then the game would be in a bad state. I wonder what the great man would make of today’s pantomime!! None of the great managers of the past would stand for this nonsense, Busby, Shankly, Clough, Ferguson and Stein none of them would have put up with it.

It is my contention, and no disrespect to Alex Ferguson who was beyond doubt a great manager, that due to everything stacked against him from day one Matt Busby remains Manchester United’s greatest manager. I do not judge greatness on trophies alone, though they are important, but other factors come into play and Matt overcame so much and fought the authorities so hard to get Man Utd into the European Cup which paved the way for others to follow that he takes the mantle. The grandson of Irish immigrants who fled the famine in Ireland he climbed to the pinnacle of football management. Perhaps his proudest private moment was his Papal Knighthood by Pope Paul VI in 1972.

Matt Busby died on 20th January 1994, aged 84, and it was one of the largest funerals Manchester has ever seen. I was there myself and what a poignant day, memories of my childhood flooded back. I was fortunate enough to see the latter end of the Busby era, in fact to be honest it was just after he’d retired but it was still Matt's team. Having seen Busby’s side and Fergusons play, live not on tele, I am hard pushed to draw a winner. Perhaps Matt Busby’s team of the sixties would clinch it, due in no small part to their European success and the way they did it. Alex Ferguson still attends matches at Old Trafford today, and some away games, I wonder what he is really thinking deep inside?

Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent 
Socialist Republican and Marxist

Who Was Manchester United’s Greatest Manager?

Caoimhin O’Muraile ⚽ As Man Utd engineer yet another abysmal season we await the arrival of the new man at the helm, Erik Ten Hag. 

A relatively unknown from Ajax Amsterdam who guided the tkeam to win the Eredivisie, Dutch League Champions, so we await in anticipation for his arrival. On a brighter note the under 18s at United won the FA Youth Cup in front of over 67,000 fans at Old Trafford on Wednesday 11th May. This attendance beats by a distance the crowds attracted by all so-called Premier League clubs, bar the Man Utd first team. Perhaps instead of spending millions on player the new man should look a little closer to home. The result was Manchester United under 18s 3 Nottingham Forrest 1.

It is the past managers I want to look at in this article, who was the greatest? To many younger fans the answer will be a no brainer, Alex Ferguson. However, if trophies alone are the measure of greatness, then yes, Ferguson takes it by a mile, winning 38 trophies at United, but is winning silverware the only factor? It certainly helps because a person who wins nothing cannot be considered great or even good. Tommy Docherty, for me a potential candidate but that is all, “potential.” If he had stayed longer after the hammering of Liverpool at Wembley 1977 who knows what he might, might being the operative word, have achieved? He did not stay, due to personal issues, so cannot be considered despite producing some great football. The only other candidate to rival, and in my view beats, Alex Ferguson is the late great Matt Busby.

In 1945 Matt Busby took over the reins of a club operating out of a bombsite due to the grounds close proximity to the docks making it a target for the Luftwaffe during the war. Busby at his interview told the directors who interviewed him he wanted “full control over all team matters, who he signed and who he sold, he picks the team” and they basically keep their noses out. They must judge him on results and results alone. His office was a shed behind the Stretford Paddock, one of the few stands still in a reasonable state, and the team played for a while at Maine Road, home of rivals Manchester City.

Within three years Busby had won the FA Cup beating the then powerful Blackpool 4-2 at Wembley. All this in three years from a bombsite. United’s crowds while playing at Maine Road were higher than those of their hosts, Man City! As we moved from the forties to the fifties Matt began rebuilding again. The aging FA Cup winning side, great players like Johnny Carey, Stan Pearson, John Aston Senior, and Jimmy Delaney were aging though still had much to offer in bringing the first generation of youngsters through. In 1951-52 season Matt Busby won the first of his five league titles winning again 1955-56, 56-57, 64-65 and 1966-67. After winning the league in 1955-56 Matt Busby did the unthinkable by defying league supremo, Alan Hardaker, who took over the role of League President in 1957, Busby decided his United would enter the newly formed European Champions Cup. Chelsea who won the league in 1954-55 lacked the bottle to take the league on and therefore missed out on the chance to become England’s first representatives in the competition. That honour went a year later to Manchester United.

After winning the league again in 1956-57, the first back-to-back, United entered the competition for the second season in the 1957-58 season. After securing a semi-final spot by beating Red Star Belgrade disaster struck at Munich Airport returning from Belgrade. As most football fans will be aware what happened was a tragedy with most of the team destroyed at Munich. Even with a weakened side United gave semi-final opponents, Milan, a good go. Alas the Italians were too strong for the make shift United side. But for Munich I, and many others, believe we would have beaten the mighty Real Madrid in the final. It is all if, buts and maybes, we will never know. Real Madrid, the winners, as a gesture and a nice gesture at that, wanted to give United the trophy that year in recognition of the Munich tragedy but the rules would not allow it but the thought was what counted. 

After the crash Matt Busby received the last rites of the Roman Catholic Church, twice. He was close to death on both occasions. Great players like Duncan Edwards, Liam Whelan, Tommy Taylor and more perished at Munich. The flowers of English football who, it was expected would dominate not only the domestic scene but that of European football for the next decade, were no more! Matt Busby survived and returned to his managerial duties where he stated, “it will take five years before we are among the silverware again.” And how right he was. Five years to the season after his Munich ordeal, Man Utd were back in the FA Cup final at Wembley, the first game played under an all-covered Wembley stadium, beating Leicester City 3-1, two goals from David Herd and one from new signing from Torino, Denis Law. This was Matt Busby’s fourth great team he had built since taking over in 1945, less than twenty years previous. In 1965 United took the league again and again in 1967. Less than ten years after the Munich Air Disaster United, under Matt Busby’s stewardship, had moved mountains. In 1968 Matt achieved what, to him, was the Holy Grail, the European Cup - becoming the first English side to do so. The first to enter back in the fifties and ten years after Munch the first to win it.

Matt Busby retired in 1969 a tired man and, after all he had been through, who could blame him? He built five great teams, one of the finest stadiums, even then, in England if not Britain and all this against all the odds. He was knighted in 1968 after the European Cup destruction of Benfica and received a Papal Knighthood, “Knight of the Order of Saint Gregory the Great,” one of the highest un-ordained awards in the Roman Catholic Church in 1972. Pope Paull VI awarded Matt this which, to him, trumped his knighthood from the British Queen. There was nothing personal in this preference but Busby was a devout Roman Catholic. Five league titles, two FA Cups and the big one the European Cup, plus five Charity Shields, and, as I said, against overwhelming odds! 

On now to Alex Ferguson.

In 1986 Alex Ferguson arrived at old Trafford from Aberdeen where he built a side capable of challenging the hegemony of Celtic and Rangers. Under Ferguson the team won the European Cup Winners Cup in 1983 and his credentials were perfect. Matt Busby, now moved upstairs at Old Trafford, influenced the decision to appoint Ferguson, he once again was not wrong. Ferguson's first four years in charge at Old Trafford showed little promise. In fact, arguably, he was due for the sack according to some, if United had not won the FA Cup in 1989-90. Some say it was a Mark Robbins goal in an away cup tie at Nottingham Forrest which saved Fergusons job. Today, no doubt in what passes for Association football Alex would have been “down the road” and United would have remained in the doldrums of English football. Thankfully a certain amount of sanity still prevailed in the game in those days, before big business really moved in and fucked the game right up, and as a result of this level headedness Alex Ferguson survived.

Man Utd won the FA Cup in 1989-90 and the following season lifted the now defunct, regrettably, European Cup Winners Cup. The road to glory was now underway as from 1992-93 until Alex Ferguson's retirement in 2013 Manchester United won thirteen league titles (so-called premier Leagues). Couple this with the previous seven titles and United have a total of twenty, a record which still stands. Ferguson once said his ambition was to “knock Liverpool off their perch” and he certainly did that. Under Alex Ferguson United lifted the coveted treble in 1999 (on what would have been Matt Busby’s 90th birthday), something still to this day unmatched in the English game: that being the Premier League, FA Cup and European Cup. The nearest before this to any team doing the treble was Liverpool in 1977, stopped at Wembley by none other than Manchester United! In 2008 United lifted the European Cup for a third time in Moscow beating Chelsea on penalties, not ideal, far from it, but a win all the same. In his time Ferguson also lifted four League Cups, something Matt Busby never achieved, though in fairness the competition only came into being in 1961. In 2013 Ferguson retired satisfied he had done all he could, which nobody could deny, and knocked “Liverpool off their perch”. Since then, it has been downhill for Man Utd, though under Jose Mourinho they did lift the UEFA Cup and another League Cup, something most clubs would have been delighted with. Under Lou Van Gall we won the FA Cup, then the Dutchman was sacked. Fucking ridiculous, sacked for winning the second most prestigious trophy, after the league, in the game!

As I said at the beginning, if greatness is calculated on trophies alone then Alex Ferguson wins it by a distance, though Matt did have his share of silverware. The difference is, Matt Busby was a pioneer, he pioneered English club’s entry into the European Cup defying Alan Hardaker and the Football League. He secured FA support for this venture, and that organisation's President, Stanley Rouse, supported Busby’s quest. Against all the odds following Munich when he lost arguably and certainly potentially, the greatest ever English team known as the “Busby Babes” he masterminded another great team of the sixties, this time built around Bobby Charlton, George Best and Denis Law. He took over at Old Trafford using a wooden shed as his office. He made it clear to the board who was in charge of all team affairs, him, something again at the time considered radical. Neither Matt Busby or Alex Ferguson would have, I do not believe, this rubbish today of having a Director of Football over them, undermining their authority as team managers.

Matt Busby once commented, “if the interests of business ever take precedence over football”, then the game would be in a bad state. I wonder what the great man would make of today’s pantomime!! None of the great managers of the past would stand for this nonsense, Busby, Shankly, Clough, Ferguson and Stein none of them would have put up with it.

It is my contention, and no disrespect to Alex Ferguson who was beyond doubt a great manager, that due to everything stacked against him from day one Matt Busby remains Manchester United’s greatest manager. I do not judge greatness on trophies alone, though they are important, but other factors come into play and Matt overcame so much and fought the authorities so hard to get Man Utd into the European Cup which paved the way for others to follow that he takes the mantle. The grandson of Irish immigrants who fled the famine in Ireland he climbed to the pinnacle of football management. Perhaps his proudest private moment was his Papal Knighthood by Pope Paul VI in 1972.

Matt Busby died on 20th January 1994, aged 84, and it was one of the largest funerals Manchester has ever seen. I was there myself and what a poignant day, memories of my childhood flooded back. I was fortunate enough to see the latter end of the Busby era, in fact to be honest it was just after he’d retired but it was still Matt's team. Having seen Busby’s side and Fergusons play, live not on tele, I am hard pushed to draw a winner. Perhaps Matt Busby’s team of the sixties would clinch it, due in no small part to their European success and the way they did it. Alex Ferguson still attends matches at Old Trafford today, and some away games, I wonder what he is really thinking deep inside?

Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent 
Socialist Republican and Marxist

2 comments:

  1. Lovely piece - can't say I agree with the hammered Liverpool in the 77 final - it was a close tightly fought game with a scorcher being scored by Jimmy Case for Liverpool.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have to agree, Jimmy Case's goal was a cracker. Over all on the day Pearson and Jimmy Greenhoff backed by Macari and McIlroy, and in particular Steve Coppel on the wing destroyed the scousers that day. Even Bob Paisley said "United were the better team" . Happy memories Anthony great days.

    Caoimhim O'Muraile

    ReplyDelete