About Duncan Edwards

A gust of wind swirls the autumn leaves away from the pile the old man sweeps in between the lonely graves at Dudley Cemetery. The setback is only momentary. Bending his head against the light rain, he circles the leaves again, brushing them back into place.

That, at least, is something he can put right. There is nothing the old man can do to bring back his son, Duncan, or indeed his daughter, Carol Anne, who died in 1947 at 14 weeks and is buried under the same stone.

But while Duncan Edwards, the legendary Manchester United wing back killed in the Munich air crash on February 6, 1958, is gone, he has certainly not been forgotten.

Duncan’s father, Gladstone, spent the twilight of his own life caring for the Black Country graveyard on Dudley’s Stourbridge Road and he now shares his son’s last resting place in a grave with his wife, Sarah-Anne, just yards away.

Sixty years after the crash that killed eight members of the famous Busby Babes, the football world is still grieving over those lost stars – and wondering how brightly they would have shone.

As you will read, ‘Duncan’s Boots and the Field of Broken Dreams’ gives us a glimpse, albeit imagined, of the player this lost colossus may have become.

This autumn, marking the 60th anniversary of the crash, another new book is being published to commemorate the Manchester United and England player.

‘Black Country Boy to Red Devil’, celebrates Duncan’s tragically short, storied life with a fascinating collection of personal photographs and exclusive interviews with his old teammates and friends.

Like ‘Duncan’s Boots’,  it begs the question; how far could Duncan have gone if he, like Bobby Charlton, had survived?

That question is a big part of the reason the Munich air disaster evokes so much emotion all these years later.

A young team rich with promise, some of it already fulfilled but with so much more yet to come, wiped out on the very brink of greatness.

Twenty of the 44 on board, players, staff and members of the press, died after British European Airways Flight 609 crashed on its third attempt to take off from the slush-covered runway at Munich-Riem Airport in West Germany.

Football, so important hours earlier when a young Manchester United held the fearful Red Star Belgrade to a 3-3 draw to go through to the semi-finals in what was then the European Cup, was rendered insignificant. The only result that counted on that awful night was the loss in human lives.

In the days and weeks after the tragedy, the focus was understandably on the dream that died. Yet 60 years later, the legend of the Busby Babes lives on. For a fading few, it lives on in their memories but for most of us the idea of a team that embodies the excitement and vibrancy of the beautiful game remains an enigma we’re still chasing.

We know what became of Pele’s wonderful Brazil team, of Johann Cruyff’s Holland and Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona. We celebrate the achievements of the Manchester United of Best, Law and Charlton. We will never know what the young team assembled by Matt Busby at Old Trafford may have achieved.

They were known as the Busby Babes but their youth belied their standing in a game that was free of the kind of commercial baggage we have become used to today. In those days the players caught the same bus to work as their neighbours; they were divided not by mansion gates but by the thin walls of terrace houses.

Duncan Edwards, famously said by the great Sir Bobby Charlton to be the greatest player he had ever seen, would certainly have added to his 18 England caps but would he and not Bobby Moore have captained his country to victory in 1966? Indeed, would he and some of his fellow Busby Babes have led England to more than a solitary World Cup trophy?

 

Ironically, modern medicine would have probably answered all of those questions for us; doctors believe he would have survived his injuries if they happened today.

When he signed for United, a spanking new washing machine was delivered to his parents’ house in Dudley. It was a far cry from the multi-million pound signing on fees we see now but his family was grateful nonetheless.

Back then, anything seemed possible. Duncan lived for Manchester United. As it turned out, he died for them, too.

Gladstone and Sarah Anne were at Duncan’s bedside in West Germany when he died at 2.15 am on February

21, 1958, finally succumbing to the injuries he suffered 15 days earlier.

“C’mon, Mum, get me home quick. We’re playing Wolves on Saturday and I can’t miss that,’ he told his parents, according to an interview with Sarah Anne by journalist David Harrison before her death at the age of 93 in 2003.

Even the young star’s fabled physical and mental strength were not enough this time to match his will to live. The injuries were just too severe.

His parents never really recovered from the tragedy; Gladstone died in 1978 having spent his own final years tidying the gravestones at Dudley Cemetery.

Today, a bunch of fresh flowers will sit in the football-shaped vase on Duncan’s grave, his mum and dad keeping guard on their children a few graves to the right.

And they can rest easy that the football world will always remember the great Duncan Edwards.

* Duncan Edwards: Black Country Boy to Red Devil by Jim Cadman and Iain McCartney