David Peace, the author of Munichs, a new novel about the 1958 air disaster that claimed 23 lives, eight of them Manchester United players, feels a personal connection to this story. But isn’t that the point? It is a reminder that this was a national tragedy.
“My father had vascular dementia for a number of years and died in 2022,” Peace tells Sky Sports. “We talked about many things but 50 per cent of our conversations were about football. And the team he talked about most was always the Busby Babes.”
Peace’s father was a Huddersfield Town supporter but saw an early incarnation of the Babes in 1953. “Duncan Edwards had such a profound effect on my dad. He had never seen anything like him. He thought he was just the greatest player he had ever seen.”
Five years later, he would be at Highbury to see what would turn out to be Edwards’ final game on English soil, a thrilling 5-4 win over Arsenal. “He cherished the programme from that day and always said that it was the greatest game that he had ever seen.”
Edwards died in Munich, the last of eight United players to lose their lives when their aeroplane crashed near the runway on the journey back from a European fixture in Belgrade. That much you probably know. Peace’s moving novel goes so much deeper.
It explores the micro and the macro, the extraordinary personal stories and the backdrop against which they were played out. In doing so, he teases out long forgotten details, makes you think differently about a subject that still has the power to shock.
“There was so much I actually didn’t know,” says Peace. “I really wasn’t aware of the extent to which it was a national tragedy. I knew it affected Manchester United, maybe Manchester. But it was a huge part of the history of the country. It had such an impact.”
The death of Edwards was painfully received in the West Midlands. “Tommy Taylor, David Pegg, Mark Jones, they all came from Yorkshire, and this affected people there a great deal. People forget that it affected people all over the country.” And beyond.
The funeral of Billy Whelan, known as Liam in his native Ireland, brought Dublin to a standstill. “There was a great outpouring of mourning there.” This at a time when relations between the United Kingdom and Ireland were not what they are today.
“The players were treated by German doctors and nurses only 13 years after the war. United fly them over and they get this massive round of applause for all they have done. It was something that really helped to heal relationships between the two countries.”
Putting the celebrity status of the Busby Babes into a modern context is difficult. “They were a kind of phenomenon. There were photo spreads of them. Doing the dishes or listening to records, stood by the piano. It made me think of the Beatles or something.”
That is more commonly said of George Best but this predates that, predates the sort of fame enjoyed by David Beckham. “People wanted the David Pegg haircut. The nickname was Hollywood United because they were seen as this kind of glamour club even then.”
The appeal captivated not just the public but it drew in the players. “Bobby Charlton should have gone to Newcastle, really. Duncan Edwards should have gone to Wolves. But they wanted to play for United because there was this special air about them.”
What the novel brings home so vividly is the grief many would carry through their lives at a time when there was neither the culture nor the mechanisms to allow for it. Harry Gregg and Bill Foulkes went from the crash to a rearranged FA Cup tie within a fortnight.
“It is just incredible really.” Charlton, devastated by the loss of his friends, returned the following week. Still traumatised? “I think very much so. It is often said that Bobby Charlton was never the same again. They were his best mates who died,” says Peace.
“Before Munich, he was a lad who liked to laugh, drink, joke around, go to the cinema, go dancing and all the things like that. They say he never smiled again and it is probably true. I think it is one of the reasons he, famously, did not get on with George Best.
“You do not have to be a psychiatrist to think he must have looked at George Best with all the talent that he had and, from Charlton’s view, he was squandering it while his own friends had died and never had that chance. He felt it was his responsibility to play on.”
Survivors’ guilt was widespread. There was Sir Matt Busby. “He felt it was his responsibility.” Jimmy Murphy, who took such an active role in rebuilding United, had not even been on the plane, having missed the trip, but felt he should have been.
“Jimmy Murphy also knew that he had to carry on. That was just how things were done. On the ferry home from Munich, because they did not fly, Bill Foulkes says, ‘I don’t want to play again’. Jimmy Murphy said, ‘well, you have to, and you’re going to be the captain’.”
Peace’s novel is packed with such stories, a treasure trove of tales. The details have been fleshed out but it is all based on research, having gone back to source material such as Foulkes’ ghostwritten autobiography. “There are these incredible stories.”
Some are unsettling. “When the coffins arrived at Old Trafford, they used apprentices to help carry them to the gym. It was the lads’ responsibility to box up their possessions and give them back to the parents. It is just unthinkable in this day and age.”
Other aspects are shockingly modern. Football never stops and the novel explores the odd juxtaposition between Murphy going back and forth to Munich, informing relatives, attending funerals, and all the time trying to sign up new players to fulfil the fixtures.
“There are parts of the story where you think it is a completely different time,” says Peace. “But then there are those bits where photographers are going onto the ward and taking photos of Matt Busby in the oxygen tent. The pilot receiving hate mail.
“In the Easter after Munich, they went to Sunderland and Harry Gregg said he could hear people in the crowd shouting that he should have died at Munich. That all seems a bit too familiar, a bit too modern, doesn’t it? It is not all the fault of social media.”
Even the term ‘Munichs’ has connotations, having become a derisory term used by rival supporters. Peace addresses that at the end of the novel. It is an attempt to reclaim it. Anyone who gives it a moment’s thought could hardly fail to be moved by these events.
“I defy anyone to read this and use it as a term of abuse. I knew the title was provocative but I wanted to reflect the magnitude of the disaster and how it affected people in very different ways. My hope is that it re-establishes Munich as a national tragedy.”
Amid the harrowing accounts, the funerals and the loss, there is a tale of the human spirit enduring too. United somehow reached the FA Cup final that season. “I think that is also an inspiring story of not being defeated by tragedy, of carrying on together.”
Peace adds: “I just think no matter who you support this story deserves to be told.”
Munichs by David Peace is published by Faber and is out now