Manchester United coach Jimmy Murphy has been hailed as the man who helped rejuvenate the football club.
United coach rose to the challenge in tragic circumstances
Manchester United coach Jimmy Murphy has been hailed as the man who helped rejuvenate the football club in the aftermath of the Munich air disaster.
There were precious few that had their minds on football in the days after a tragedy that took the lives of eight players and 23 people in total.
But with an FA Cup game against Sheffield Wednesday scheduled for just 13 days after the 6th February, 1958 disaster, Murphy was charged with the task of keeping the 'flag flying' - as told to do so by hospital ridden manager Sir Matt Busby.
According to his son Jimmy Murphy jnr, as a football man, he knew the season must go on.
Kept going
"My father would have them in the youth team and then the reserves and when they were ready, he'd say to Matt 'this player is ready'," he recalled.
"My father knew all these boys from the age of 15 and it must have been horrendous for him.
"I can vividly remember, I was listening to the radio at home at four o'clock when it came through about the Manchester United air crash.
"My mother said 'oh dear God, your father' but we quickly realised he wasn't on that plane - he was with the Welsh team in Cardiff because he was manager of Wales.
"But his job was to come back and keep the club going.
"His job was to get Manchester United ready for the next football match and he did.
"People forget that Johnny Berry and Jackie Blanchflower never played football again; Kenny Morgans, Dennis Viollet, Bobby Charlton, Ray Wood, Albert Scanlon, they were all in hospital.
"And my father was going to funerals while he was doing all that was necessary on the football side.
"There must be quite a few people of that era at Manchester United, 15 or 16-year-olds playing for United's fourth team, who two weeks later were playing for the reserves.
"There were probably a lot of lads that were pushed too early to play at too high a standard of football and possibly didn't make what they could have done if they had had the tutelage of Bert Whalley and my father in the next three years."
FA Cup final
Murphy helped to rebuild United's side and with the aid of new signings such as Ernie Taylor from Blackpool and Stan Crowther from Aston Villa, somewhat remarkably took them to the FA Cup final.
Although Busby, who spent 70 days in hospital recovering, made his way to the bench on crutches that day, it was Murphy who led the side out at Wembley, alongside Bill Foulkes, his choice as captain.
"Billy said 'I don't want to do it and I can't do it' and my dad said 'you can and you will', and he did," Murphy jnr added.
"Bill didn't want the responsibility. Having suffered the trauma of the plane crash he just wanted to get on with a normal life rather than being responsible for leading this young team out."
United went on to lose the final against Bolton at Wembley.
