British football lost some of its most precocious talent at Munich, including that of one man who survived.
Crash left some unable to continue football careers
British football lost some of its most precocious talent on that horrific evening of 6th February 1958, including that of one man who survived.
Welsh winger Kenny Morgans, at 18, was the youngest Babe of the Busby brigade and last to be pulled from the wreckage of BEA flight G-ALZU.
Only a matter of weeks earlier, he made his Manchester United debut against Leicester with a fulsome career waiting to blossom.
But the events which led to him being hauled out of the tail section's collection of luggage by two German reporters, some five hours after the crash, mapped out a different path to his career.
Morgans had been sat playing cards with colleagues Bill Foulkes, David Pegg and Albert Scanlon on the first half of the return trip from Belgrade but that had changed, along with the mood, after two aborted attempts to take off.
"On the third time it was quiet," recalled Morgans.
"There were even players that had changed seats, players that had gone to the back to sit down. So it seemed as if something was going to happen.
Unconscious
"I was sat by the window, I can remember us really going (fast) and hitting the fence at the end of the runway.
"I was knocked unconscious and later, at 8 or 9, two German reporters went back to the plane and they were looking for something and I was still in the plane at that point."
It was fully three days later Morgans learnt the horrific truth: eight of his United colleagues were dead or very close to it.
"I was last to come out and I woke up on the Sunday morning and there was Albert Scanlon, Bobby Charlton and Ray Wood and I thought that the other players would be in a different room," Morgans added.
"Then the professor of the hospital came and sat by me and told me the players that had died."
It is something, Morgans says, he could not get over and although he played for United again, including the European Cup semi-final win over AC Milan at Old Trafford, ultimately his career was over before it really began.
Morgans returned to England on the train alongside Dennis Viollet, having been told they would not play again until the following season, but after a brief hiatus things changed and Jimmy Murphy called to the Swansea family home.
United were short of players and wide men in particular so Morgans played a part in matches up until the FA Cup final defeat to Bolton, a day of greater personal disappointment.
"I played in a few games up to Wembley and I was picked on the Friday night to play and I was over the moon," Morgans said.
Atmosphere
"I thought that I could play my heart out for the players that had died.
"Walking around the ground, Jimmy came up and told me that he wasn't going to play me because he thought that the atmosphere and the ground was too heavy for me.
"I wasn't very pleased and (but) later he picked me for Milan at Old Trafford (five days after the FA Cup final).
"He called me up to his room and told me that he was sorry that he didn't play me at Wembley because he said I would have won the game for him.
"I was man of the match against Milan. Then I just sort of packed my career in.
"I didn't want to play in the first team because I missed the boys that had died. My heart wasn't in it."
Not a day goes by without Morgans remembering Duncan Edwards and Tommy Taylor, who were in digs only doors away during that 1957-58 season.
"I've got the last line-up of the team in my lounge," he said.
"I see them every time I go downstairs.
"I used to call for them to train, every morning for three months while I was in the first team. I got to know them like brothers.
Survived
"Not because I was playing, but that must have been the best side in the world."
Foulkes, who took over the captaincy following the crash, was one of only two survivors - Sir Bobby Charlton the other - to be part of the 1968 European Cup-winning United team.
"It was in my mind, the fact we survived," said Foulkes.
"And that's what I thought: 'Now we've got to do it'."
Unlike Morgans, who was left laying in the cold, Foulkes was able to walk away from the debris.
"I managed to get out of the plane," he said.
"Someone shouted to me to get out, quick, and I got out the quickest way I thought was there."
Scanlon, now 72, was unconscious for a lengthy period and did not meet Professor Georg Maurer at the Rechts der Isar hospital for a full three weeks.
He suffered a fractured skull, broken right leg, kidney damage and a broken shoulder. But it is the emotional damage which has proved the most painful.
"For 50 years I've gone around with this," Scanlon explained.
"The hardest part of my life since the air crash is meeting relations.
"You meet families. I hate meeting families. I used to meet Eddie Colman's dad - I worked with Eddie Colman's dad (Dick) for years - and I always had the feeling he'd look at me and he'd be thinking 'Why is he stood there and my lad's dead?'
"You always have that feeling. 'Why him not me?' Put me with one of the families and I start struggling."
