Right, this post is somewhat out of character for this blog, but I don't care, it must be said and it will be, if you don't like it, you can suck it up later until the proper post.
This week, the Daily Express, for all it's faults, is running a series of articles on the Munich air disaster which claimed the lives of 8 of Sir Matt Busby's 'Busby Babes'. Today's article was an interview with Sir Bobby Charlton, one of the survivors lucky enough to escape the crash with his body and his career intact. Far from feeling lucky, however, Bobby feels guilty. He speaks as a man haunted by the deaths of his friends and colleagues all those years ago. Guilty for the success he has had that others were denied. The way he speaks gives away a humble, gracious man from an age when success did not and does not breed arrogance. He describes his feelings of guilt at survival and for what he went on to achieve, that he did not deserve those achievements, and that he can never live up to the accolades that his colleagues could and should have gone on to earn, or the legacies they never had the chance to forge.
Nonsense.
Sir Bobby Charlton is a world cup winner and will forever be. He is still his nation's top scorer, has earned over a century of caps for his country, as well as making over 800 appearances and nearly 300 goals in club football, making over 750 appearances for Manchester United, finding the net on one short of 250 occasions, a phenomenal record for a player who spent most of his career as a midfielder. He has achieved heights of greatness that few players, certainly very few Englishmen, will ever see. He has won everything there is to win, done everything there is to do and been everything there is to be in the beautiful game. He has been a fantastic player on the pitch and a wonderful ambassador off it for more than 50 years, and the fact that he is still so humble and so unassuming about his achievements is just another testament to the integrity and skill of a man who deserves his place, whether he would agree or not, with the best and the greatest of all time.
Bobby, I know you won't read this, but all true football fans will agree with me - when the two halves of Manchester come together to mourn the victims of the disaster, the careers of Johnny Berry and Jackie Blanchflower and the young lights of Geoff Bent, Roger Byrne, Eddie Colman, Mark Jones, David Pegg, Tommy Taylor, Billy Whelan and Duncan Edwards - described by Charlton himself as the greatest player with whom he ever shared a pitch - there will be many words spoken and many tributes paid, but no-one could make a greater tribute to them than what you have achieved, for them and in their name, since that fateful day in Munich that claimed the lives of so many of England's best and brightest. You are a credit to your country, a credit to your club and, most of all, a credit to their memory.
This week, the Daily Express, for all it's faults, is running a series of articles on the Munich air disaster which claimed the lives of 8 of Sir Matt Busby's 'Busby Babes'. Today's article was an interview with Sir Bobby Charlton, one of the survivors lucky enough to escape the crash with his body and his career intact. Far from feeling lucky, however, Bobby feels guilty. He speaks as a man haunted by the deaths of his friends and colleagues all those years ago. Guilty for the success he has had that others were denied. The way he speaks gives away a humble, gracious man from an age when success did not and does not breed arrogance. He describes his feelings of guilt at survival and for what he went on to achieve, that he did not deserve those achievements, and that he can never live up to the accolades that his colleagues could and should have gone on to earn, or the legacies they never had the chance to forge.
Nonsense.
Sir Bobby Charlton is a world cup winner and will forever be. He is still his nation's top scorer, has earned over a century of caps for his country, as well as making over 800 appearances and nearly 300 goals in club football, making over 750 appearances for Manchester United, finding the net on one short of 250 occasions, a phenomenal record for a player who spent most of his career as a midfielder. He has achieved heights of greatness that few players, certainly very few Englishmen, will ever see. He has won everything there is to win, done everything there is to do and been everything there is to be in the beautiful game. He has been a fantastic player on the pitch and a wonderful ambassador off it for more than 50 years, and the fact that he is still so humble and so unassuming about his achievements is just another testament to the integrity and skill of a man who deserves his place, whether he would agree or not, with the best and the greatest of all time.
Bobby, I know you won't read this, but all true football fans will agree with me - when the two halves of Manchester come together to mourn the victims of the disaster, the careers of Johnny Berry and Jackie Blanchflower and the young lights of Geoff Bent, Roger Byrne, Eddie Colman, Mark Jones, David Pegg, Tommy Taylor, Billy Whelan and Duncan Edwards - described by Charlton himself as the greatest player with whom he ever shared a pitch - there will be many words spoken and many tributes paid, but no-one could make a greater tribute to them than what you have achieved, for them and in their name, since that fateful day in Munich that claimed the lives of so many of England's best and brightest. You are a credit to your country, a credit to your club and, most of all, a credit to their memory.
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