Matt Busby

I watched the BBC drama United a couple of weeks ago. This was the dramatisation of the events surrounding the Munich air disaster of 1958 and focussing on assistant manager Jimmy Murphy, who tried to rebuild the Manchester United side in the immediate aftermath, and Bobby Charlton who survived the crash but found himself struggling to overcome the shock of the events and the loss of his close friends. I enjoyed the film and, from what I have read of the accounts of Charlton and others it was a fair representation of the facts. David Tennant was very poignant as Murphy and the sense of shock, even knowing how events would unfold, was very real. However, I did find the portrayal of Matt Busby a little off. In fact his son, Sandy, was highly critical of the depiction. In interviews, Matt Busby always came across as a gentle, softly spoken man. Having said that, I don't really know that much about him outside of his managerial career - other than that he originally came from Bellshill: the local sports centre near to were I worked was named after him.

I lent Sir Matt Busby: A Tribute from the local library. This was described as the Official Authorised Biography and I do wonder if it is actually the best portrait of the man. It is clearly aimed at Manchester United fans, which is fair enough, but it only has around 30 pages on his pre-United days which really makes it difficult to see what influenced him to become such a great manager. Whilst it does mention that he enjoyed his time as a player at Liverpool - particularly the family atmosphere at the club - they don't go into any details about how he gained the clubs captaincy or his relationship with the young Bob Paisley with whom he remained great friends. Clearly he was cut out for leadership from the start but his experiences at Liverpool appear to have moulded his ideas of how a football club should operate and, indeed, what sort of entity it should be. Also, the book doesn't really go into any great depth about Matt's religious convictions. He was a deeply religious man and this must have provided a great support to him - particularly after Munich.

The book takes the form of Matt's life story interspersed throughout with anecdotes from friends and colleagues. Whilst this does give some indication on how he was viewed by those around him it doesn't really give any idea about what was going on in his own mind. Inevitably, this story is always going to pivot around 1958 and the events in Munich. This is where I think there is some insight as the crash deeply affected him and left him in much pain: both physically from his injuries and emotionally from the loss of so many of his young team. Inevitably, he would feel guilt that he was somehow responsible and this lead to his determination to rebuild and win the European Cup for those that couldn't be there. It is noticeable that he announced his retirement only months after winning the cup and I suspect he had long planned this.

There are always going to be comparisons with other managers. Matt Busby is often hailed as the greatest of all time. That is difficult to determine. How can you compare him, for example, to Alex Fergusson or Herbert Chapman who have managed in different eras and with different challenges to deal with. The one comparison that is often made is with contemporaries Bill Shankly and Jock Stein. Much is often made of the three men's similarities - they were all from the same part of Scotland and all from mining communities. As managers they were all to become friends and have a great mutual respect of each other. However, their managerial styles did differ. Stein was more the no nonsense Scot - a strong personality whose presence demanded respect and made his players fearless on the pitch. Shankly was the eternal enthusiast - a football nut whose passion for the game inspired those around him. Matt Busby was the paternal manager - he created a family atmosphere in which his young players were encouraged to express themselves and realise their talent.

Inevitably, for a book aimed at United fans and written only months after the great man's death, there is nothing relating to his shortcomings as a manager. The foreword in the book is written by George Best and he is the one player who was both a great finding by Busby and who I believe would have fared better under another manager. I suspect that Alex Fergusson's management style would have suited him more. I don't think this was so much a failing of Matt Busby so much as the world had moved on. George Best was the first of the football superstars whereas Matt Busby was used to dealing with the footballer as working class hero. Whereas Matt would encourage footballers to express themselves on the field - and George Best was a phenomenal talent in the late 60's - I think someone like Alex Ferguson would have tried to ensure that his antics remained on the back rather than the front pages of the papers. However, it was only really after Matt Busby retired that George Best went seriously off the rails - which is probably why I remember him more as an embarrassment rather then as a great footballer.

So I'm still really on the lookout for a good biography of Sir Matt Busby. He remains one of the games truly inspirational characters and an intriguing personality.