Matt Busby

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Matt Busby
Matt Busby cropped.jpg
Matt Busby
Personnel
Surname Alexander Matthew Busby
birthday May 26, 1909
place of birth Orbiston , Lanarkshire ,  Scotland
date of death January 20, 1994
Place of death Manchester ,  England
position defender
Men's
Years station Games (goals) 1
1928-1936 Manchester City 202 (11)
1936-1939 Liverpool FC 115 0(3)
National team
Years selection Games (goals)
1933 Scotland 1 0(0)
Stations as a trainer
Years station
1945–1969 Manchester United
1970 Manchester United
1948 Great Britain (Olympia)
1958 Scotland
1 Only league games are given.
Statue of Sir Matt Busby

Sir Alexander Matthew "Matt" Busby , CBE (born May 26, 1909 in Orbiston , Lanarkshire , † January 20, 1994 in Manchester ) was a Scottish football player and coach .

Busby became known as the coach of Manchester United , for which he worked for 24 years (1945 to 1969); he is now known as one of the most important coaches in English football history. Through his successes (five championships, two FA Cup victories, European Cup of National Champions in 1968) he established the club's rise to one of the largest in the world. The “Busby Babes”, who died in a plane crash in Munich in 1958, achieved tragic fame .

With 1120 competitive games he was Manchester's record coach until December 2010, before he was surpassed by Alex Ferguson .

He was the club's president until his death in 1994.

youth

Busby was born in 1909 in the miners' settlement of Orbiston, a suburb of Bellshill , the son of a miner and his wife. The young “Matt” grew up in a classic working class environment, where, in addition to his strict Catholic upbringing, football was his great passion. A stroke of fate for the family was the death of their father, who fell on the battlefields of the First World War , which is why Busby had to find work in the local mines very early on . Still, he found time for football and played for the Denny Hibs . When his mother contemplated emigrating to the United States , Busby received a contract offer from Manchester City .

Career as a player

In February 1928, 17-year-old Busby signed a one-year contract with Manchester City (weekly wage: five pounds ) in order to have the opportunity to emigrate to the USA with his mother after the contract expired. He chose football and made his debut on November 2, 1929 in the First Division in a 3-1 victory over Middlesbrough FC . Coach Peter Hodge had retrained the half-forward to defender, which turned out to be the ideal position. Busby convinced with intelligent positional play and accuracy of fit. City was a cup team that made it to the FA Cup final in 1933 and won the cup the following year. In the spring of 1936 Busby lost his regular seat and moved to Liverpool for £ 8,000 .

There he found his strength back, showed great consistency and became team captain. He took a young player named Bob Paisley (later Liverpool FC coach) under his wing in what would be the beginning of a lifelong friendship. With the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, the league was set and Busby volunteered for military service .

During the war he denied unofficial "war games" for different clubs (u. A. Chelsea FC , Middlesbrough FC , Reading FC ) and ended his active career in 1945.

Busby only played one international match for Scotland . On October 4, 1933, the Scots defeated Wales 3-2 in a game in the British Home Championships . During the war there were seven more unofficial internationals against England .

Trainer

During the war, Busby served on the home front for the King's Liverpool Regiment , where he worked as a sports coach for the soldiers. He turned down an offer from Liverpool FC to become George Kay's assistant coach after the end of the war on the grounds that Kay's idea of ​​football did not match his own.

Instead, he signed a contract with Manchester United in February 1945 . Busby was awarded far-reaching and important competencies: he managed the training himself, determined the team line-up and made player transfers. At that time a unique power in English football and the beginning of the team manager model. He officially took office in October. Busby restructured the team and was successful. After four failed attempts (1947, 1948, 1949 and 1951 each runner-up), the "Red Devils" were finally champions in 1952 . Despite a lack of experience, he developed his own understanding of how a team should be built. When his championship eleven was getting on in years, he consistently relied on young players from his own youth instead of spending a lot of money on transfers (within four years he only signed two players). Busby wanted to play not only successful, but above all attractive football and thus shaped the game of the club to this day. The team, made up of talents like Bill Foulkes , Albert Scanlon , Duncan Edwards and David Pegg , was soon called the "Busby Babes." After two championships in 1956 and 1957 , all of England raved about the team.

The most tragic moment in Busby's coaching career occurred on February 6, 1958, when the plane crashed at Munich-Riem Airport on the return flight from the European Cup match at Red Star Belgrade , killing 23 people. Seven players and three club officials were among the fatalities. Centennial talent Duncan Edwards died in hospital 15 days later, leaving two other actors to retire. Busby himself survived the crash seriously injured (he received the anointing of the sick twice ) and was only able to leave the hospital after nine weeks. When he realized the extent of the tragedy, he felt that his life's work had been lost. He wanted to quit the coaching job, but his wife persuaded him to continue, as he owed it to the injured. Assistant coach Jimmy Murphy brought the season to an end with young players but understandably failed to win a title. At the beginning of the 1958/59 season , Busby took up his duties again.

The team manager had to start all over again and built a new team around the survivors Bobby Charlton , Bill Foulkes and Harry Gregg . He promoted outstanding talents such as Denis Law , George Best , Nobby Stiles and David Herd to the professional squad. After years of development work, the successes came back: FA Cup 1963, 1965 and 1967 two more championship titles. Busby and the club were back on the road to success. A particular success was winning the European Cup on May 23, 1968 (4-1 against Benfica Lisbon ). Ten years after the tragedy in Munich, Busby had led his team to their first international title.

In the following year Busby resigned as team boss after 24 years (1,120 competitive games). But the successors found it difficult to follow in his footsteps. The first, Wilf McGuinness , failed early, so that Busby once again temporarily took the fate of the team into his own hands in January 1970. Even Frank O'Farrell , his second successor, does not manage to emerge from the shadow of the legendary coach and keep the set of Busby standard. Just six years after his retirement, Man United played against relegation and hit rock bottom.

Busby stayed with the club as an official and became president in 1982. It was not until 1986, under coach Alex Ferguson , that the team began to play successful and attractive football based on the ideas of the "overtrainer".

In addition to his work at Manchester United , he took on two other engagements. In 1948 he coached the team from Great Britain at the Summer Olympics in London . The team reached the semi-finals, where they lost 3-1 to the eventual winners Yugoslavia .

He made his second "detour" in the fall of 1958 when he was the interim coach of the Scottish national team for two games.

End of life

On January 20, 1994, 84 year old Matt Busby died of cancer in Manchester / Cheadle. He was buried next to his wife Jean in the city's Catholic cemetery .

Matt Busby still has a strong presence in the UK: a memorial was erected to him at Old Trafford , a street named after him and every year the best league player, chosen by coaches and captains, receives the Matt Busby Cup .

Awards and Achievements

As a player

As a trainer

Trivia

In the Beatles -Song Dig It by her record Let It Be Matt Busby is mentioned by name.

Web links

Commons : Matt Busby  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files
personal data
SURNAME Busby, Matt
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Busby, Alexander Matthew (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION scottish soccer player and coach
DATE OF BIRTH May 26, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Orbiston , Lanarkshire
DATE OF DEATH January 20, 1994
Place of death Manchester