Special Feature: What does a final at Wembley mean for Sir Alex Ferguson? – Part 1
Football managers are a strange breed to be honest. In fact the cliché that truth is stranger than fiction should be changed into football managers are stranger than the sport itself. UEFA Champions League commences today as European heavyweights punch around to gather strength and somehow make this year into one of their own come May.
In May, the final of the 2010/2011 UEFA Champions League takes place at the Vatican of football, the Wembley Stadium in London, England. Wembley has had many memories associated with it albeit the present version of the stadium was only recently completed and the name itself is enough to keep those memories intact. One club which dominated the Wembley trophy lists in the 1990’s was Manchester United.
A club which has seen many ups and downs in the past 20 years and in 1958, Manchester United was frankly finished as far as football was concerned. Their squad was on its way back from a European night in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Bad weather caused the plane to crash and that fateful day has forever since been remembered as the Munich Air Disaster.
For Manchester United, it wasn’t only a disaster in emotional terms or psychological terms but it was a tragedy in much more tangible terms. Their squad of 1958 was a young and bursting youthful bunch of footballers, who were known as the Busby Babes and through the crash, these players were immortalized in the minds of all Manchester United supporters.
One of the few survivors from the crash, Sir Matt Busby, who was the club’s manager, whispered to his assistant from the hospital bed that he was recovering. In that whisper, he put across this message “keep the red flag flying high”. It was a remarkable moment, a moment that has defined the club from there on in. Ten years after the Munich air disaster in 1958, Manchester United with their “new” squad became the first English football club to grip the European Cup. The final of the 1968 European Cup was held at Wembley, now known as the Old Wembley. Who lifted the Cup for United? Who else could it be? It was Sir Matt Busby.
Busby’s determination formed the club into a behemoth. A legendary figure for everyone associated with English football. From there on in, Manchester United faded into a mid table side who eased into mediocrity which took them to frequent cup finals, the kind of success that Sir Matt Busby brought to Manchester United was absent for around about 20 odd years. It was absent till Alex Ferguson was appointed Manchester United’s first team manager in late 80’s. No one, not even Ferguson himself thought that one day he would be rivaling the triumphs that Sir Matt Busby brought to the famous Red Devils.
But as history would have it, Ferguson embarked on something that was unprecedented. In his twenty fours at Manchester United, Sir Alex Ferguson has won 35 trophies. An astounding amount of success has come the Scotsman way at United. In 2001/2002 season, Ferguson took the decision of retiring from football but at the end of the 2001/2002 Premier League season, the old man thought otherwise. Under Fergie, United have won two European Cups, the first one in 1999 and the second one in 2008. The first one came on Sir Matt Busby’s 90th birthday. The second one came on the 50th anniversary of the Munich Air Disaster.
This year, United start their European quest with a home tie against old rivals Glasgow Rangers, a club that Ferguson supported and played for in his more youthful days but the most important fact that needs to be noted is that the UEFA Champions League final in May is scheduled to be held in Wembley, London, England.
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