Matt Busby

Sir Alexander Matthew "Matt" Busby, CBE, KCSG (26 May 1909 – 20 January 1994) was a Scottish football player and manager, who managed Manchester United between 1945 and 1969 and again for the second half of the 1970–1971 season. His managerial records and longevity at the helm of Manchester United are surpassed only by Sir Alex Ferguson.
Before going into management, Busby was a player for two of Manchester United's greatest rivals, Manchester City and Liverpool. During his time at City, Busby played in two FA Cup Finals, winning one of them. After his playing career was interrupted by the Second World War, Busby was offered the job of assistant coach at Liverpool, but they were unwilling to give him the control over the team that he wanted and he took the vacant manager's job at Manchester United instead.

Playing Carrer

Born in Ton Pentre, Rhondda, Murphy attended Ton Pentre Village School and as a boy played the church organ. As a youth he played football for Ton Pentre Boys, Treorchy Thursday F.C., Treorchy Juniors and Mid-Rhondda Boys and in 1924 represented Wales in a schoolboy international against England in Cardiff. He turned professional in February 1928 when he joined West Bromwich Albion as a 17-year-old.

Murphy made his debut in a 1–0 defeat away to Blackpool on 5 March 1930 and played one further league game during his first season. In the following season, 1930–31, West Bromwich Albion won the FA Cup and promotion from the Second Division, but Murphy had yet to establish himself in the team and again made just two appearances. He became a regular in the Albion side upon the club's return to the First Division; from 1931–32 to 1934–35 he appeared 149 times in league and cup, helping his team to achieve four consecutive top ten finishes, including fourth place in 1932–33. The 1934–35 season saw Murphy miss just one match all season, and he helped Albion to reach the 1935 FA Cup Final, which they lost 4–2 to Sheffield Wednesday.

Murphy played more than 200 times for Albion, before moving to Swindon Town in 1939, but the Second World War ended his spell at Swindon almost as soon as it had begun. Murphy was also called up to the Welsh national team during the 1930s, winning 15 caps.

Managerial Carrer

During the Second World War, Murphy was giving a speech about football to a band of troops, and in attendance was Matt Busby. Busby was so impressed by Murphy's speech that, upon his appointment as manager of Manchester United, he made Murphy the first signing of his tenure at the club. Murphy had the role of "chief coach" from 1946 until 1955, and became assistant manager in 1955 after Manchester United won their third FA Youth Cup in a row. It was Murphy's responsibility at the club to scout and train the young footballers who were to become the "Busby Babes", which included Duncan Edwards and Bobby Charlton. Prior to this the larger teams had mainly bought rather than developed their players but instead Busby decided to slowly replace the older and more experienced players in his team with their youth players.

Murphy, as chief coach and – later – as assistant manager, was responsible for developing these young boys into the world-class professionals that they became. He would spend hours with a player if he believed that they were capable of becoming a first team player. He was a very dedicated and passionate teacher whose tactical and technical lessons helped some of the world's best ever players to reach their full potential. After the Munich air disaster of 6 February 1958, he temporarily took over as manager while Matt Busby recovered from his injuries and, having assembled a substitute team, steered United to the 1958 FA Cup Final. Murphy had not been on the fatal flight because he had been away managing the Welsh team in a World Cup qualifying game. Murphy managed Wales at the 1958 FIFA World Cup in Sweden when they reached the quarter-finals in their only appearance to date in a World Cup finals tournament. They lost 1–0 to Brazil (the eventual winners), to a goal by 17 year-old Pelé.

Despite being approached to manage Brazil, Juventus and Arsenal, he remained as assistant manager at Old Trafford until 1971. Murphy chose never to become manager of the club because of his hate of the limelight, he loved working in the background but never aspired to fulfil the job of manager. From 1973, Murphy did scouting work for Manchester United, most famously during the managerial reign of Tommy Docherty, where Murphy urged Docherty to sign wing players, Steve Coppell and Gordon Hill. Murphy died in November 1989, aged 79. In Murphy's honour after his death, Manchester United commissioned the "Jimmy Murphy Young Player of the Year Award", to be given to the best player in the club's youth system in the previous season. It was first awarded the summer after Murphy's death, and Lee Martin was the first recipient.

On 23 March 2009, a blue plaque was placed on his former family home in Treharne Street, Pentre.

In 2011, he was portrayed by David Tennant in the BBC Two film United, which centred on the Busby Babes and the Munich air disaster.

International Carrer

Busby made only one official international appearance for Scotland; he played in a 3–2 British Home Championship defeat to Wales at Ninian Park, Cardiff, on 4 October 1933. Playing opposite Busby in the Welsh half-back line was his future assistant Jimmy Murphy. Busby also made seven appearances for Scotland against England during the Second World War, winning just one of them, but these are considered unofficial. He represented the Scottish League XI in an inter-league match in 1941, while he was a guest player of Hibernian.

Arrival and early days at Manchester

During the Second World War, Busby served as a football coach in the Army Physical Training Corps, and the experience resulted in Liverpool offering him the job of assistant to their then-manager George Kay. However, the experience also forged Busby's opinions about how football should be played and governed, and when it became clear that they differed from those of the Liverpool board, their chairman Billy McConnell allowed Busby to pursue alternate employment.

After Manchester United had tried to sign Busby from Manchester City in 1930, he became good friends with United's fixer, Louis Rocca; their relationship was helped in part by the fact that both were members of the Manchester Catholic Sportsman's Club. United were in desperate need of a manager to take over from club secretary Walter Crickmer after the war and a board meeting was called in December 1944 so as to ascertain who that new manager might be. Knowing that Liverpool had already offered Busby a job, Rocca convinced the United board to "leave it to [him]" and immediately wrote a letter to Busby, addressed to his army regiment. The letter was vague, referring only to "a job", just in case it fell into the wrong hands, namely the Liverpool officials.

In February 1945, still in uniform, Busby turned up at Cornbrook Cold Storage, one of the United chairman James W. Gibson's businesses at Trafford Park to discuss the contents of Rocca's letter with the chairman. Busby requested that he be directly involved in training, pick the team on matchdays and even choose the players to be bought and sold without interference from the club directors, who, he believed, did not know the game as well as he did. Such a level of control over the team was unprecedented in the English game, but the United chairman was in no position to argue. Busby was originally offered a three-year contract, but managed to secure himself a five-year deal after explaining that it would take at least that long for his revolution to have a tangible effect.

The contract was signed that day – 19 February 1945 – but it was not until 1 October that Busby officially took over the reins at Manchester United. In the interim, he returned to the Army Physical Training Corps, whose football team he took to Bari, Italy, in the spring of 1945. There, he took in a training session for a football team made up of non-commissioned officers led by West Bromwich Albion's former half-back Jimmy Murphy. Impressed by the Welshman's oratory skills, Busby engaged him in conversation and offered him the job of chief coach at Manchester United, which Murphy accepted verbally there and then, before joining the club officially in early 1946.

The two men immediately put their mark on the side, leading them to the runners-up spot in the league, behind Busby's former employers Liverpool, by the end of the 1946–47 season. Manchester United were runners-up in the league in 1947, 1948, 1949 and 1951, and won the FA Cup in 1948, before winning the league championship in 1952. By this stage, the side, captained by Johnny Carey, was beginning to show its age, and a new set of players had to be found. Busby, who had achieved a great deal of success in spite of his lack of previous managerial experience, was expected to spend large sums of money on high profile players. Instead, he gradually replaced the older players with players as young as 16 and 17. These included right-back Bill Foulkes, centre-halves Mark Jones and Jackie Blanchflower, wingers Albert Scanlon and David Pegg and forward Liam Whelan. Among them was Duncan Edwards, judged by many to be England's finest player of his era, and capped by England at 18 – setting a record for the youngest-ever full international that remained unbroken for more than 40 years.

Busby managed the Great Britain team at the 1948 Summer Olympics. The team reached the semi-finals, but lost 3–1 to the eventual runners-up, Yugoslavia.

In 1956, Busby was offered the Real Madrid managerial role. The Real Madrid President at the time told him that "The role was like managing paradise." Busby responded by refusing the job and adding "Manchester is my heaven."

Eurpeaon Glory and Retirment

The biggest success of his career came on 29 May 1968 when the team won the European Cup. He retired as manager a year later[13] but remained at the club as a director, handing over managerial duties to trainer and former player Wilf McGuinness. When McGuinness was sacked in December 1970, Busby briefly returned to his managerial duties, but there was never any question of his returning as manager permanently. He carried on as a club director for 11 more years, before being made president in 1982.

Busby was awarded the CBE in 1958 and was knighted following the European Cup victory in 1968, before being made a Knight Commander of St Gregory by the Pope in 1972.