Robert Exley
Many Man Utd fans have been accused over the years of jumping on the Old Trafford bandwagon, which is kind of ironic as the club they support originated from the Carriage and Wagon Department of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railways depot in the Newton Heath area of Manchester which bore their original name in 1878 (an area which actually lies nearer to the Etihad Stadium than Old Trafford). The club originally played friendly matches against other departments of Lancashire and Yorkshire Railways, until playing their first competitive match in October 1886 in the First Round of the FA Cup. When the Football League was founded in 1888, Newton Heath instead opted to join a similar newly formed League competition called The Combination League, which like the former at that particular time, included sides mainly from the North and Midlands.
Unlike the twelve team Football League however, the Combination had twenty sides and no central organisation with the clubs left to organise their own fixtures. The result was chaos, and the Combination League was forced to disband the following April before all of the 1888/89 fixtures were fulfilled. For the 1889/90 season Newton Heath, along with several other Combination League sides formed another Football League competitor in the Football Alliance, which lasted for just three seasons when it was decided to merge the Football Alliance with the Football League and create a Second Division of the Football League to encompass this. In 1892/93 Newton Heath were elected to the First Division of the Football League on account of finishing second in the final season of the Alliance.
In Newton Heath’s first season in the First Division however they finished rock bottom, but were saved by the fact that instead of promotion and relegation, the bottom side had to play a ‘Test Match’ against the winners of the Second Division, of which they beat Small Heath (now Birmingham City) to stay up. In their second season Newton Heath finished rock bottom again, but this time went down as a result of losing 0-2 to an ‘invincible’ Liverpool side which were unbeaten throughout the whole of the 1893/94 Division Two season. Newton Heath were to stay in the Second Division for the next twelve seasons and first met Woolwich Arsenal at the Manor Ground in Plumstead in March 1895, which Arsenal won 3-2.
While down in Division Two, at the end of the 1901/02 season Newton Heath FC finished just one position off the bottom of the Football League and were served with a winding up order after their club president William Healy took the club to court over a debt which equated to a quarter of a million pounds in today’s money. The man who saved the club had been club captain Harry Stafford, who at a fundraising event for Newton Heath attached a collection box to his St Bernard dog, which escaped and caught the attention of a wealthy brewer called John Henry Davies. After a conversation with Stafford, Davies decided to buy the club and wipe out its debt, as well as renaming it as Manchester United. Ironically however, the death of Harry Stafford’s ailing son Harry Jnr. eighty six years later was actually attributed to the serial killer GP Dr Harold Shipman, after the deadly doc was convicted for his acts in 2000! (Although Wayne Rooney’s brother would show little in the way of sympathy here)
The earliest video footage of a Manchester United game hails from 1902 here against fellow Lancastrians Burnley. The first era of success for Manchester United would come with the appointment of Ernest Mangnall in 1903 (who alongside Busby and Ferguson is one of only three Manchester United title winning managers), who had got the club out of the Second Division in 1906, followed by United’s first star signing former Manchester City winger Billy Meredith who was forced to leave the Sky Blues after an attempted bribery scandal which left him suspended for a season. Meredith also outdid Ryan Giggs and played for United until the age of forty six! United won their first League title in 1908 and first FA Cup in 1909 beating Bristol City 1-0 at Crystal Palace. The following season, the Football Association withdrew its recognition of the Football Player’s Union, uncomfortable with the fact that the union - formed in 1907 by Manchester United's Billy Meredith and Charlie Roberts – had been challenging football’s governing body on matters such as the maximum wage and Footballer’s employment rights.
The FA ordered footballers across the country to resign from the union or have their player’s registration cancelled. Many complied and withdrew their membership, however the whole of the Man Utd side refused and earned the moniker of ‘Outcasts FC’ as a result. Meredith would speak despairingly at the lack of assertiveness among his fellow pros, stating: ‘so many players refuse to take things seriously but are content to live a kind of schoolboy life and to do just what they are told…instead of thinking and acting for himself and his class’. It was also during the 1909/10 season when Manchester United also moved to their Old Trafford home. The following season, Ernest Mangnall’s Manchester United would be League Champions again, however Mangnall left Old Trafford to defect to Manchester City which brought United’s first period of success to an end and it would be another thirty seven years before United would win another trophy.
During the inter-war period Manchester United were largely overshadowed by Manchester City, with this Pathe footage of the Sky Blues defeating United 3-0 in the 1926 FA Cup Semi Final. One thing you note about the Arsenal v Manchester United fixture is a distinct lack of Pathe News footage, on account of the fact that during Arsenal’s dominant period in the 1930s Manchester United were languishing in the second tier after being relegated in 1930/31 and spending six of the following eight seasons there prior to World War Two. One of their rare seasons in the top tier during the 1930s being 1936/37, with a training session of theirs covered by Pathe. In 1937, Manchester United appointed Walter Crickmer who instigated the youth system which would serve the club well in the years to come (Crickmer was moved upstairs in 1945 to become club secretary and perished in the Munich Air Crash).
As the Second World War drew to close, in February 1945 Manchester United made the pivotal appointment of former Manchester City and Liverpool forward Matt Busby as manager. United were forced to play at Maine Road until 1949 as Old Trafford had to be rebuilt due to bomb damage, which came at a cost of £5000 per year (around £200,000 in today’s money) and a percentage of the gate receipts payable to Man City. While at Maine Road, United achieved their record home attendance of 83,260 against league leaders and that season’s title winners Arsenal in January 1948. That season United ended their trophy drought by winning the 1948 FA Cup Final against the Blackpool side of Matthews and Mortensen, 4-2.
For the first four seasons after the Second World War, Man Utd finished runners up in the league for four years out of five. Here Man Utd beat a Leeds side (in the days before they adopted white shirts) 4-0 in an FA Cup tie in January 1951. United secured their first League title in forty one years in 1951/52. On the last day of that season, United only had to avoid losing to Arsenal by seven clear goals at Old Trafford to take the title and inflicted a 1-6 defeat on the battle weary Gunners, whose season is detailed here in full from an article of mine written in 2012.
United’s 1951/52 championship winning side dissolved not long after, however the following season United would win the inaugural FA Youth Cup for the first of five consecutive years. By the 1955/56 season, several of the youth side had graduated to the first team and with a side with an average age of twenty two had won the league title that season. The following month however Busby’s Babes took on Tottenham Hotspur in Yankees Stadium in New York and suffered a 1-7 defeat. This hilarious American newsreel footage, which refers to ‘the Tottenham Hotspurs v the Manchester Uniteds’ and wrongly claims that United took Spurs’s title could almost have been a parody! Man Utd however shook off that defeat and retained the League title the following season.
It’s often thought that sympathy arising from the Munich Air Crash created Man Utd’s huge non-Manchester fan base, however the birth of live televised European football pre-dated this and United’s first European Cup campaign saw them take on the dominant Real Madrid side at Old Trafford in the second leg of the Semi Final. Despite this being an afternoon fixture due to Old Trafford having no floodlights, it achieved a record audience figure of 6.5 million viewers for the newly formed ITV network. United lost 3-5 on aggregate on what turned out to be a tempestuous affair between the two sides. Man Utd’s televisual profile also heightened further after reaching the 1957 FA Cup Final against Aston Villa in an attempt to be the first side of the twentieth century to win the League and FA Cup double, however an injury to goalkeeper Ray Wood in the era before substitutes put paid to this.
As is well known, Man Utd’s second attempt at European glory was to come with tragic consequences. The final fixture played by the Busby babes in England took place at Highbury on February 1st 1958. Sadly, nothing of this game is captured on camera but many who witnessed it have referred to it being the greatest game they ever witnessed. Arsenal were 0-3 down at half time, but pulled level with goals from David Herd and two for Jimmy Bloomfield. Goals for Dennis Violet and Tommy Taylor put Arsenal 3-5 behind, with Derek Tapscott adding Arsenal’s fourth for a thrilling finale. The game ended in a 4-5 defeat for Arsenal.
The final game for the Busby Babes came not in Munich (as the side’s plane had been refuelling there on route home), but away against Red Star Belgrade as United had secured their passage to the European Cup Semi Final on the back of a 3-3 draw (5-4 on aggregate). This here is BBC news report of the Munich Air Crash that evening. One urban myth which sprung up about the Munich Air Crash is that former Arsenal goalkeeper John Lukic was the unborn child carried by a passenger called Vera Lukic on the flight. This however is refuted by the fact that John wasn’t born until 1961. There were twenty two fatalities from the flight, eight of which were Manchester United players and six of whom were under the age of twenty five.
Contrary to popular account, Duncan Edwards had survived the crash itself and on waking from the crash enquired with Manchester United’s assistant manager Jimmy Murphy as to what time the kick off against Wolves on Saturday was, incredibly asserting a wish to declare himself fit to play. Doctors were even confident of a recovery for Edwards, however as a result of severe kidney damage Edwards lost his battle fifteen days post-accident on 21st February 1958. Of those who survived, Munich was also a painful memory as seen on recollection of Bobby Charlton’s episode of ‘This Is Your Life’ from 1969 @02.53. Four days on from the death of Duncan Edwards, United’s fixtures resumed with a 3-0 home win against Sheffield Wednesday in the fifth round of the FA Cup.
Man Utd, with Jimmy Murphy taking over for the rest of the season in place of a recovering Matt Busby, managed to reach the 1958 FA Cup Final but fate dealt a cruel blow again losing 0-2 with a famous goal from Nat Lofthouse bundling United goalkeeper Harry Gregg over the line, which obviously wouldn’t have stood today. United’s season came to a close with the European Cup Semi Final in May 1958 and after a taking a 2-1 lead to Milan from the first leg, United slumped to a 0-4 defeat in the San Siro which brought a painful season to a trophy-less conclusion, also finishing ninth in the league table. Man Utd rebuilt their side after the Munich Air Crash and even finished runners up the following season, however shamefully players who survived the crash but were forced to retire through the injuries suffered by the crash, such as Jackie Blanchflower and Johnny Berry were evicted by Manchester United from their club-owned dwellings to make way for the new signings.
Man Utd did however experience an early 1960s slump in form, failing to win trophy for another five years post-Munich. The club also finished as low as fifteenth position in 1961/62 and narrowly avoided relegation by one point, finishing nineteenth in 1962/63. After the pre-Munich meeting at Highbury, Arsenal would win four games out of five against United at home, some of which were high scoring games. Twelve months on from Munich, Arsenal beat Man Utd 3-2 at Highbury with two goals from John Barnwell and one from David Herd. In April 1960 Arsenal achieved a 5-2 win with a hat-trick for Jimmy Bloomfield, as well as Danny Clapton and Gerry Ward on the scoresheet. The following October, Arsenal would defeat United 2-1 with goals from John Barnwell and David Herd. In October 1961 Arsenal would dish out a 5-1 drubbing to United with goals from John Barnwell, George Eastham, Gerry Ward and two for Alan Skirton. In September 1963, Arsenal would score a 2-1 win over United with goals from Joe Baker and George Eastham.
Man Utd’s 1963 FA Cup victory over Leicester however would be a vital turning point for the club, along with the signing of Denis Law (who most modern United fans probably think is a personal injury solicitors!) in August 1962 and the emergence of George Best who made his United debut in September 1963. The introduction of Match of the Day in 1964 further developed Manchester United non-Manchester fan base and in November 1964, the first meeting between Arsenal and Man Utd on the programme ended in a 2-3 defeat for Arsenal. United raced into a 3-0 lead with goals from John Connelly and two for Denis Law, Arsenal however pulled it back with goals from Terry Anderson and George Eastham. Manchester United were to finish that season as League Champions for the first time since the Munich Air Crash.
Arsenal however would avenge that home defeat the following season with a superb 4-2 victory with goals from George Armstrong, Joe Baker, George Eastham and John Radford. Later that season however, Manchester United’s George Best would set the football world alight with a blistering performance away at Benfica, winning 5-1, which would earn him the moniker ‘El Beatle’ and elevate him to the level of a ‘pop star’ footballer. Manchester United would win a further league title in 1967, however that would be their last for another twenty seven years. United took City to the final day of the season in 1967/68, however would concede the title with a 1-2 home defeat against Sunderland. A post-match conversation between Matt Busby and City manager (former Arsenal captain) Joe Mercer shows a level of sportsmanship unimaginable in today’s Premiership, with Joe wishing Matt well for the upcoming European Cup Final at Wembley, which they duly won 4-1 becoming the first English side to do so.
Earlier that season, in February Man Utd inflicted a 0-2 defeat on Arsenal at Highbury. The European Cup win however was to be the zenith for Busby’s side, who faced a steady decline thereafter following his resignation in 1969. It would also be the beginning of a halcyon age for Arsenal in the history of this fixture, as United would fail to register a victory against Arsenal at Highbury in all competitions for the next fifteen years. Sir Matt Busby’s last visit to Highbury on Boxing Day of 1968 ended with an emphatic 3-0 win for Arsenal, with goals from George Armstrong, David Court and John Radford.
On Busby’s retirement he had took up a place on the United board of Directors, with former Busby Babe Wilf McGuiness (who mercifully avoided the Munich Air Crash as a result of injury ruling him out of the trip to Belgrade) took over as manager. McGuiness was forced to retire through injury at the age of twenty two and took over from Busby at the age of just thirty one. His first trip to Highbury in September 1969 resulted in a 2-2 draw, with George Graham and Jon Sammels on the scoresheet for Arsenal while David Sadler and George Best were United’s scorers. For the next nine years however, for every Man Utd visit to Highbury Arsenal would not fail to score less than three goals in each match. In 1970/71, Arsenal met Man Utd at Highbury in late August which led to a 4-0 win for the Gunners with goals from George Graham and a hat-trick for John Radford.
