Munich 50 years on

As a Manchester United fan born 6 years after the disaster we are commemorating what is it i am feeling. It can't touch me as personally as for those older fans who lived through those dark days, obviously, i never saw them in the flesh. I have read the books, seen the clips and listened to older fans such as my dad who grew up watching them.
My main emotion is the pride that Sir Matt Busby had completely revolutionised our football club, and turned it from probably the second team of Manchester, into the main club in Britain and on the cusp of rivalling Real Madrid as the best team in Europe. The way he changed the whole philosophy of how a football club should be run, how it should play and what it should stand for. How he developed a scouting system to cherry pick the cream of footballing talent from these islands, but built around a local core, before anybody else had dreamt of such an idea. And when he brought all these young men into the team, the way they captured the hearts of the footballing public, not just because they were so young, but because they were so good. The last game in this country, the 5-4 defeat of Arsenal at highbury encapsulates everything that Manchester United should stand for in my eyes. I know football has changed and defence is a far bigger part of the game today, but Manchester United, first, last and always should be about that attacking football tradition.
As for the great Duncan Edwards, well a couple of seasons ago i used to have an old Scottish guy sitting right near me. Whenever we scored a great goal he used to celebrate as wildly as anybody given his age, but as we were about to sit down he would always seem to tap me on the shoulder and say i wish you could have seen Duncan Edwards.
I don't think anybody born later can really get their head around what it must have been like to have followed such a great local pioneering team on the verge of being such a great, great side and then see it snatched away from them so cruelly.
But for the club to come back from that and reach the dizzying heights of ten years later tells you something about the special qualities of some of the great men such as Busby, the unsung hero Jimmy Murphy and the incomparable Bobby Charlton that have made our great club what it is has become.
In the words of Harold Hardman
“Although we mourn our dead and grieve for our wounded, we believe that great days are not done for us… Manchester United will rise again.”

http://www.flowersofmanchester.net/
http://www.flowersofmanchester.net/Lyrics.htm

Duncan Edwards remembered
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/tragedy-of-duncan-edwards-the-hardest-loss-to-bear-778480.html

Jimmy Armfield reminisces
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/7225422.stm

Bill Foulkes memories
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/manchester_united/article3315516.ece

The forgotten hero Jimmy Murphy
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/sport/football/manchester_united/s/1035191_forgotten_red_hero?rss=yes
I don't think anybody that reads up on their United history has any doubt about his massive importance to the quality of the babes themselves and the rebirth of the club after the disaster.

Rooney reveals how the players realise the importance of the clubs history
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/internationals/rooney-in-awe-of-the-ghosts-of-munich-778494.html

Let's hope this lad carries on the traditions of local youth coming through the ranks at Manchester United, which Sir Alex Ferguson has so magnificently brought back to our club.
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/sport/football/manchester_united/s/1035190_welbeck_hits_red_jackpot