It would have been Duncan Edwards' 60th birthday tomorrow
The Times - Monday, September 30 1996
Manchester United and England's young colossus died in Munich's Rechts der Isar hospital 15 days after the team's BEA twin-engined Elizabethan failed to get airborne from the icy slush of a German runway on February 6, 1958.
He was 21. Edwards is buried in a cemetery at his home town of Dudley in the West Midlands. This week, as there usually are, a fresh bunch of red and white carnations fill the black granite vase below the 6ft-high headstone on his grave. The other granite vase is in the shape of a football. A red United replica shirt, brand new, has also been left there. John Phillips, Dudley borough council's assistant cemeteries and crematorium manager, said: "Visitors come to the grave all through the year. It is still a shrine. It is hard to put a figure on the numbers who come here each year. It's not only individuals who come to stand in silent respect at the grave, but whole parties, as if on a pilgrimage." Edwards is buried with his sister, Carol Anne, who was 10 years his junior and died after only 14 weeks of life. Their parents, Gladstone and Sarah, had no other children.
After his son's death, Gladstone gave up his job as a factory metal-polisher and became gardening assistant and general factotum at the cemetery. He died in 1978, aged 70, and is buried in the same row as his son. Not far from the cemetery is St Francis' Church where above the font, a stained glass window is dedicated to Edwards. It shows the athletic manchild in football kit, genuflecting, with a scrolled caption saying
"God Is With Us For Our Captain."
He, not Bobby Moore would probably have been England's captain in the World Cup of 1966. He would have been only 30. He captained Worcestershire Boys, Birmingham Boys, and England Schoolboys - having first played for the national team at only 13. He signed for United on October 2, 1952, the day after his 16th birthday. The boy was already 6ft tall and weighed 12st 6lb. By the following spring he was blooded in the league side. Two Aprils later, at Wembley against Scotland, he was picked for England at left half. He was 18 years and six months, England's youngest ever. England won 7-2.
Less than three years of Edwards' life remained, during which heady time he won 17 more England caps. He played 151 matches for United, won two League Championship medals and a losers' medal in the 1957 FA Cup Final. But it was not so much what he did, but how he did it. He played like a gayle, but a gale garlanded with wispy skills and fearlessly daring originality. He could play anywhere.
When England picked him at inside left, in 1957, his heroes, Matthews and Finney, were on each wing. They admit it was they who were awestruck. After MAtt Busby had tearfully unveiled Edwards' graveyard headstone in 1961, he spoke of his "grand, great boy who breathed goodness and who had no side, no swagger, no airs nor graces." Then the secretaryof the PFA, Cliff Lloyd, spoke for the still grieving confraternity of footballers. He said: " When any group of colleagues get together and say 'Matthews and Finney are the greatest English players of all time,' someone will always interject 'yes, but...' Short as his career was, you never hear a peep of dissent if you begin 'Duncan was the greatest of them all..'."
When the Elizabethan attempted to take off from the Munich slush at the third time of asking, Edwards was in the back two rows, three seats by three, facing each other, preparing to play cards with Mark Jones, Tommy Taylor, Eddie Colman and David Pegg. They were all to die along with seven others from the club, although Edwards hung on for fully 15 days. At first it seemed he would pull through. After six days he was put on an artificial kidney machine.
FLEETING
He began to slip in and out of consciousness. United's assistant manager Jimmy Murphy, who had not been on the flight, sat for hours at the bedside, soothing his restless giant.
On February 20, Duncan woke from his delirium and for a fleeting moment recognised Murphy. He smiled. "What time's kick-off against Wolves on Saturday?" he asked. "Two thirty as usual," said Murphy. "Get stuck in, lads," whispered Edwards in a soft, contented reverie, and then his eyes flickered, and closed for the final time.
He died that night.
The gravestone inscription reads:
"A Day of Memory, Sad to Recall. Without Farewell, He Left Us All"
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