Matt Busby

Club career

Aged 18, Busby signed for Manchester City on a one-year contract worth £5 per week on 11 February 1928, with the provision for him to leave at the end of the deal if he still wished to emigrate to the US with his mother. He decided to stay and made his debut for City on 2 November 1929, more than 18 months after first signing for the Blues, when he played at inside left in a 3–1 win at home to Middlesbrough in the First Division. He made 11 more appearances for City that season, all at inside forward, scoring five goals in the process. During the 1930–31 season, City manager Peter Hodge decided that Busby's talents could be better exploited from the half-back line, with Busby playing the right-half role. In his new position, Busby built up a reputation as an intelligent player and a finer passer of the ball. In 1930, Manchester United made an enquiry about signing Busby from their cross-town rivals, but they were unable to afford the £150 fee that City demanded. By the 1931–32 season, Busby was firmly established in the first team, missing just one match that season. Indeed, Busby and Jackie Bray became such fixtures at wing-half that club captain Jimmy McMullan had to move to forward to keep his place in the team. In the 1930s Manchester City performed strongly in the FA Cup. They reached the semi-finals in 1932, and the final in 1933 before finally winning the tournament in 1934. However, from the second half of the 1934–35 season, Busby's number 4…

Arrival and early days at Manchester United

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 had 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 alternative 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 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 was born to Alexander and Helen "Nellie" (née Greer) Busby in a two-roomed pitman's cottage in the mining village of Orbiston, Bellshill, Lanarkshire. When he was born, Busby's mother was told by the doctor, "A footballer has come into this house today". Busby's father, Alexander, was a miner called up to serve in the First World War and was killed by a sniper's bullet on 23 April 1917 at the Battle of Arras. His great-great-grandfather, George Busby, emigrated to Scotland from Ireland during the Great Famine, while his mother's side of the family emigrated to Scotland from Ireland later on in the 19th century. Three of his uncles were killed in France with the Cameron Highlanders. Busby's mother was left to raise Matt and his three sisters alone until her marriage to a man called Harry Matthie in 1919. Busby was raised Catholic. Always a devout Catholic, in 1972, Pope Paul VI made him a Knight of Order of Saint Gregory the Great. He had been appointed Knight Bachelor four years earlier. Busby would often accompany his father down into the coal pits, but his true aspiration was to become a professional footballer. In his 1973 autobiography, Busby described himself as being as football mad as any other boy in Bellshill citing in particular the impression made on him by Alex James and Hughie Gallacher. His mother might have quashed those dreams when she applied to emigrate with Matt to the United States in the late 1920s, but he was granted a reprieve by the nine-month…

Busby was the subject of This Is Your Life on two occasions: in January 1958 (a month before the Munich tragedy), when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at the BBC Studios in Manchester, and in May 1971, when he became the show's first subject to be honoured for a second time. On this occasion, Andrews surprised him just ahead of his final game as interim manager, leading Manchester United in a derby match with Manchester City at Maine Road. His testimonial was held at Old Trafford in August 1991. A Manchester United side featuring a new generation of star players including Mark Hughes and Steve Bruce took on a Republic of Ireland XI.

Busby suffered a mild stroke in July 1980 at the age of 71 but made a full recovery. Soon afterwards, his wife Jean became ill with Alzheimer's disease. She died, aged 80, in December 1988 in a Manchester nursing home. They had been married for 58 years. Busby died at the age of 84 on 20 January 1994 at the Alexandra Hospital in Cheadle, Greater Manchester. He had been admitted to the hospital earlier that month to have a blood clot removed from his leg, and had appeared to be making a good recovery until his condition deteriorated after several days. He was buried in Southern Cemetery, Manchester, alongside his wife Jean. His friend Willie Satinoff, who owned a racecourse and died in the Munich air disaster, is buried in the same cemetery. Two days after Busby's death, a minute's silence was held at the start of United's home game against…