The Bolton Wanderers footballers were on their way from Hendon Hall Hotel to Wembley stadium, a short coach journey through northwest London. It was going to be an emotional afternoon. Only 86 days earlier, the British European Airways charter flight 609 from Belgrade to Manchester had crashed in the snow at Munich, killing eight of the Manchester United side affectionately known as the Busby Babes.
Amazingly, United were now Bolton's opponents in the FA Cup final on Saturday, May 3. Thoughts in the team coach turned to those missing and such was the sense of loss that several Wanderers players cried on the way to the game.
Many of the 100,000 fans had come to remember the lost and to honour those who had stepped into their boots. United were riding on a wave of emotion, having captured the affection of the nation. Virtually the entire county was behind them, willing them to win the cup for the Babes.
United's assistant manager Jimmy Murphy had kept the flag flying after the crash had put his boss Matt Busby on a life support system. Murphy cobbled together a team for the fifth round against Sheffield Wednesday only 13 days after the tragedy. The FA allowed him to field "cup-tied" players and he signed Ernie Taylor from Blackpool to add experience to the combination of reserves and juniors.
Harry Gregg, the regular goalkeeper, knew only three players in the line-up. The match programme had a blank page for the United team-sheet. Stan Crowther was at left-half, having signed for the club 30 minutes before kick-off. The Aston Villa manager Eric Houghton knew a desperate United were interested in Crowther and persuaded him to go along and watch. When Houghton and his player got to Old Trafford, he suggested that Crowther help out United, but the midfielder said he had no kit. The manager had secretly brought Crowther's boots in his bag, and he signed.
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A crowd of 60,000 was there. Shay Brennan, the reserve right-back playing on the left wing, scored twice and Alex Dawson, a Scottish teenager, completed the night with a third goal in the 3-0 victory. It was Boy's Own stuff. Albert Quixall, a Wednesday player who later moved to Old Trafford, said: "United ran their hearts out and no matter how well we had played, they would have beaten us. We were playing against more than 11 players; we were playing against 60,000 fans as well."
The sixth round took United to West Bromwich Albion whose manager, Vic Buckingham, said before the match: "United are a wonderful side but we can have no sympathy. We will beat them 6-0."
Still a rag-tag team, United led 2-1 through Taylor and Dawson. West Brom equalised four minutes from the end and took the tie to a replay at Old Trafford.
Bobby Charlton, United's young midfielder, had recovered sufficiently from his injuries in Munich to play. United again showed spirit and in the final minute Colin Webster sealed their winner. The sea of emotion was rising, United were in the semi-finals against Second Division Fulham at Villa Park.
There were 70,000 for the match. Fulham's Jimmy Hill had scored in every round but recalls that United were favourites. "There was a feeling that they were superior anyway and that it was us who had to do something extremely special to knock them out," he says. "Football is such a mental thing. Because of the circumstances of the fixture, because of maybe the manager saying the right thing at the right time, you can have the players so heated up that they will beat anybody."
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Charlton was in his stride and opened the scoring. Fulham equalised. Then a pinpoint pass from Roy Dwight, the cousin of singer Elton John, put Hill through to give Fulham a 2-1 lead. Charlton scored again in the 2-2 draw. To Highbury for the replay four days later and United led 3-0. Fulham came back to 4-3 down but Johnny Haynes had an equaliser disallowed. Instead, United went on to win 5-3. Dawson hit a hat-trick and the boys in red were on their way to Wembley.
David Meek, a young sportswriter on the Manchester Evening News at the time, watched United's remarkable run. "The big issue was whether they would resign from the FA Cup or maybe didn't have the heart to carry on," he says. "When it became apparent that the club was not going to go under, it appealed to the nation and people felt they were supporting the underdog. The cup lit up their imagination."
Bolton had been in awe of the Busby Babes. Two weeks before the Munich accident, they lost 7-2 to United in a league match at Old Trafford.
Roy Hartle, a young defender on the end of the trouncing, remembers them fondly. "They were on another waveband," he says. "They were so talented. Most sides have three or four talented players, they had many more."
United's Ernie Taylor was seen as the danger and Bryan Edwards was instructed to mark him out of the game. Taylor had helped Blackpool beat Wanderers 4-3 in the 1953 final, so he was no stranger.
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Bolton's players, on their coach, watched the supporters approaching Wembley and felt the emotion. "There were tears shed on the coach," says Hartle, "and that included me. It was extremely difficult."
Busby rose from his hospital bed in Munich and turned up to watch, receiving a moving applause.
Within three minutes of the kick-off, though, the United script began to unravel. Bolton's robust centre-forward Nat Lofthouse ploughed through their defence to open the score. Then, in the 55th minute, Bolton were awarded a goal when Lofthouse shoulder-charged goalkeeper Gregg into his own net. Bolton had dominated a scrappy game, winning 2-0.
"The final was a match too far," says Meek. "United had run out of emotional steam. Bolton were very determined. They had their own agenda. The other teams were caught up in the Munich emotion but they were grittier. They were another local club and maybe felt under the shadow. They were not going to do what everybody expected, to bend the knee and lose. It's like a family. Brothers can be harsher on each other than others."
Celebrating was not easy for the Bolton players, who realised they had spoilt the party. For the second time in the 1950s, they had reached the final only to find that 90% of the country was shouting for the opposition. In 1953, the nation was behind Blackpool and popular Stanley Matthews in what was his last chance to earn a winner's medal. He did.
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This time there was a muted celebration. "We were doing the lap of honour," says Hartle, "and Tommy Banks, who played full-back with me, said, 'Shall we go?' I replied, 'We might as well. This is not a happy thing to be doing'. We were in the course of going off the pitch when Bert Sproston, our trainer, said, 'C'mon lads, this is a trip of a lifetime'. He convinced us to complete the lap of honour."
Bolton have cancelled a planned reunion in May. "We were again in the situation where half would be cheering and half would not," says Hartle. "It wasn't quite the thing to do so we decided not to go ahead."
- ESPN Classic, Sky channel 442, will show Manchester United's 1968 European Cup final against Benfica at 9pm today, followed by Fabio Capello playing for Italy against England in 1973 at 10pm