By Nicole Lampert
Last updated at 1:57 AM on 22nd April 2011
When British European Airways Flight 609 crashed on its third attempt at take-off in the snow at Munich on February 6, 1958, it took the lives of eight of Manchester United’s footballing stars. Two more were so badly injured they never played again.
The disaster wiped out a nationally loved young team, nicknamed the Busby Babes after the club’s legendary manager Matt Busby, who also nearly died in the crash.
Now, 53 years on, the tragedy and its aftermath is being recreated in BBC2’s United, the first major TV drama to delve into the emotional effect the crash had on the surviving players, club officials and fans.
David Tennant plays coach Jimmy Murphy, the man given the seemingly impossible task of rebuilding the team after the crash, in BBC2’s United
It was the equivalent of most of the stars in today’s Manchester United squad, such as Wayne Rooney, Ryan Giggs and Rio Ferdinand, being lost in one accident.
‘It seems totally unfair, random and ghastly,’ says former Dr Who star David Tennant, who plays coach Jimmy Murphy, the man given the seemingly impossible task of rebuilding the team.
‘It is almost inconceivable that a team should be at the zenith of their footballing achievements one moment, and in the next they are obliterated. But the team struggled back to the top, against all odds.’
And as the film flips back two years to 1956, to show Busby building his young team and teenager Bobby Charlton fighting for his place in it, their excitement is all the more poignant.
Manchester United legend Bobby Charlton is played by Jack O’Connell (top)
But it’s not all grim viewing — there are many lighter moments of understated humour as the film takes us back to a very different footballing world.
One player puffs on a pipe before going on the pitch, while Bobby is warned by his brilliant team-mate and England regular