Albert Scanlon: Manchester United winger

Albert Scanlon was one of the forgotten men of the Munich air crash in February 1958, which wiped out the heart of the Manchester United football team, along with 15 others, mostly club officials and journalists.

Scanlon was lucky, in that he survived the disaster. But his injuries were among the worst suffered by any of those involved — a fractured skull, broken leg, smashed shoulder and severe lacerations.

Remarkably, he recovered enough to play a full part in the 1958-59 season, turning in several outstanding performances and scoring 16 goals. But then, in what appeared to be a delayed reaction to the trauma he had lived through, Scanlon’s confidence and form deserted him and, after being transferred, his top-level career to all intents and purposes petered out.

A lightning-fast, two-footed winger with a fierce shot, Scanlon had been a product of the famed Manchester United youth academy and was therefore a genuine “Busby Babe”. In and out of the team after making his debut against Arsenal in November 1954, Scanlon was regarded as a frustratingly inconsistent player — brilliant one match, indifferent the next. He was too quick for all but the sharpest defenders, but his final pass sometimes let him down.

However, in the weeks before the Munich crash Scanlon had been in the form of his life. He had played a key role in the 2-1 victory over Red Star Belgrade in the home leg of the European Cup quarter-finals and was then man of the match in United’s 5-4 victory over Arsenal at Highbury, only five days before the disaster, in what was regarded at the time as one of the greatest games on English soil for years.

He travelled to Belgrade for the return leg of the European tie as a vital element in the United attack and played his part in the 3-3 draw that secured the team’s passage to the semifinals. Scanlon’s rival for the left-wing slot, David Pegg, went on the journey only as cover, but became one of the seven United stars to die outright in Munich (Duncan Edwards died in hospital two weeks later.) Scanlon’s experiences and deep disappointment over how his career turned out perhaps inevitably made him somewhat bitter in later life. Since he recovered physically from his terrible injuries after Munich and played on, he did not qualify for the insurance payment he would have received had his career been abruptly terminated.

He came to share the feelings of several of the Munich survivors and their families that Manchester United could have done more for them in the way of financial assistance: it took 40 years for a testimonial match to be organised.

There was also a legacy of pain over his departure from United, when he was sold to Newcastle in 1960. Scanlon felt he had been unfairly squeezed out by the manager and fellow Munich survivor, Matt Busby, because the latter was determined to play Bobby Charlton in the rebuilt team, even out of position on the left wing where Scanlon believed he was the better player.

He was destined to be part of Busby’s second great postwar side, which he started building when it was clear that the cup and championship-winning team of the late 1940s and early 1950s was in decline. Curiously, Scanlon’s uncle, Charlie Mitten, had himself played on the left wing in that earlier United side.

Born in 1935, Albert Scanlon had just turned 17 when he signed for the league champions in October 1952. He was a Mancunian, like Eddie Colman and Geoff Bent, two of the other “Babes” who would share the fateful plane journey home from Belgrade and die in Munich.

A Youth Cup winner in 1953 and 1954, Scanlon was still 19 when he made his first-team debut against Arsenal. He made an immediate impact with his raw pace — he was an “out and out flyer”. But in the Doncaster-born David Pegg, who was almost exactly the same age and recruited by United around the same time, Scanlon had a strong rival. Like Scanlon, Pegg was quick but he was the better ball player with a special ability for cutting inside his opponent and going for goal himself. Scanlon and Pegg both played their parts as the Busby Babes took English football by storm winning the First Division title in the 1955-56 and 1956-57 seasons. In the process, Scanlon picked up international honours for England at Under-23 level, but he never won a full cap.

After their championship triumphs, the new European Cup quickly became Busby’s top priority. Under pressure from the Football League, which saw European club football as a threat to its own stranglehold on the English game, Chelsea, the 1954-55 champions, had forgone the opportunity to compete in the first European Cup. Busby was determined his team would take on and beat the best in Europe.