Wed May 23, 2012 7:31 pm
My cousin who is on this site under Jimbo27 has written a book on Duncan Edwards which is released at the end of the month Mike Parry reviewed the book and has described it as the best football biography he has ever read.
Jimbo also wrote the Fred Keenor and Christain Roberts books and is a big city fan and for his third football book to get such great reviews makes me proud of his progress as a author
If you google bodugi and Duncan Edwards you can read the review if you like
Wed May 23, 2012 7:42 pm
I’m not a big one for crying – particularly when it comes to football matters but I’d forgive anybody for reaching for a handkerchief after reading the life-story of Duncan Edwards.
It is one of the greatest sporting tales ever told and certainly the most tragic. At just 21 years of age but already an established international and twice winner of the League Championship, the Manchester United boy wonder perished in the aftermath of the Munich air crash. He battled for his life for two weeks in a German hospital but eventually died from kidney failure months ahead of the 1958 World Cup where he would have undoubtedly risen to world superstar status alongside 17 year-old Pele.
But it wasn’t just that he was destined to become the greatest English footballer of all time and would certainly have played in the 1966 finals that prompt such a terrible sense of loss. It was that despite being the superstar of that era he was such a lovely young man in everything he did. Fifty four years after his death nobody has ever uttered even one half-bad word about him.
Author James Leighton paints a wonderful picture of the Black Country lad from Dudley in his marvellously researched new book - “The Greatest”. The title comes from a quote from Jimmy Murphy, the assistant manager of Manchester United in the Edwards’ era who said later: “Whenever I heard Muhammad Ali on television say he was the greatest, I had to smile. There was only ever one greatest and that was Duncan Edwards.”
He was the youngest player ever to appear in the first division when he made his debut for Manchester United in 1953 at the age of 16. The following year he pulled on an England shirt for the first time and nobody did it as young as him until Michael Owen came along 40 years later. When you read the book you realise he was the original boy-man. He was always the biggest and most powerful kid in all the youth teams in which he appeared. He strolled into the ranks of senior professionals without needing the normal formative years. There was no question of easing him into senior football. He was born to be there.
According to his peers he was the perfect footballer. He could pass short or long. He could out-run other players, tackle, head a ball and he had a rocket shot which he would unleash from any angle.
His playing record shows how complete he was. He played the majority of his 177 games for Manchester United at what was then left-half. But when called upon he also took up position as inside-right, inside-left and centre-forward. He scored 21 goals for his club. He scored another five goals for England in his eighteen appearances.
It is not idle speculation that Duncan Edwards would have been the captain of the victorious England team in 1966 when he would have been 29. He had the powers of leadership to add to his mastery. Fellow professionals have speculated who would have had to give up their place in the World-Cup winners line-up to accommodate him and opinion is split between left-half and captain, the legendary Bobby Moore or centre-half Jack Charlton. He could have played in either position.
His football career has, of course, been chronicled before. Where James Leighton excels in his book is painting the picture of a world-beater who was so modest and chronically shy that he would ask team-mates and even middle-aged journalists to pretend that they were him when United travelled abroad. He was terribly uncomfortable being in the limelight and hated light-bulbs being flashed in his face. On a holiday in the Isle of Man once he went to a cinema with a group of other holiday-makers, amongst them two young girls. Their jaws dropped open wide as they were watching a Pathe news-reel and at the centre of it was the boy they only knew as Duncan scoring goals for United and England. He hadn’t told them who he was.
His humility sears through the book. He had one real girl-friend who was called Molly. He absolutely adored her and as she worked on the other side of Manchester from where he trained he would jump on his bike and cycle the few miles there to see her during her lunch-hour. He hid around the corner from her works because when her work-mates once saw him he got mobbed. He once went to see her on the bus but it attracted too much attention. He eventually achieved his life ambition and bought a Morris Minor 1000.
He never lived in a house of his own. It was either with his adoring parents, Gladstone and Annie or in “digs” with a landlady which was the life of a single footballer in those days. In his room at his lodgings he had a glass jar on the mantle-piece into which he dropped half-a-crown (12.5p) from his wages each week to try and save up for the deposit on a house for he and Molly and the family that they hoped to bring up. He was god-father to one of his friend’s children but at the reception afterwards he seemed to have disappeared. All the other guests were making merry on bottled beer but Duncan didn’t want to be the centre of attention so he went into the kitchen and sat there sipping a glass of milk. He was virtually teetotal throughout his life.
The early parts of the book warm your soul to learn that a man put on this earth with a talent that was restricted to a handful of people in the whole world was such a decent guy. It is uplifting and restores faith in humanity when we read of the excesses of some modern-day footballers. It’s in the later parts of the book that the reader’s mood changes to shock, regret, despair and finally abject misery.
The circumstances of his death – along with seven other Manchester United footballers and more victims – fill you with grief.
Author Leighton gives the best description of the actual crash of the aeroplane in Munich that I have ever read. How the aircraft ploughed into an empty house, broke into two, hurtled into a wood and scattered bodies across a frozen field. Most of the victims died instantly or within a few hours. But Duncan was pulled from the wreckage alive and rushed to hospital. To all intents and purposes he was a survivor, albeit with fractured ribs and broken legs and pelvis.
But, most seriously he had damaged kidneys. He was in a desperate state. Nitrogen levels in his body were high enough to kill him and an artificial kidney had to be rushed to the Munich Hospital to save him. The battle for life went on for two weeks but in the end he had been too badly hurt and he slipped away. Matt Busby, his legendary manager, in an adjoining ward was too ill to be immediately told.
His body was flown back to Britain and a virtual state funeral was held for him in home-town Dudley. His mother, Annie, turned a room in their house into a shrine for her only son, displaying his cups, medals and England caps. Until she died nine years ago she was happy to invite any stranger into her house who wanted to talk about her footballer son over a cup of tea. As the years went on many varying tributes illustrated the loss and the pride that the town fcontinues to feel for their most famous son. Two stained glass windows in a church commemorate his career. Roads and buildings have been named after him and a statue has been erected in the town centre showing him as the young, strong footballer who we all want to remember.
“The Greatest” is a bite-your-tongue-book. Ultimately a tragic tale it is also immensely uplifting and easily the best footballer biography I have ever read.
Wed May 23, 2012 7:44 pm
You can't advertise books here!!!
Oh wait...
Wed May 23, 2012 7:46 pm
Milkybarkid wrote:My cousin who is on this site under Jimbo27 has written a book on Duncan Edwards which is released at the end of the month Mike Parry reviewed the book and has described it as the best football biography he has ever read.
Jimbo also wrote the Fred Keenor and Christain Roberts books and is a big city fan and for his third football book to get such great reviews makes me proud of his progress as a author
If you google bodugi and Duncan Edwards you can read the review if you like
Oops it's his fourth book forgot about Mr Cardiff City how could I forget that Phil Dwyer book