Sir Alexander Matthew Busby (26 May 1909 – 20 January 1994) was a Scottish football player and manager, who managed Manchester United between 1945 and 1969 and again for the second half of the 1970–71 season. He was the first manager of an English team to win the European Cup and is widely regarded as one of the greatest managers of all time.
Before going into management, Busby was a player for two of Manchester United's greatest rivals, Manchester City and Liverpool. During his time at City, Busby played in two FA Cup Finals, winning one of them. After his playing career was interrupted by the Second World War, Busby was offered the job of assistant coach at Liverpool, but they were unwilling to give him the control that he wanted over the first team. As a result, he took the vacant manager's job at Manchester United instead, where he built the famous Busby Babes team that won successive Football League First Division titles and challenged for the European Cup. Eight of these players died in the Munich air disaster, but Busby rebuilt the team and won two more First Division titles as well as other domestic cups before he took United to European Cup glory a decade later.
In his 25 years with Manchester United, Busby won five league championships, two FA Cups and the European Cup. He was among the inaugural inductees into the English Football Hall of Fame in 2002, and the Scottish Football Hall of Fame in 2004.
Early life 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 a Catholic and remained a devout believer. 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 processing time. In the meantime, Busby got a full-time job as a collier and played football part-time for Stirlingshire Junior side Denny Hibs. He had played only a few matches for Denny Hibs, but it was not long before he was signed up by a Manchester City side that was a couple of games away from regaining promotion to the First Division. Ten minutes after he had signed for Man City a representative of his boyhood club, Glasgow Celtic, phoned to express their desire to sign him. Busby’s half-brother later recounted Matt cried when he missed the opportunity to play for the club he supported.
Playing career
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 jersey was worn by Jack Percival with increasing regularity, and Busby was sold to Liverpool for £8,000 on 12 March 1936, having made more than 200 appearances for Manchester City.
He made his debut for the Reds just two days later, on 14 March, away to Huddersfield Town; the match ended in a 1–0 Liverpool defeat. Busby opened his goalscoring account a month later – his 47th-minute strike helped his team to a 2–2 draw with Blackburn Rovers at Ewood Park. Busby soon made the number 4 shirt his own, ousting Ted Savage in the process. He rarely missed a game over the following three seasons. This consistency earned Busby the Liverpool captaincy and he led the club with great distinction. Along with Jimmy McDougall and Tom Bradshaw, Busby made up what is considered by many to be the best half-back line Liverpool had ever had.
Bob Paisley joined Liverpool from Bishop Auckland in 1939, and it was Busby who took him under his wing and showed him the ropes at Anfield. This led to a lifelong friendship between two of the most successful managers in English football history. The Second World War arrived soon after, and with it came an end to Busby's playing days. Like many of the Liverpool playing staff, he signed on for national service in the King's Liverpool Regiment.
War years
Busby carried on playing football during the war. A few days after helping Aldershot defeat Chelsea 4–3 in a benefit match, Busby signed for Chelsea on 28 October 1939. He made four appearances in total. He also turned out for Middlesbrough (13 matches), Reading, Brentford, and Bournemouth & Boscombe Athletic.
Hibernian lured Busby back north in 1941 at a time when English clubs did not want their players in Scottish football unless they were insured. He played in 37 matches for the club and scored five goals (including one against city rivals Hearts). Busby appeared in back-to-back Summer Cup finals against Rangers with a 3–2 victory in the 1941 competition.1940–41 Summer Cup Final, London Hearts Supporters Club. Retrieved 29 June 2021.1941–42 Summer Cup Final London Hearts Supporters Club. Retrieved 29 June 2021.
After returning to Liverpool, he was appointed assistant coach of the club in May 1944. While based in Catterick, he also starred for Portrack Shamrocks in the 1945 Ellis Cup final as a war-time guest.
International career Busby made only one official international appearance for Scotland; he played in a 3–2 British Home Championship defeat to Wales at Ninian Park, Cardiff, on 4 October 1933. Playing opposite Busby in the Welsh half-back line was his future assistant Jimmy Murphy. Busby also made seven appearances for Scotland against England during the Second World War, winning just one of them, but these are considered unofficial. He represented the Scottish League XI in an inter-league match in 1941, while he was a guest player of Hibernian.Wins for England and Belgium, The Glasgow Herald, 12 October 1941
Managerial career
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 requested that he be directly involved in training, pick the team on matchdays and even choose the players to be bought and sold without interference from the club directors, who, he believed, did not know the game as well as he did. Such a level of control over the team was unprecedented in the English game, but the United chairman was in no position to argue. Busby was originally offered a three-year contract but managed to secure himself a five-year deal after explaining that it would take at least that long for his revolution to have a tangible effect.
The contract was signed that day – 19 February 1945 – but it was not until 1 October that Busby officially took over the reins at Manchester United. In the interim, he returned to the Army Physical Training Corps, whose football team he took to Bari, Italy, in the spring of 1945. There, he took in a training session for a football team made up of non-commissioned officers led by West Bromwich Albion's former half-back Jimmy Murphy. Impressed by the Welshman's oratory skills, Busby engaged him in conversation and offered him the job of chief coach at Manchester United, which Murphy accepted verbally there and then, before joining the club officially in early 1946. The two men immediately put their mark on the side, leading them to the runners-up spot in the league, behind Busby's former employers Liverpool, by the end of the 1946–47 season. Manchester United were runners-up in the league in 1947, 1948, 1949 and 1951, and won the FA Cup in 1948, before winning the league championship in 1952. This was a welcome success for a club which had last won a major trophy in 1911 and had spent the interwar years bouncing between the First and Second Divisions.