The story of Manchester United’s 1966 European Cup semi-final that brought Sir Matt Busby to tears

Partizan Belgrade, United’s opposition on Thursday, were the team to bring what Busby described as ‘the lowest ebb since the Munich air crash’, but both manager and club rose to greatness

As Sir Bobby Charlton walked back up to the Partizan Stadium in 1966, he remembered thinking he was “retracing footsteps that never ceased to haunt us”.

The Belgrade arena now looks completely different to then, or 1958, but this is still a place imbued with so many memories for Manchester United. The very air around the area holds the knowledge of what this patch of land staged and witnessed.

The Partizan Stadium is both the ground where the Busby Babes played their last ever match, and from where they were returning when the Munich air disaster took place, as well as where Sir Matt himself feared the dream that drove that legendary team died.

Partizan Belgrade, the club which plays in the stadium and United’s opposition on Thursday, were the team to bring what Busby described as “the lowest ebb since the Munich air crash”. They knocked Busby’s buoyant side out of the semi-finals of the 1965-66 European Cup, shattering his belief that he would ever lift that great trophy. Busby was left devastated, tears in is eyes, wondering whether it was even worth going on.

In that, however, Partizan and their stadium should also offer a grandiose reminder as much as memories. They should remind of the value of persistence; of spirit.

Manchester United players, staff and journalists prepare to board before the Munich air disaster (Getty)

United and Busby had already displayed this qualities just to get back to Belgrade – and a European Cup semi-final – in 1966. It certainly didn’t seem possible amid the tragic wreckage of 1958, when eight of his team died in Munich, or even the dysfunctional club left behind in 1962.

Busby and assistant Jimmy Murphy fought on, though, and gradually put together one of the continent’s great sides. All of that came together in the 1965-66 quarter-final, when a team exhilarated by George Best won 5-1 away at Benfica. It was a night, Charlton said in his autobiography, “when our old team hit its highest level of performance”, when they all “understood most completely what it was all about”.

More emotionally, it had been United’s finest display in Europe since the days of the Babes, and that last game away to Red Star Belgrade in 1958. That game was moved to the stadium of their great rivals Partizan for capacity purposes, and saw United move on to another level. They were simply “dazzling” amid the Belgrade cold. Already 2-1 up from the first leg, Busby’s young side roared into a 3-0 lead by the half-hour, with Charlton scoring two goals in two minutes. Red Star’s second-half comeback to make it 3-3 was irrelevant. The impression had been made. The semi-final had been made.

An aura had been fully restored, and even made greater by Best.

That could be seen from Partizan’s performance in the first half of the first leg of the semi-final.

George Best arrives back in the UK after United's 5-1 victory over Benfica (Getty)

“The Yugoslavs were terrified of us,” Harry Gregg told Eamon Dunphy in his exceptional book, ‘A Strange Kind of Glory’. “They’d read of the mighty Manchester United back in all our glory. They were mesmerised by the very name and that’s how they played in the first half.”

The problem, however, was United’s own performance wasn’t at the level they had reached in the quarter-final.

For a start, this certainly wasn’t the Best who’d played in the quarter-final. He’d suffered a cartilage injury in the FA Cup sixth-round win over Preston North End that was to subsequently end his season, but Busby couldn’t countenance leaving him out for this biggest of games. The great Scot felt they were on the brink. He’d never felt closer. The same applied to the entire squad.

And this was the other problem. If United were not physically the same, with Best struggling, the similarly unfit Denis Law would reveal they were mentally off too.

“That was definitely the year when we should have won the European Cup,” Law told Joe Lovejoy for his authorised biography of Best. “But perhaps we were too confident. We thought all we had to do was turn up to get the result we needed. We were wrong, of course.”

The emotional impact of actually drawing Belgrade should not be understated either. “It would have been impossible to come up with a match that carried any heavier load of emotion,” Charlton wrote.

Busby, for his part, hid any sense of this on the eve of the game. “Manchester United have never played for a draw and we will not start now!”

They just didn’t really start to play at all. They were dominant… but flat, illustrated by Best. A bad sixth-minute miss illustrated the folly of starting him. At half-time, substitute Noel Cantwell told teammates that a goal would be a matter of time. Those playing felt otherwise.

“Partizan were a different team in the second half, they’d realised they’d overestimated us and began to play,” Gregg said.

None realised it more than manager Abdulah Gegic, a tactician who Real Madrid had been looking at. Partizan caught United cold immediately after half-time, with raiding full-back Jusufi setting up Mustafa Hasanagic for the opener. That was the spark, as the Serbians began to lay siege. Within 13 minutes, it was 2-0, as Radoslav Becejac fired past Gregg. Best and Law were barely able to run, as Velibor Vasovic – who later be prove an influential member of Rinus Michel’s great Ajax team – ran the game.

Partizan won 2-0 and celebrated as if they were to lift the European Cup. Busby publicly didn’t reveal his disappointment at that point, but he privately feared a great chance had gone.

Matt Busby with Bobby Charlton shortly after the crash in 1958 (Getty Images)

Gregg, for his part, blamed his manager to Dunphy.

“Our team talk was the usual, go out and enjoy yourselves, play it as it comes. That’s what we’d always done. We made no adjustments, which you have to do in the away leg of a European tie.”

Whereas Partizan did. “They were well drilled, physically and psychologically prepared to defend. They were able to adapt tactics to the needs of that particular situation.”

And United struggled to adapt to this situation. They weren’t yet out, and there was still the prospect of a European night at Old Trafford, but there wasn’t the same belief. There wasn’t the same team. Best couldn’t play, and was replaced by youth player Willie Anderson.

None of it was enough. United did get a late goal through Nobby Stiles, and Partizan did await an onslaught. Gegic abandoned any tactical pretensions and simply roared “defend for your lives!”

That translated into some hugely aggressive tactics, that eventually saw Crerand lash out with a punch and get sent off… but it may not have been needed.

George Best was not himself after injury against Preston (Getty)

United were displaying their own frustration. They couldn’t make the breakthrough. They couldn’t reach “the top of the mountain”.

Afterwards, there were tears in Busby’s eyes. No one else in the dressing room spoke. Those there said he looked “sick”, “broken-hearted”, “devastated”.

Gregg tried to go to him and say the better team lost but Busby “just shrugged his shoulders and smiled that resigned smile of his”.

“I felt sorry for him.”

When everyone else left, Busby eventually turned to Crerand and lamented: “We’ll never win the European Cup now.”

Crerand attempted to reassure him, insisting they’d go again, but admitted to Andy Mitten this week he scarcely believed it himself.

Matt Busby and his United squad after clinching the European Cup in 1968 (Getty)

Busby didn’t believe he could go again. He said he should retire.

“He spoke about it,” Wilf McGuinness told Lovejoy. “But the players didn’t want him to go… Louis Edwards, the chairman, wasn’t ready for a change then.”

Busby’s wife Jean didn’t think Sir Matt was really ready to give up either. And that was proven by one little moment of fate a few days later, when the great man was on his way to Old Trafford for training.

“I was fed up and everything else, but driving along I stopped at the crossing near the blind school,” he said in an interview. “There I witnessed seven little children with sticks being led across the road. I just sat in the car and thought, ‘Matt what problems have you got? You‘ve got no problems compared to these poor kids.’ At that moment I thought one more go. Just one more go!’’

It was enough. Lessons were learned. Strides were made. That final step was made. Busby, and United, persevered.