Rare colour footage shows the Busby Babes at their magnificent best, just ten months before eight members of the prodigiously talented young Manchester United side were wiped out in the Munich air disaster.

Recovered and edited by the North West Film Archive, the film was screened to 150 guests at the ‘Munich: 60 years on’ event at Manchester Metropolitan University this week.

Amateur local filmmaker Sam Hanna shot the film of Manchester United’s 3-1 victory away to Burnley on Good Friday 1957.

Irish forward Billy Whelan is shown scoring a hat-trick and legendary captain Duncan Edwards celebrating a missed Burnley penalty– they were just two of the 23 people killed in the plane crash on February 6th 1958 as United returned from a European Cup tie.

It was tremendously satisfying to see lifelong United fans enjoying the rare colour footage of the Busby Babes in action.

Organised by sports journalism lecturer Vince Hunt, the Manchester Metropolitan event featured presentations on the sports writers who were killed on the plane, and short films produced by journalism students on how Manchester as a city responded to the disaster.

Alice McKeegan, Head of Football for the Manchester Evening News, spoke about how her paper covered the 60th anniversary commemorations for a young, global audience in the digital age.

Vince Hunt, Lecturer in Sports Journalism at Manchester Metropolitan University, said: “As a journalism department it was great to go out into our local community and tell stories that set this disaster in a personal context, and it was tremendously satisfying to see lifelong United fans enjoying the rare colour footage of the Busby Babes in action.

‘At one point, the United trainer ran onto the pitch, and journalists and members of the audience alike had been to the unveiling of a blue plaque at his former house the Sunday before.

“His granddaughter said this was the first time she had ever seen film of her grandfather. Experiences like this bring story tellers and story carriers together’.

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