The Busby Babes; Big Duncan is gone.

You may have noticed, whilst perusing these random thoughts from time to time, that the football team I follow – or support – is Aston Villa. Other Villa fans include King Billy and Tom Hanks. Tom Hanks gave someone his autograph once and the guy shouted after Tom 'what are you thanking me for?'

Think about it!

King Billy, of course, is Prince William who can be seen sitting in the stands, when he is around, by himself.

I would see them every time they played at home, when I was a lad, and, in fact, I nearly played there – I was the solo drummer in the army cadets band.

I can't really remember too much about any of the football matches or incidents, apart from Stan Lynn missing a penalty (but he scored from the rebound) and the visit of the Busby Babes – Manchester United.

Yesterday was the 60^th anniversary of the Munich air disaster when half of the football team, together with others, were killed on their way back from a cup match in Munich. The aircraft tried three times to take off in the snow and crashed on the third attempt.

One of their most famous players, and a genius if you can call a footballer a genius, was Duncan Edwards; he died a few days after the crash at the age of 21.

On the day United played Villa, I remember one of the United players skied a ball and I was standing next to the great man on the pitch; the ball seemed a long way from him and for a short time I thought it was going to hit me – but he stretched out his muscular leg and trapped it dead.

I wasn't playing, of course; I was just a little lad who had invaded the football field when the players came on; we would do this at every match and we were usually ushered off.

Eventually because of the reaction of the authorities – and most stadiums – this turned in to football hooliganism.

I don't remember what happened in that game but I can still see Duncan Edwards standing near me as they warmed up and I can remember his very muscular legs and thinking I wouldn't like to get a kick from one of those!!

There are still 2 survivors of that crash: Bobby Charlton, a real hero to football fans the world over and, I think, Harry Gregg. The Irish goalkeeper, apparently, was a hero at the crash. I saw him play in the 1970s in a little charity game in Shropshire – still fit.

Over the weekend, the crowd stopped and gave silence to remember the event and the players with lots of people there who had helped line the streets of Manchester when the coffins were returned to the city late one rainy February night.

A little lonely man of about 85 stood in the crowd and that was Bobby Charlton who came out of the crash unscathed – physically. You could see on the TV the torture in his face – the shave cuts prominent. 

He is reported to have said that he heard the news of Duncan Edwards death from Duncan's mother: 'Big Duncan is gone' she said.