Duncan Edwards was an English footballer who played for Manchester United and the England national team. He was one of the Busby Babes, the young United team formed under manager Matt Busby in the mid-1950s. Edwards is the only player to have been a member of both United and England’s World Cup-winning sides in the 1950s and 1960s. He died in a car crash in Munich in 1972, aged just 48 years and 185 days.
About Duncan Edwards in brief
Duncan Edwards was an English footballer who played for Manchester United and the England national team. He was one of the Busby Babes, the young United team formed under manager Matt Busby in the mid-1950s, playing 177 matches for the club. In a professional career of less than five years he helped United to win two Football League championships and two FA Charity Shields, and reach the semi-finals of the European Cup. One of eight players who died as a result of the Munich air disaster, he survived initially but succumbed to his injuries in hospital two weeks later. Edwards was the youngest player to play in the Football League First Division and at the time the youngest England player since the Second World War, going on to play 18 times for his country at top level. He is one of only a handful of players to have played for both England and Manchester United at the same time in the same year. He also played for West Bromwich Albion, Newcastle United, Aston Villa, Manchester City, Leeds United, Hull City, Nottingham Forest, Sheffield United, West Brom, Huddersfield Town, Leicester City, West Ham United, Sheffield Wednesday, and Aston Villa. Edwards is the only player to have been a member of both United and England’s World Cup-winning sides in the 1950s and 1960s. He has been ranked among the toughest players of all time, and has been described as one of Manchester United’s greatest ever players. He died in a car crash in Munich in 1972, aged just 48 years and 185 days, and was buried in Woodside, near his home in Dudley, Worcestershire.
His younger sister Carol Anne died in 1947 at the age of 14 weeks, and his cousin Dennis Stevens also went on to become a professional footballer. Edwards played football for his school as well as for Dudley Schools and Birmingham and District teams, and also represented his school at morris dancing. He impressed the selectors and was chosen to play for the English Schools XI, making his debut against the equivalent team from Wales at Wembley Stadium on 1 April 1950. He signed for United as an amateur on 2 June 1952, but accounts of when he signed his first professional contract vary. Some reports state that it occurred on his 17th birthday in October 1953, but others contend that it took place a year earlier. By this stage, he had already attracted the attention of major clubs, with Manchester United scout Jack O’Brien reporting back to manager MattBusby in 1948 that he had seen a 12-year-old schoolboy who merits special watching. The 1953–54 season saw Edwards emerge as a regular player in the first team, and a semi-regular half-half in the second team. After impressing in a friendly against Kilmarnock he replaced the injured Henry Cockburn for the away match against Huddfield Town on October 31, 1953, and went to appear on the substitutes’ bench. He played in a FA Youth Cup final against Cardiff City, which United lost 4–1, making him the youngest ever to play on the top flight of English football.
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