Manchester United – five of their best

MANCHESTER UNITED may have won the first major prize of 2022-23 when they beat Newcastle United 2-0 to win the EFL Cup, but they have a trophy-laden history. Some of the game’s greats have played for United, including Duncan Edwards, Billy Meredith, Bobby Charlton, George Best, David Beckham and Roy Keane. Here’s five of the best united teams – but there are others that can claim a place in the pantheon of the world’s most popular pastime!

1907-1911

Harry Moger, Hugh Edmonds, Vince Hayes, George Stacey, Alex Bell, Alex Downie, Dick Duckworth, Charlie Roberts, Jimmy Bannister, Harold Halse, Billy Meredith, Jack Picken, Jimmy Turnbull, George Wall, Enoch West, Herbert Burgess, Thomas Homer, Anthony Donnelly, George Livingstone.

Manager: Ernest Magnall

Achievements: Football League champions 1907-08 and 1910-11; FA Cup winners 1908-09.
Five-year record (1907-08-1911-12): 1 – 13 – 5 – 1 – 13

Key men

Billy Meredith
, Welsh international winger, controversial figure who played with a toothpick in his mouth. Played 300 games for each of the Manchester clubs; Sandy Turnbull, bustling forward who died during WW1. Involved in scandals that led to him being banned from football; Charlie Roberts, strong and skilful centre half who was capped by England. Both he and Meredith were instrumental in establishing the players’ union.

1955-1958

Ray Wood, Harry Gregg, Roger Byrne, Bill Foulkes, Jackie Blanchflower, Eddie Colman, Duncan Edwards, Mark Jones, Johnny Berry, David Pegg, Tommy Taylor, Dennis Viollet, Colin Webster, Billy Whelan, Bobby Charlton, John Doherty.

Manager: Matt Busby

Achievement: Football League Champions 1955-56 and 1956-57; FA Cup finalists 1956-57 and 1957-58. Five-year record (1953-54 – 1957-58): 4 – 5 – 1 – 1 – 9

Key men

Duncan Edwards, strong, physical, versatile and high on stamina. A defensive midfielder who could dominate games. Tragically died after the Munich air crash, aged just 21; Roger Byrne, captain of the United team, a defender who became one of the first attacking full backs. Won 33 caps for England but also died in Munich in 1958; Eddie Colman, the youngest of the “Busby Babes” to die in the Munich disaster, his trademark was his body swerve, which earned him the nickname, “Snakehips”; Tommy Taylor, strong centre forward signed from Barnsley for £ 29,999 who scored 137 goals in 237 games for United. Won 19 caps for England, scoring 16 goals. Another player who died in Munich.

1966-1968

Alex Stepney, Tony Dunne, Bobby Noble, David Sadler, Pat Crerard, John Aston, David Herd, Denis Law, Bobby Charlton, Shay Brennan, Nobby Stiles, George Best, Brian Kidd, Francis Burns, Bill Foulkes.

Manager: Matt Busby

Achievement: Football League champions 1966-67, European Cup winners 1967-68. Five-year record (1964-65 to 1968-69): 1 – 4 – 1 – 2 – 11

Key men

George Best,
 Northern Ireland international winger, 37 caps, who was one of the great players from the late 1960s and early 1970s. A wonderful, flawed genius of a performer, his off-pitch life brought an end to his relatively unfulfilled career. A great dribbler, improviser and goalscorer, he died sadly young at 59. Bobby Charlton, one of England’s greatest players who lived through the Munich air disaster of 1958 and eight years later, won the World Cup with England, for whom he won 106 caps and scored 49 goals.  Gave his name to fierce, long-range shooting, the “Bobby Charlton thunderbolt”.  Denis Law, won 55 caps for Scotland, scoring 30 goals, and in his club career, scored 303 times in just over 600 games. A legendary figure, acrobatic, competitive and tenacious. He had a short spell with Torino from whom he joined United in 1962. Ended his international career in the 1974 World Cup.

1993-94

Peter Schmeichel, Denis Irwin, Paul Parker, Steve Bruce, Gary Pallister, Lee Sharpe, Andrei Kanchelskis, Ryan Giggs, Paul Ince, Roy Keane, Brian McClair, Eric Cantona, Mark Hughes.

Manager: Alex Ferguson

Achievement: Premier League champions 1993-94, FA Cup winners 1993-94, Football League Cup finalists 1993-94. Five-year record (1991-92 to 1995-96): 2 – 1 – 1 – 2 – 1

Key men

Peter Schmeichel, 
Danish goalkeeper who joined United in 1991 from Brøndby for £ 500,000. Won 129 caps for Denmark, including the successful 1992 European Championship. An imposing and very physical keeper, an all-time great. Eric Cantona, French forward, an iconic figure who was as controversial as he was skilful. Joined United in 1992 from Leeds for a bargain £ 1 million. Won 45 caps for France. Retired at 31 in 1997 after scoring 82 goals in 185 games for the club. Ryan Giggs, one of United’s great clubmen, playing 963 games in a career that saw him become one of the most decorated players in English football. Welsh international, he won 64 caps.

1998-99

Peter Schmeichel, Gary Neville, Philip Neville, Denis Irwin, Ronnie Johnsen, Japp Stam, Nicky Butt, Roy Keane, Paul Scholes, David Beckham, Andy Cole, Teddy Sheringham, Dwight Yorke, Jesper Blomquist, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Ryan Giggs. 

Manager: Sir Alex Ferguson

Achievement: Premier League champions 1998-99 (and 1999-00 and 2000-01); FA Cup winners 1998-99; UEFA Champions League winners 1998-99. Five-year record (1996-97to 2000-01): 1 – 2 – 1 – 1 – 1

Key men

Dwight Yorke,
 Trinidad & Tobago-born striker who joined United from Aston Villa for £ 12.6 million. A fast and tricky player, he scored 29 goals in 1998-99.   Jaap Stam, Dutch central defender who won 67 caps for his country. Joined United from PSV Eindhoven in 1998, he combined strength and spped with an ability to read the game well. Gary Neville, one of England’s great full backs, a tenacious, hard-tackling defender. Born in Bury, he won 85 caps for England. Roy Keane, captain of the treble winning team, a hard man who was very, and occasionally too, competitive. Joined from Nottingham Forest for £ 3.75 million, he won 67 caps for the Republic of Ireland.

Medals not required – why some greats simply don’t need them

HARRY KANE has broken Tottenham Hotspur’s scoring record, no mean feat when you have Jimmy Greaves and Martin Chivers in the same list. Kane deserves credit for this remarkable achievement, but no sooner had he netted his latest goal, people were talking about his lack of medals. Spurs haven’t won anything in Kane’s time, indeed you have to go back to 2008 for their last trophy. Players often claim their desire to leave a club is based on the desire to “win things” and as Kane heads towards 30, you can understand any anxiety about ending his peak years without some sort of bauble to place in his cabinet at Chez Kane.

But not all great players have boxloads of medals when they want to recall their football career. In fact, some of the game’s outstanding names have very little silverware to show for a glittering career. Much depends on who they play for – if you are Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo, the statistics of their careers match the plaudits they have received, because they have played for great, successful clubs. Messi has won 11 league titles and Ronaldo seven, but CR7 has won five Champions League medals to Messi’s four. Messi, of course, now has a World Cup momento on display at home.

Zlatan Ibrahomovic has 12 league titles to his name, from the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and France. Bayern’s Thomas Müller has 11 Bundesliga medals, while Paco Gento of Real won 12 La Ligas with Real Madrid. Johan Cruyff won 10 league titles, along with seven domestic cups and three European Cups. He was a league champion with three different clubs: Ajax, Barcelona and Feyenoord. Kenny Dalglish won 23 major medals in his playing career, including 10 league titles with Celtic and Liverpool. Play for the top clubs and you win medals – just ask Phil Neal, Liverpool’s full back, who won seven league titles, four European Cups, four league cups and the UEFA Cup, along with 50 England caps.

Some players, unfortunately, play the role of big fish at a club less equipped to winning major honours on a regular basis. Tom Finney and Stanley Matthews, two of the wizards of the wing, won praise week-by-week and were mainstays of the England team. Finney was a Preston North End player from 1946 to 1960, he won 76 caps for England but never won a major honour. Matthews won 54 caps during a career that saw him play for Stoke City and Blackpool. His only honour was the FA Cup in 1953. Both these players earned their place in football history because they were truly great at what they did.

Similarly, there were members of the England 1966 winning team that didn’t enjoy incredible success as club players. Gordon Banks, for example, had to wait until the back end of his career for his one and only medal with Stoke City, the Football League Cup in 1972. George Cohen, a fine full back with Fulham, never won a major prize with his club. Ray Wilson won the FA Cup in 1966 with Everton, but injuries prevented him winning more. The Charlton brothers were the most successful, but Bobby’s trophy winning days ended two years after 1966 as Manchester United entered a period of decline. Big Jack was part of Don Revie’s ultra-professional unit that went close to winning everything, but invariably failed at so many final hurdles. Jimmy Greaves, who missed the World Cup final and then drifted away from the England scene, actually only won three medals in English football, the last in 1967.

George Best, for all his brilliance and headlines, won his last medal in 1968. His career was strangely anti-climatic – he won three medals and 37 caps for Northern Ireland. The man who became the face of British football when Best’s star waned, Kevin Keegan, fared much better in his tangible assets haul – three league titles with Liverpool, one with Hamburg, one European Cup, two UEFA Cups and 63 caps for England. It is fair to say Keegan made the most of his career.

Not so players like Best and even Diego Maradona, who won six medals at club level, although lifting the World Cup eclipses most other pieces of objet d’art. Pelé, because he was limited to appearing for Santos for most of his career, also had few items to show for his wonderful skills.

But did this really matter in times gone by? Arguably not. Today, the football world expects the top names to continually grace the big occasions, but given we are talking about a team game, an individual can only do so much. Hence, Ronaldo has never won the World Cup, even though his fans continually will them to be crowned champion. While the likes of Matthews and Finney were clubmen of the highest order, they were never likely to win the League Championship with their long-time employers. Bobby Moore, another legendary figure, stayed with West Ham for most of his career, a club that was respected and won the occasional cup, but were never contenders for the title. In the modern game, great players gravitate towards the clubs with money and trophy-winning potential. They might start with a West Ham or a Fulham, but they will surely end up with a Chelsea, a Manchester City or Liverpool.

A good way to measure this is to consider the England World Cup squads. In 1966, Alf Ramsey’s 22 players came from 14 different clubs of which nine were playing for the top six of 1965-66. Four years on, the needle had shifted and only 10 clubs were called upon and 11 were from the top six. In more recent times, the World Cup squad of 2018 was drawn from 10 clubs, but 18 of the 23 were from the so-called “big six”.

Other nations have different squad compositions. France, the 2018 World champions, had a squad that was drawn from across Europe, 15 clubs from five different countries. Croatia, the runners-up were even more diverse, 23 players from 21 clubs in no less than 10 countries. This shows that while overseas players tend to ply their trade across the European landscape, English players are more likely to stay at home and the most successful ones move in the direction of the richest and most successful. It is likely, then, that the top players can collect far more medals than their predecessors from past decades.

It would be inappropriate to talk of medals and not recognise some of the most celebrated players. Liverpool’s Phil Neal, for example, won eight league titles and four European Cups while Celtic’s Billy McNeill was Scottish champion nine times and won 23 medals. Ryan Giggs, in a career that spanned 24 seasons, won no less than 13 league titles. And yet, Alan Shearer won a solitary league title with Blackburn and Gary Lineker waited until he was 30 for his only prize in English football with Tottenham, although two years earlier, he did win the European Cup-Winners’ Cup with Barcelona.

Although some players may feel that a career without official recognition may leave an empty feeling when they retire, consolation can be found in the way they are remembered by the people paying to watch them. While medals can be sold to boost the pension pot, the memories of the fans will never fade. It is not always necessary to wear garlands to be identified as a football legend. Harry Kane is certainly a Tottenham legend in his own lifetime.