David Peace has had varying degrees of success with his three football novels. He had great success with ‘The Damned United’ about Brian Clough and Leeds United which subsequently became a film, but less so in ‘Red or Dead’ about Bill Shankly and Liverpool. He successfully returns with ‘Munichs’ about the 1958 Munich Air Disaster, the subsequent rise of Manchester United and the changing face of football in Britain.

On February 6, 1958, British European Airways Flight 609 crashed on take-off at Munich Airport. On board were the young Manchester United team, the ‘Busby Babes’, and the journalists who followed them. Twenty-one of the passengers died instantly, four were left fighting for their lives while six more were critically injured.

It was a heart-breaking tragedy for the survivors and the families of the players. A dark cloud descended on Manchester and the country as a whole.

Peace dramatises the aftermath of the disaster and how the club was revived by assistant manager Jimmy Murphy while manager Matt Busby was still in hospital.

Out of the shadows of despair Murphy managed to get the club to the 1958 FA Cup final with the help of the survivors, youth team players and the Football Association allowing cup tied players to be signed from other clubs.

The sheer devastation of the families when they hear about the deaths of their husbands and sons is tragically relayed. When Dick Colman is informed about the death of his son, Eddie, he leaves the house in his carpet slippers.

“At three o’clock in the morning, a policeman in Piccadilly Gardens approached Dick Colman, standing in the rain, in his slippers, his carpet slippers, soaked to the skin, and asked him if he was okay. I’m just looking for my son, is all, said Dick Colman. It’s late and I’m worried that he’s lost, he can’t find his way home.”

Busby was wracked by grief thinking the crash was his fault, “If he had not taken them into Europe, the Dead would be with their families, their loved ones still. He should never have allowed the pilot to make that third attempt at take-off, he knew, and he had known at the time, on the day, as they sped on and on and on and on in the great din of the engines.’’

Peace has been critical of many aspects of the modern game and one of his intentions in calling the novel ‘Munichs’ is to confront head-on the mockery and abuse football fans have had to face after the Hillsborough and Heysel disasters. He defies anyone to read his novel and then ever use ‘Munichs’ as an insult again.

The quality of the writing and the level of detail mean that it is often easy to forget that this is a novel, a work of fiction and Peace’s version of events.

‘Munichs’ is an impressive achievement by Peace, but it is also a fitting tribute to those who lost their lives and to everyone affected by the tragedy.

Munichs by David Peace. Published by Faber & Faber. Price £15.45.

This review first appeared in the November/December 2024 edition of Late Tackle magazine.