History of Manchester United Football Club

Description

Manchester United was founded in the year 1878, and was initially known as Newton Health LYR until the year 1880. In the year 1880, the club changed its name and was called Newton Health until the year 1882. After which the team was officially called Manchester united. The team is quite popularly known by fans and others as THE RED DEVILS. Manchester United’s Team currently plays at the Old Trafford stadium in Manchester. However, they have changed a few grounds earlier like Monsall on North Road, Clayton on Bank Street.

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Early Years

The period from 1945-1969 are known as the Busby years following Matt Busby's tenure as manager of the Old Trafford club. His tactics paid dividends for Manchester United and the club finished second in the league in 1947, 1948 and 1949. They also won the FA Cup held in 1948.

Busby was a fan of using the youth players at his disposal as much as possible and again his policy seemed spot on as evidenced by Manchester United winning the league again in 1956 with an average age of only 22. Busby's original group of youth players became more commonly referred to as the "Busby Babes".

However, the club suffered a huge tragedy when in 1958, a plane carrying the team home from a European Cup match crashed during a take-off attemp after having stopped to refuel in Munich, Germany. This air disaster resulted in the loss of eight players - Geoff Bent, Roger Byrne, Eddie Colman, Duncan Edwards, Mark Jones, David Pegg, Tommy Taylor and Liam Whelan. Twelve passengers, and three Manchester United staff members also lost their lives in the plane crash. Manager Matt Busby was not given much hope of survival by the Munich doctors, but he recovered and was released from hospital two months after the incident.

The mid-1950s and late-1960s saw some good performance by the team. The team won the FA Cup in 1963. This triumph helped the club to 2nd place in 1964 which was followed by the league win in 1965 and 1967. They became the first English club to win the European Cup competition in 1968. However, they had a disappointing 1969-70 seasons which affected their performance during the 1970-71 as well. With Docherty as manager, the team managed to reach the FA Cup finals in 1976 and 1977 as well.

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Poor Results in 1980's

United made a poor start during the 1980's. Following an early FA Cup exit to Spurs and a First Division hammering at Ipswich, the team recovered to win eight of their last ten league games, and finished just two points behind Liverpool in the title race. United created another intense finish at the end of the following season, 1980/81, when they won their last seven league games in a row. This time, however, they could only finish eighth in the table – a position which the club's board could not bear. Sexton was dismissed on 30 April 1981, after four seasons.

Ron Atkinson appointed Mick Brown as assistant manager and Eric Harrison as youth coach. Even the fans and supporters loved his on-the-field acquisitions. He recruited Bryan Robson from his old club West Bromwich Albion for £1.5m and spent around a third of that to appoint ex-Albion man, Remi Moses, to the United squad. The domestic cups offered United their best chances of silverware, and in 1983, they reached Wembley in both competitions. Liverpool defeated them, 2-1 to win the League Cup, while Brighton and Hove Albion were defeated in two attempts in the FA Cup final. A shock 2-2 draw was followed up by a thumping 4-0 win for United through goals from Robson (2), Arnold Muhren and Norman Whiteside.

Whiteside’s habit of rising to the big occasion was never more gr