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Birthdate:
26.05.1909
Birthplace: Orbiston, Lanarkshire, Scotland
Other clubs: Alpine Villa, Denny Hibernian, Manchester City; Chelsea, Middlesbrough, Reading, Brentford, Bournemouth & Boscombe Athletic and Hibernian (wartime guest)
Bought from: Manchester City
Signed for LFC: £8000 12.03.1936
International caps: 7 wartime appearances
Liverpool debut:
14.03.1936
Last appearance: 02.09.1939
Debut goal: 10.04.1936
Last goal: 10.09.1938
Contract expiry: 1939
Total LFC wartime games/goals: 26 / 1
LFC league games/goals: 118 / 3
Total LFC games/goals: 125 / 3
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Player Notes:
Matt Busby, along with Tom Bradshaw & Jimmy McDougall - formed an all-Scottish half-back line that certainly ranks with the best the club has ever had in those three positions at any one time in its history. He arrived at Manchester City as an inside-forward in February 1928 but they moulded him into a classy half-back. In seven years Busby played 226 Football League games for City. His biggest disappointment was losing the F.A. cup final to Everton 0-3 in 1933 but the highlight was winning the cup a year later, when Portsmouth were beaten 2-1. 26-year-old Matt Busby was therefore an experienced professional when he was signed by Liverpool in the spring of 1936 for £8,000. He almost immediately took over the No. 4 shirt from Robert Savage. Busby didn't miss many matches over the next three seasons when Liverpool were a mediocre First division team. But like so many of his contemporaries, Busby's playing-career was cut short by the Second World War.
Matt Busby was offered a job as an assistant manager to George Kay at Anfield for 10 pounds a week. However, his views on how football should be played and governed were not shared by the Liverpool board and Busby chose instead to take the manager's post at Manchester United in October 1945 even though his contract had been signed the previous February. In the interim period, he had been working as a football coach with the Army Physical Training Corps. It was a bold step for him to take at Old Trafford with no previous managerial experience behind him.
His achievements at Old Trafford were nothing short of astonishing with the birth of the Busby Babes, 5 First Division championships and 2 F.A. cups, survival of the Munich air crash and then a decade later masterminding the European cup-winning team of 1968. Sir Matt Busby is rightly considered one of the best managers of all time. With hindsight, it is perhaps unfortunate that his disagreements with the Liverpool Board in 1945 caused him to look elsewhere for his post-war employment. However, Liverpool supporters can at least be grateful to Busby for being the man who contacted Liverpool manager George Kay at Anfield suggesting he take a look at a lad called Liddell. Busby later said that the day Liddell arrived on Merseyside was "a very fortunate day for Liverpool". Indeed it was! |
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