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Apparantley Man City fans attending the game have been given a photo of the once former Man City goalkeeper that was killed in the plane crash while working as a journalist,to make them think twice before spoiling the minute's silence before Sunday's Manchester derby at OT.

Some City fans would call that emotional blackmail.I'd call it putting things into perspective.

I'll be at Chelsea on Sunday for the game with Liverpool.I'm not holding my breath for the scousers to respect the minute's silence.We all know how much they love Man U in the European City of 'culture' !whistle!

No Old Trafford have kindly decked out our end in City colours and have also put a picture up of Swifty. Frank Swift was still very well respected at the time of the disaster, so it also has a special significance for us. We City fans are not the callous bastards the press have portrayed us as you know. And we will respect the minute's silence and even shut any wankers up who feel it funny to try and disrupt it. I know a few who are going this Sunday and some even have tickets in the home end with their united supporting friends. This isn't uncommon in Manchester for the derby games, not so sure about Merseyside or London though. Do people actually get on with each other there?

I'm a Chelsea fan(as you probably know).We'll definetley respect the silence on Sunday before our game with Liverpool and thump any twat who attempts to upset it,as you City fans will do the same.It'll be mostly youngsters that will upset the silence as they are very ignorant about Munich.

No love lost between us and Liverpool,or United.City we have no problem with but any rivalries will be rekindled for later on.

I hope City beat United(obvious reasons) but it would be inapropiate to revel in a City win on this thread.

Enjoy the game mate.I'm sure it will be Manchester 'united'.Lucifer Sam wrote:

> No Old Trafford have kindly decked out our end in City colours
> and have also put a picture up of Swifty. Frank Swift was still
> very well respected at the time of the disaster, so it also has
> a special significance for us. We City fans are not the callous
> bastards the press have portrayed us as you know. And we will
> respect the minute's silence and even shut any wankers up who
> feel it funny to try and disrupt it. I know a few who are going
> this Sunday and some even have tickets in the home end with
> their united supporting friends. This isn't uncommon in
> Manchester for the derby games, not so sure about Merseyside or
> London though. Do people actually get on with each other there?
>
>

Prof,

You are totally wrong about the Ambassador's safety. Built for BEA as a "hedge" against the failure of the Viscount, it had an excellent safety record in terms of aircraft of the time, was one of the quietest piston engined airliners around and was loved by passengers for its comfort and great views.

There is no problem with high wing aircraft as the Fokker F-27, De Havilland Canada DHC8, ATR42 and ATR72, all of which have sold in hundreds, have proved.

What went wrong at Munich is that the aircraft suffered from a lack of proper de-icing and too much slush on the runway. Most aircraft would have failed to get airborne under those conditions and to try 3 times to take off without further de-icing and slush clearance was asking for trouble. It is interesting that the UK and German authorities could not agree to produce a report they would both sign up to - the Germans blaming the crew for not de-icing, the UK blaming the lack of slush clearance - which was certainly the greater contributory factor.

Don't believe a lot of what you see in TV air disaster programmes. Most are too simplistic and are made for "entertainment" rather than education.

As for the Ambassador, the type wasn't grounded after the accident, BEA retired it around 1960 and their aircraft were sold on to serve with airlines such as Norronafly Norway, South Seas Airways New Zealand, Globe Air Switzerland, Butler Aviation Australia and served as Royal Flight aircraft in Morocco and Jordan.

In the UK ex BEA aircraft were used by BKS and Autair for many years others were converted - one for executive use by Shell, another as a systems check aircraft by DECCA, one as an engine test bed by Rolls Royce until most of them were "collected" from around the world by Dan-Air in the mid 1960s and flown for around 6 or 7 more years on charter flights - including skiing charters in winter conditions, all over Europe.

Having first flown in 1947, the type was retired by 1973. As it got older it suffered a number of minor incidents, most of which resulted in the particular aircraft being scrapped as spares and repairs were expensive on a type whose manufacturer had been taken over and where the airframes had a limited life.

There was only one other fatal incident, at Heathrow in 1968, when a BKS aircraft, transporting horses, suffered a flap rod failure which resulted in the aircraft banking on touchdown. It hit a number of empty BEA Tridents and ended up in the construction site for Terminal 1, killing 6 of the 8 on board.

As to people being fed up with the coverage of the Munich anniversary, consider this:

In 1958 Britain was still suffering from post war depression. Most people worked five and a half days each week. For most men football on a Saturday afternoon was something they lived for. The players were earning only as much as the average worker and came from the same communities and mixed with the fans in pubs, shops and churches. It was a game of the people and Manchester United, by defying Alan Hardaker of the Football League, had opened up a whole new vista for English football - something all real fans (and in those days fans would mix on the terraces without the need for separation and fences between them) appreciated.

As a ten year old in 1958, of the people on the aircraft, I lived a mile away from Liam Whelan and he coached our primary school football team - me included. I had met - and was to meet many times in later life, Bobby Charlton, Matt Busby, and Harry Gregg. I had also met Frank Swift as my parents were friends with Roy Clark.

The other players I would go to see whenever I could at Old Trafford and spend a shilling to get in. Tom Jackson of the Manchester Evening News, killed in the crash, wrote some of the most descriptive football stories ever written for a newspaper.

So, Syd the Cynic, you can continue your pathetic sneering but, when you grow up and gain an appreciation of what matters in life, rather than what titillates and then passes by your mind, you will come to realise that memories and remembrance are things to be cherished and not derided along with the mindless morons who disrupted the silence on Wednesday.

Well said, Colonel.

I'm not a Man Utd fan, in fact I'm still cheering us beating them at Old Trafford earlier in the season, but everyone who died on that plane earned the respect that they should rightfully be shown. They were one of the first teams to do that well in european competition, by playing the beautiful game better than anybody else, as a team - something the over-payed primadonnas of today still struggle to do. A cohesive unit, not a bunch of egos with some boys to make up the numbers. Watch some old football. None of the tackles would be allowed today, the pitches were like ploughed fields, and the boots and balls were made with hard, heavy leather which got worse when they soaked in water. Today, you have people getting paid ?100k+ a week that fall over if someone farts near them.

The documentary was very moving, and everybody should see it. It marks an event which however tragic it may me, is still as important to English footballing history as 1966. Harry Gregg was awarded an MBE in 1995. That's the same as Les Ferdinand. To me, it seems Mr Gregg deserves more.

> Dear Sid,
>
> Fuck off you bastard,
>
> Yours ever,
>
> Colonel.

I'm not sure whether there'll be a minutes silence all over the Country this weekend to mark the 50th anniversary of the Munich air disaster but there should be imo.Alot of young football fans are ignorant about Munich,thus all the nasty singing etc.I experienced it at Chelsea,and it's still going on especially with Leeds,West Ham and Liverpool fans,teams that loathe Man United with a passion.

I too loathe Man United,but i do know my limits and where to show respect.

Those England 'fans' were a disgrace on Wednesday night,as were the match officials letting the sicko's win by bridging the minutes silence to 30 seconds.

R.I.P Duncan Edwards,the Busby Babes and to all that perished in that terrible tragedy.

Something in the mentality of people that Author threads like this.Right Sid?Alice In Blunderland wrote:

> Something in the mentality of these fans, as badly behaved as
> the Asian Cricket fans often are, there was not a sound when
> Inda hosted Australia in 2001 and they had a silence for
> Bradman who had just passed away.

I still think scum will ruin any silence tomorrow. Lets make it clear-they won't be real Man City fans.

Man City have said life bans will follow for any toerags fucking it up tomorrow- and the police will wade in as well. Lets hope they crack a few skulls- but only if toerags screw it up.