Irishman Harry was the most expensive goalkeeper in footballing history when he left Doncaster Rovers to join Manchester United in 1957 for £23,500.

After living in Doncaster for six years, he was close to Doncaster-born David Pegg, and Barnsley lads Tommy Taylor and Mark Jones.

He still remembers the three heartily singing together in a Belgrade Hotel as they celebrated their side drawing against Red Star Belgrade to qualify for the next round of the European Cup.

Gone but not forgotten. South Yorkshire's Busby Babes.

The next day he survived the plane crash and emerged a hero, rescuing 22-month-old Venona Lukic, her mother Vera and team-mates Bobby Charlton and Dennis Viollet from the wreckage of the BEA airliner.

But the three South Yorkshire lads were among those who lost their lives.

All three were his friends – but it was decades before he felt he could speak to their families after the tragedy.

"I couldn't face any of the people who had lost relatives in the crash for years," he said.
"I could talk to the other survivors, but none of us would talk about the crash. We could sit and talk because we'd been part of it. But what could I give to any of the families that had lost their sons?

"If my memory serves me right, I met David Pegg's family at a petrol station near Doncaster some time afterwards, and I just couldn't speak to them. When I finally spoke to them many years later it was an unbelievable weight off my mind.

"I went to a memorial service at Manchester Cathedral one year with my daughter. At the end of the pew was a middle aged lady, a gentleman and a young man. The young man turned round and asked to shake my hand. It was Roger Byrne's son. He'd never met his father.

"Joy Byrne, Roger Byrne's wife just said to me 'Why are you punishing yourself?'."

It was that which helped him finally speak to those who had been bereaved.

Harry had only moved to Manchester the day before the flight out to Belgrade. Prior to that he had been commuting from his home at Highbury Avenue, Bessacarr, where his neighbours had included Doncaster Rovers players Lennie Graham, Walter Kelly and Tommy Cavanagh.

His Yorkshire connection gave him something in common with the South Yorkshire players.

Harry remembers David Pegg, from Highfields, Doncaster, as full of the joys of spring, a smartly dressed young man with a big smile.
Tommy Taylor, from Monk Bretton, Barnsley, was quieter, but tall dark and handsome, he says.

Do you remember Yorkshire's Busby Babes? Post a comment below.

And Mark Jones, from Wombwell, Barnsley, was a typical Yorkshireman who lived for dogs, budgies and shooting. On the day they flew out to Belgrade he had told Sir Matt Busby he had been running late because he was feeding the budgies.

"Yorkshire was an earthy, wonderful county where people worked hard in the mines, and then played hard at the weekends. That was Big Mark," he said.

"I remember sitting at the banquet table after the draw in Belgrade. My last happy memory of the three of them was Mark starting them all off at a Yugoslav Government organised banquet, singing On Ilkley Moor Baht 'At."

"Some people say that was the greatest football team. I say maybe. Some people say they could have become the greatest team. I say maybe. But the one thing they certainly were was the most loved team of that time."
Harry, now 75, ran a hotel in Port Stewart, Northern Ireland, after retiring from football and still lives in Northern Ireland.

He will be at Old Trafford tomorrow at the unveiling of a new monument to the tragedy of 50 years ago.

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Harry's Munich rescues. Click here.