On February 19, 1958, Sheffield Wednesday skipper Albert Quixall led out his team to take on Manchester United – and a nation grieving for their lost heroes.

More than 60,000 were packed in to Old Trafford with thousands standing silent in the streets outside.

Football fans all over Europe tuned in their radios to listen, cameramen recorded every incident and gesture.

Those present would never feel that way at a football match again.
The record shows that Manchester United beat Sheffield Wednesday 3-0 in a re-arranged FA Cup fifth round tie at Old Trafford, Manchester.
What they can never show is the unbearable emotion of that night or the overwhelming emotion felt by millions.

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Thirteen days earlier the greatest collection of young footballers ever assembled had been destroyed when their plane crashed on a snowy runway in Munich.

The world had come to Old Trafford to pay tribute to Matt Busby's Babes. Seven had died: Barnsley lads Mark Jones and Tommy Taylor and Doncaster's David Pegg along with Eddie Colman, Liam Whelan, Roger Byrne and Geoff Bent.

The greatest of them all, Duncan Edwards was still fighting for his life in the Rechts der Isar hospital in Munich. He died from his injuries two days later.

That night the match programme named 11 Wednesday players but United's teamsheet had to be left blank. Up until an hour before kick-off they were still signing players to play.

Peter Swan, then just 21, was new in the Wednesday team and was closer to the Babes than most.

His best friend was Eddie Colman. They were mates from their National Service days together when Swan was a PT instructor at Catterick and Colman was camp rat catcher.

"Eddie Colman was best man at my wedding and I had played with Duncan Edwards in the England youth team," said 73-year-old Swan, former landlord of The Mill pub in Brimington, Chesterfield, now run by his son Peter.

"It was a terrible night for everyone but there was a continual roar from the crowd right through the game. I have never heard anything like it.

"The United players wanted to go out there and win for the lads that had died. We probably had a better team but there was no way we would ever have won that match.

"I remember going to get the ball for a throw-in, looking into the crowd and almost coming face to face with an old couple who had tears streaming down their faces. There were thousands like that. You could hear people crying throughout the game.

"It was more than a football match. They had come to mourn the team they had loved. We tried to play as professionals, but really, we had no business being there. I don't think any team could have beaten them that night."

Wednesday captain that night Albert Quixall joined Manchester United later that year for a record £45,000 as the first player Matt Busby signed after the crash. "I can still remember leading the team out that night," he said.

"It was an unbelievably emotional night and it was a game that we could not possibly win.

"We knew it would be difficult for us and people were crying outside the ground as our coach drove in.

"Then we got into the dressing room and saw the programme and the 11 blank spaces where the United players names should have been. It was very hard for us to go out and play.

"The crowd were amazing. It was very moving – the most emotional game I ever played in."

Quixall, like team-mate Peter Swan, knew many of the Busby Babes through the England teams they had played in and their Army connections.
"All the lads who died were fantastic players," said Quixall, now aged 74 and long retired from the Manchester scrap business he set up when his football career was over.

"Tommy Taylor and Mark Jones were great lads. And they talk now about great players but Duncan Edwards was something else. He was the real thing.

"It's easy for me to recall those players now in my mind but it's not easy to explain the kind of magic the Busby Babes had.

"Old Trafford is a shrine to those lads, even today."