From the Ashes

As a Manchester United fan of long standing, I'm well aware of the part the Munich Air Disaster played in the history of my team. It's part of our history and mythology, both the tragedy of a team destroyed on the brink of greatness and the resurrection capped by the European Cup triumph of 1968, captained by crash survivor Bobby Charlton.

United, the BBCs dramatisation, came in for criticism from Sandy Busby (son of Sir Matt, the teams legendary manager) and goalkeeper Harry Gregg, another survivor who heroically climbed into the burning wreckage to save others. Some of this was to do with the depiction of Sir Matt - played by Dougray Scott - as a distant figure more Godfather than pioneering tracksuit manager.

Yet Busby was not required to be the central character in United. Instead, the limelight was put on Jimmy Murphy, played by David Tennant. Not being a fan of Doctor Who, I'd not given much attention to Tennant's acting skills before, but he was simply wonderful here, showing Murphy as the pure football man that he was.

Murphy has rarely got the credit he deserved outside dedicated United circles for his role in the rebuilding of the club. Absent from the crash due to his dual role managing the Welsh national team, he was left to scrape together a team in two weeks from reserves, desperate signings and - incredibly - Harry Gregg and full back Bill Foulkes. Both had escaped with minor wounds (at least physically) and the idea of surviving a plane crash and playing a game of professional football weeks later seems insane today.

United did a fine job of giving Murphy the credit he deserves from a wider public. The script managed to portray the differences between football in 1956 and today through touches like half-back Mark Jones smoking a pipe, Old Trafford being surrounded by factories belching smoke into the air and Bobby Charlton being discouraged from saying he's a footballer to impress women, as a plumber has better prospects.

By nature of it being a 90 minute drama, the story had to be condensed. Key figures from the club were missed out totally, such as top scorer Tommy Taylor and team captain Roger Byrne. They, along with Geoff Bent and Liam Whelan were only mentioned in a list of the dead. Aside from Murphy, the key figure was Charlton, played well by Jack O'Connell, going from hopeful contender who scores twice on his debut, to star player to shell-shocked survivor having to deal with being spared when his friends were not so lucky.

Perhaps my only slight criticism with United was that it didn't quite emphasise how the disaster didn't just effect United. Though a conversation with a policeman guarding the coffins when they were returned to Manchester shows they were loved by the nation, some words could have been said about how Taylor, Byrne and the great Duncan Edwards were all crucial parts of the England team due to go to the World Cup. Other players like Mark Jones, David Pegg and Eddie Colman would surely have made the team in time too and it's widely accepted that England may have won more than the single World Cup had they all lived - something for the knuckle draggers who sing Munich songs and make airplane gestures to think about, perhaps.