Munich survivor’s faith inspired extraordinary sporting life

Never on a Sunday, they said. And they meant it.

For Harry Gregg, too, it was no mere slogan. It was an article of faith and if there was one thing to go along with the talent, bravery and fortitude that shone from within Gregg, it was faith.

“I was very religious,” the former goalkeeper says. “I was Church of Ireland. I never missed. Every Sunday.

“If we travelled abroad, if I couldn’t find a Protestant church, I went to a chapel. To me, a church is a church is a church.

“I’d never played football on Sunday, never ever trained for Manchester United or Doncaster Rovers on a Sunday. A man called Dick Meek – he was trainer with Distillery – when I was away with Northern Ireland under-18s in France in 1949-50, he told me he couldn’t believe it when he looked in the dormitory and saw I was down on my knees saying my prayers.”

It was 1958, the year Gregg still refuses to let define him, but which most certainly marked him out. It was some weeks after the Munich air crash of February 6th in which Gregg saw eight of his United team-mates die, as well as three others from the club, and eight journalists. In all, 23.

Gregg, then 25, had become known as the ‘hero of Munich’ for his extraordinary courage and selflessness in returning to the wreckage to help save lives.

Gregg has always been uncomfortable with the ‘hero’ description but it is hard for us to see anything other than pure heroism in his behaviour that snowy night in Munich. As George Best once wrote: “What Harry did that night was about more than just bravery. It was about goodness.”

Also extraordinary was that life goes on and that Gregg went back to Manchester United’s decimated first team and helped them reach the FA Cup final against Bolton Wanderers, then played in the European Cup semi-final against AC Milan, which came after Bolton at Wembley.

First match

During those three months following Munich it was also confirmed that Northern Ireland would meet Czechoslovakia in their first match of the 1958 World Cup in Sweden. It was to be on June 8th, Sunday June 8th.

Remarkably, Northern Ireland had reached the finals by eliminating two-times World Cup winners Italy in qualification. Gregg had been denied playing in the decisive 2-1 January victory over the Italians at Windsor Park as his flight from Manchester’s Ringway airport had been fogbound.

And now, after Munich, Gregg had to think of himself again, of the religious faith he had forged growing up in Coleraine.

“My mother was Isobel Bonner from Chapel Hill, Cookstown, who was a Catholic,” Gregg recalls. “My father was William Gregg, who was born two doors down from Peter Doherty in Magherafelt. He was a plasterer. Very, very Protestant.”

Gregg – no fan of his father, who left – grew up in between. It was as a believer and after leaving Coleraine for Doncaster in 1952, then joining United in 1957, that Gregg maintained his religious faith.

Culturally, as we know, an Irish Sunday was a lockdown, bar church and chapel, and the Irish Football Association began moves in 1957 to formalise the banning of football on the Sabbath. This was the Irish atmosphere of the time, and though Gregg was in England, where “it was a different kind of Sunday, life was most definitely freer”, he carried his belief. Now it became a burden.

He was on a United sojourn in Blackpool, thinking of Sweden, when Gregg leafed through the phone book, found a vicar and called him.

“He was Church of England,” Gregg says of the minister, who must have been amazed to have one of the most high-profile names in Europe on the phone. “I asked if I could come and see him. He said of course I could.

“He accepted me because I was a religious fella, not because I was ‘big-time Harry Gregg’, a film star or something. He said: ‘Let me ask you a question: if one of your family needed an operation and the doctor needed to operate on a Sunday, what would you think?’

“For me that was such a relief, a relief. What a load off my shoulders.I got the answer which basically suited my conscience.”

If that brought some reassurance, next came the journey. Gregg had not flown since Munich. There is a poignant photograph on a wall in Gregg’s home outside Coleraine of him staring blank-faced from the train window as he left Munich in the days after the crash.

Rail and ferry

Of the journey from Belfast, where the Irish squad met up, to Halmstad on Sweden’s west coast, Gregg says: “Because of what had happened in the accident, it was decided I would go to Sweden by rail and ferry.

“I went with a little man, Joe Beckett [from the IFA]. We met in Belfast, got the ferry to Liverpool, got a train down to Harwich, I think. Once we got to Europe, the train was non-stop. Third class by the way. And three days.

“I was trying to keep out of the way, I’d had enough headlines, I just wanted to be a player, a great player. Everywhere we went, there was attention.”

Irritated, weary, Gregg was then left in shock by what happened next.

Joe Beckett flew home – “Immediately. He wanted nothing to do with it [the World Cup] – one of the IFA’s top men.”

The reason was Sunday football. Only two IFA officials did not retreat to Northern Ireland, staying with Peter Doherty’s 17-man squad, who won that opening game against Czechoslovakia.

Gregg was in goal, as he was three days later in the defeat to Argentina, and then in the 2-2 draw against the reigning world champions, West Germany.

By then, Sunday or not, Northern Ireland had caused a stir back home across the island. The Lord Mayor of Belfast felt compelled to travel to Sweden, where at a dinner he was presented with a bottle of Bushmills for the toast. Though as a laughing Gregg recalls: “Somebody had got to the whiskey first. It was black tea.”

Doherty’s squad had some other laughs as they reached the quarter-finals, losing to France. Gerry Morgan, Doherty’s assistant, had a team talk which consisted of him saying: “Retaliate first.”

Another slice of Morgan advice was: “Put iodine on your studs so when you kick the bastards they don’t get indigestion.”

Gold watches

Northern Ireland returned to gold watches and speeches. They flew home, Gregg among them. His faith remained. Then in 1961, his first wife Mavis, mother of their two daughters, was diagnosed with cancer. She died in January 1962.

That would shake any man, even one with the resilience Gregg displayed in Munich.

Today, 82 and fighting fit, Gregg and his second wife, Carolyn, are going strong on the north coast.

The photographs and framed jerseys tell of an epic sporting life. This is but one tale from numerous dates, places and faces. “Jackie Charlton? He could pull a lit cigarette from his pocket,” Gregg says fondly.

He was less gentle about some other famous names; there was discomfort with the grim coincidence of Tuesday’s Germanwings plane crash in France.

And on Sunday Northern Ireland will play again. Again it will be historic, a first international at Windsor Park on a Sunday. A demonstration is planned nearby.

Whatever he feels when he views those two events, Harry Gregg has long since demonstrated his faith, and goodness.