München ulykken
Posted: 08 Feb 2020, 18:36
Limer inn en tekst fra 2008.
I forbindelse med at Harry Gregg reiste tilbake til München.
Og deretter til Beograd, hvor han møtte Vera Lukic, og datteren Vesna (da 51 år) og sønnen Zoric (da 49 år).
Zoric var ikke født da ulykken inntraff.
Moren Vera var gravid med ham, ukjent for Gregg da ulykken inntraff.
Han var en av de tre Lukic’ene Gregg reddet.
Se posten min på forrige side - post nr 3 -, fra møtet mellom Vera, Vesna og Gregg i Wales 1983.
Teksten:
He lay in the wreckage considering his own mortality.
«I thought I was dead until I felt the blood running down my face,” he says. “I didn’t want to feel my head because I thought the top had been taken off like a hard-boiled egg. I was so confused. It was total darkness yet it was only three in the afternoon; it was hard to reconcile.”
Then, to his right and slightly above him, there was a shaft of light. “I realised I wasn’t dead, and reached down to undo my safety belt, but it was not there.”
He crawled towards the light and kicked what was a hole in the fuselage larger with the soles of his feet.
“I looked out of the hole and there, lying below me, was the first dead person I saw, not a mark on him.
It was Bert Whalley, the chief coach, who’d been taken with us as a bonus for developing all those great young players.
“I managed to turn myself around to kick the hole bigger to get out and it was then I noticed I was missing a shoe.
I dropped down to the ground and just stood.
At first I thought I was the only one left alive.
In the distance I noticed five people running away, they shouted at me to run.
At that moment, the aircraft captain came around from what had been the nose of the aircraft carrying a little fire extinguisher. When he saw me he shouted in his best pucker English accent: ‘Run, you stupid ***, it’s going to explode.’ ”
But Gregg heard a baby crying.
«The crying seemed to bring me back to reality and I shouted at the people running away to come back.
They were still shouting at me to run.
I could hear the child crying and felt angry they were running away, so I shouted again, ‘Come back, you ***, there’s people alive in here.’
For me to shout that was difficult because, at that time, I was a God-fearing man and wouldn’t normally have cursed.
But the people just kept running.”
So Gregg climbed back into the smouldering wreckage.
In the darkness he came across a baby’s romper suit and he thought of his own daughter back home in England.
«I was terrified what I’d find beneath it,” he said quietly as he again pictured the scene from 50 years ago.
«I was relieved when I found it empty.
I went further in the wreckage and found the baby beneath a pile of debris and, remarkably, she only had a cut over her eye.
I scrabbled back to the hole with her and got her out.”
Gregg headed in the direction of the people who had been running away and met the radio operator, George Rodgers, who was returning to help. He took the baby from Gregg.
The goalkeeper went back into the wreckage to look for the infant’s mother.
She was discovered with a gaping wound to her head.
He later learnt that the woman had a fractured skull, two broken legs, severe back injuries and a smashed elbow and arm.
He describes the rescue: “I was on my backside and was behind the woman, so I used my legs to push her along towards the hole.
I couldn’t carry her or lift her so I got my feet in the middle of her back and literally kicked her through the hole.”
In among the carnage of the Munich wreck, the man who was later to be named the world’s top goalkeeper at the end of the 1958 World Cup made his greatest saves.
His courage rescued 22-month-old Vesna Lukic, her 23-year-old mother, and the unborn child she was carrying.
Gregg’s account of how he went around the bodies of his team-mates was told in a soft voice:
“The captain, Roger Byrne, didn’t have a mark on him and his eyes were open, but he was clearly dead.
I’ve always regretted not closing his eyes.
“The majority of the aircraft was destroyed and one section seemed to have disappeared.
I found Ray Wood, and he was wearing a big orange sweater.
I tried to move him but couldn’t.
Nearby was Albert Scanlon.
Scanny’s injuries were so severe I had to fight to prevent myself from being sick.
I couldn’t budge him and I left them both, thinking they were dead.
«I began to search for Jackie Blanchflower and I shouted out his name.
Blanchy and I had been friends since we played together for Ireland Schoolboys as 14-year-olds and I was desperate to find him.
I stumbled across Bobby Charlton and Dennis Viollet, hanging half-in, half-out of what was left of the body of the plane.
“Dennis had a *** behind his right ear.
Again I thought Dennis and Bobby were dead, but even so I grabbed them by the waistbands of their trousers and trailed them through the snow for about 20 yards, away from the smouldering front of the plane.
I found Blanchy the lower part of his right arm had been almost completely severed.
It was horrendous, a scene of utter devastation.”
Many of those Gregg thought had been killed actually lived: Charlton to play again for Manchester United and to be part of the 1966 England World Cup-winning team;
Violett, Scanlon and Wood to follow careers that would never attain the glory of the Busby Babes.
Others, such as Blanchflower, survived but were unable to recover enough to return to football.
For Harry Gregg the profound effect of rescuing the mother and child and the third person, then unborn, would become a heroic action he treated as much a burden as a moment of pride.
For Zoran Lukic, growing up with the legend of the remarkable rescue contained only in a scrapbook was always a story he wanted to turn into flesh and blood.
The passing of years did little to alleviate the anguish felt by Harry Gregg or Vera Lukic.
As far as they were both concerned, their lives had crossed in tragedy then continued on their parallel separate paths.
Gregg was called the “Hero of Munich” but it was an epithet he wore with considerable discomfort and reluctance.
«How in God’s name could I go out and talk of the things that happened?” asked Gregg in his home. “If you talk about such things you’re looking for medals.
I was invited one time to the Yugoslav embassy for a ceremony or presentation, but I didn’t reply. “My life was about football, and if someone says I was the best goalkeeper in the world and represented my country at every level, I’ll stand up and be proud of that. But to describe me for doing something at the scene of an accident, it’s not something I want to shout about.”
I forbindelse med at Harry Gregg reiste tilbake til München.
Og deretter til Beograd, hvor han møtte Vera Lukic, og datteren Vesna (da 51 år) og sønnen Zoric (da 49 år).
Zoric var ikke født da ulykken inntraff.
Moren Vera var gravid med ham, ukjent for Gregg da ulykken inntraff.
Han var en av de tre Lukic’ene Gregg reddet.
Se posten min på forrige side - post nr 3 -, fra møtet mellom Vera, Vesna og Gregg i Wales 1983.
Teksten:
He lay in the wreckage considering his own mortality.
«I thought I was dead until I felt the blood running down my face,” he says. “I didn’t want to feel my head because I thought the top had been taken off like a hard-boiled egg. I was so confused. It was total darkness yet it was only three in the afternoon; it was hard to reconcile.”
Then, to his right and slightly above him, there was a shaft of light. “I realised I wasn’t dead, and reached down to undo my safety belt, but it was not there.”
He crawled towards the light and kicked what was a hole in the fuselage larger with the soles of his feet.
“I looked out of the hole and there, lying below me, was the first dead person I saw, not a mark on him.
It was Bert Whalley, the chief coach, who’d been taken with us as a bonus for developing all those great young players.
“I managed to turn myself around to kick the hole bigger to get out and it was then I noticed I was missing a shoe.
I dropped down to the ground and just stood.
At first I thought I was the only one left alive.
In the distance I noticed five people running away, they shouted at me to run.
At that moment, the aircraft captain came around from what had been the nose of the aircraft carrying a little fire extinguisher. When he saw me he shouted in his best pucker English accent: ‘Run, you stupid ***, it’s going to explode.’ ”
But Gregg heard a baby crying.
«The crying seemed to bring me back to reality and I shouted at the people running away to come back.
They were still shouting at me to run.
I could hear the child crying and felt angry they were running away, so I shouted again, ‘Come back, you ***, there’s people alive in here.’
For me to shout that was difficult because, at that time, I was a God-fearing man and wouldn’t normally have cursed.
But the people just kept running.”
So Gregg climbed back into the smouldering wreckage.
In the darkness he came across a baby’s romper suit and he thought of his own daughter back home in England.
«I was terrified what I’d find beneath it,” he said quietly as he again pictured the scene from 50 years ago.
«I was relieved when I found it empty.
I went further in the wreckage and found the baby beneath a pile of debris and, remarkably, she only had a cut over her eye.
I scrabbled back to the hole with her and got her out.”
Gregg headed in the direction of the people who had been running away and met the radio operator, George Rodgers, who was returning to help. He took the baby from Gregg.
The goalkeeper went back into the wreckage to look for the infant’s mother.
She was discovered with a gaping wound to her head.
He later learnt that the woman had a fractured skull, two broken legs, severe back injuries and a smashed elbow and arm.
He describes the rescue: “I was on my backside and was behind the woman, so I used my legs to push her along towards the hole.
I couldn’t carry her or lift her so I got my feet in the middle of her back and literally kicked her through the hole.”
In among the carnage of the Munich wreck, the man who was later to be named the world’s top goalkeeper at the end of the 1958 World Cup made his greatest saves.
His courage rescued 22-month-old Vesna Lukic, her 23-year-old mother, and the unborn child she was carrying.
Gregg’s account of how he went around the bodies of his team-mates was told in a soft voice:
“The captain, Roger Byrne, didn’t have a mark on him and his eyes were open, but he was clearly dead.
I’ve always regretted not closing his eyes.
“The majority of the aircraft was destroyed and one section seemed to have disappeared.
I found Ray Wood, and he was wearing a big orange sweater.
I tried to move him but couldn’t.
Nearby was Albert Scanlon.
Scanny’s injuries were so severe I had to fight to prevent myself from being sick.
I couldn’t budge him and I left them both, thinking they were dead.
«I began to search for Jackie Blanchflower and I shouted out his name.
Blanchy and I had been friends since we played together for Ireland Schoolboys as 14-year-olds and I was desperate to find him.
I stumbled across Bobby Charlton and Dennis Viollet, hanging half-in, half-out of what was left of the body of the plane.
“Dennis had a *** behind his right ear.
Again I thought Dennis and Bobby were dead, but even so I grabbed them by the waistbands of their trousers and trailed them through the snow for about 20 yards, away from the smouldering front of the plane.
I found Blanchy the lower part of his right arm had been almost completely severed.
It was horrendous, a scene of utter devastation.”
Many of those Gregg thought had been killed actually lived: Charlton to play again for Manchester United and to be part of the 1966 England World Cup-winning team;
Violett, Scanlon and Wood to follow careers that would never attain the glory of the Busby Babes.
Others, such as Blanchflower, survived but were unable to recover enough to return to football.
For Harry Gregg the profound effect of rescuing the mother and child and the third person, then unborn, would become a heroic action he treated as much a burden as a moment of pride.
For Zoran Lukic, growing up with the legend of the remarkable rescue contained only in a scrapbook was always a story he wanted to turn into flesh and blood.
The passing of years did little to alleviate the anguish felt by Harry Gregg or Vera Lukic.
As far as they were both concerned, their lives had crossed in tragedy then continued on their parallel separate paths.
Gregg was called the “Hero of Munich” but it was an epithet he wore with considerable discomfort and reluctance.
«How in God’s name could I go out and talk of the things that happened?” asked Gregg in his home. “If you talk about such things you’re looking for medals.
I was invited one time to the Yugoslav embassy for a ceremony or presentation, but I didn’t reply. “My life was about football, and if someone says I was the best goalkeeper in the world and represented my country at every level, I’ll stand up and be proud of that. But to describe me for doing something at the scene of an accident, it’s not something I want to shout about.”