Busby (2019) User Reviews

Post-war

[kevin c · 6/10 · 15 March 2020]

The Matt Busby story celebrating the man who rebuilt Manchester United twice. But in many ways this is the story of pre-war poverty in industrial Scotland, post-war expansion; and the birth of popular culture.

This tells the tale of his 25 years with the club, as he built three great teams and considered one of the greatest managers of all time. Not bad for a man from the humblest of beginnings in a Scottish mining village.

It features the standard interviews with former players, but has added wisdom of the biographers Michael Crick, Patrick Barclay and Eamonn Dunphy.

Standard fare but i was suitable entertained.

Busby

[Prismark10 · 6/10 · 17 June 2020]

Matt Busby played for Liverpool and went on to become captain for the club. Not something this documentary will tell you. A glaring omission.

Like Bill Shankly and Jock Stein. Matt Busby was one of the trio of Scottish managers from a working class mining community who went on to build a footballing dynasty.

After the war, Busby still in his army uniform turned up to an interview for the vacant Manchester United manager's job. At the time they were a lowly team.

The documentary focuses on how Busby rebuilt an ageing team with the Busby Babes and the tragic Munich air disaster.

In the 1960s Matt Busby rebuilt his team and finally got what they wanted to achieve, the European Cup in 1968.

However once he handed over the managerial reigns, the team struggled eventually getting relegated from the First division. The spectre of Matt Busby's achievements haunted his successor until another Scot arrived, Alex Ferguson.

The documentary does concentrate more on his impact with Manchester Utd than the man himself. I would liked to have known more about his footballing philosophy, talent spotting apart from platitudes that no one was bigger than the club.

There is a bit where Denis Law's request for a wage rise is turned down but Busby admits that football is now a business. The club was the first to introduce executive boxes. So why was the talent not being adequately compensated?

There are plenty of contributions from the players he managed. One of them has nothing favourable to say about Wilf McGuiness, Busby's successor.