Roger
Byrne: Captain of the Busby Babes, by Iain McCartney (2000)
MANCHESTER United have enjoyed more than their fair share of great players down the years, but none has been more comitted to the cause than Roger Byrne.
Brought up in Gorton, a working-class suburb of Manchester, Byrne was at first a promising wing-half, later even turning out at centre-forward, but he came into his own as a left full-back for United and England.
So committed was he to his position that he threatened to leave United unless Matt Busby returned him to the position following an experimental period on the left-wing. Moreover, Byrne was a product of his era. The 1950s were a time when footballers were woefully underpaid. Byrne and his teammates refused to take part in a BBC film because the players were not going to paid enough.
However, despite these clashes with authority, Byrne remained fiercely loyal to his manager, teammates and the club's growing army of supporters. By 1958 he and Matt Busby had forged a team of great talent and great resource only for the Munich air disaster to take the Babes away. Who knows how good Roger's team could have become if fate had not intervened?