Robert Bound is joined in the studio by writer David Peace to discuss his new book, ‘Munichs’. The novel tells the story of the 1958 Munich air disaster, in which 23 people – including eight Manchester United players and three officials – were fatally injured when their plane crashed. Peace’s dramatisation is a tender story of stoicism, sadness and strength. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Hello and welcome to Monocle on Culture with me, Robert Pound.
Today I'm talking to the author David Peace about his new book Munich's, which is a novelization of the infamous Munich air disaster of February 6, 1958, in.
Which 21 passengers died instantly on a snowy Bavarian Runway that included eight footballers.
And three staff members of an era defining Manchester United football team, known after their manager and for their youth as the Busby Babes.
The other dead were crew of the BA aeroplane and some of the best known sports writers in Britain.
The crash made world headlines at the time.
The immediate grief struck families and communities across England and in Ireland, from which one of United's brightest hopes hailed.
While the aftershock affected the tone and and perhaps tone of voice of a nation still reeling from a 20th century of horrors and shocks, Peace's novel offers biography on the victims, explores family grief, describes community and gives voice to the previously underreported and unvoiced, all against the backdrop of the survivors attempts to get well make sense of the crash and the loss of loved ones and teammates.
Of course, sport rarely stops and so a team must be picked in a busy season of fixtures.
Will these faces, young but haggard from the wreckage or new green and untested, make the grade or simply stay sane?
Peace, the well loved author of the Red Riding Quartet as well as the Tokyo trilogy and two other football books, the Damned United and Red or Dead, has written an incredible patient, polyphonic and tender novel that weaves a hundred strands together to form a stunning picture of stoicism, sadness, strength and perhaps qualities that defined an era long gone.
To put all this in a little context, we asked David to read an excerpt from Munich's.
At this point, the then Manchester United apprentice Nobby Styles, who later went on to feature in England's 1966 World cup winning team, is fixated on the talismanic nature of Tommy Taylor's football boots.
Tommy had died in the crash and Nobby was taking care of them.
Here's David Peace.
Nobby believed in miracles.
He really did.
He was an apprentice at Manchester United for a start.
Clearing the snow from the pitch, cleaning up the washrooms and the gym, yes, but playing in the FAU cup and in the practice matches too.
All those practice matches with the reserves and the first team boys.