Alan Ball on Duncan Edwards "Saw People bouncing off him"

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• published: 18 Jan 2016
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Alan James Ball, Jr., MBE (12 May 1945 – 25 April 2007) was a professional English footballer and football club manager. He was the youngest member of England's 1966 World Cup winning team and played for various clubs, scoring more than 180 league goals in a career spanning 22 years. His playing career also included a then national record £220,000 transfer from Everton to Arsenal at the end of 1971. After retiring as a player, he had a 15-year career as a manager which included spells in the top flight of English football with Portsmouth, Southampton and Manchester City. Duncan Edwards (1 October 1936 – 21 February 1958) was a English footballer who played for Manchester United and the England national team. He was one of the Busby Babes, the young United team formed under manager Matt Busby in the mid-1950s, and one of eight players who died as a result of the Munich air disaster. Born in Dudley, Worcestershire, Edwards signed for Manchester United as a teenager and went on to become the youngest player to play in the Football League First Division and the then youngest England player since the Second World War. In a professional career of less than five years he helped United to win two Football League championships and reach the semi-finals of the European Cup. Contemporaries of Edwards have been unstinting in their praise of his abilities. Bobby Charlton described him as "the only player that made me feel inferior" and said his death was "the biggest single tragedy ever to happen to Manchester United and English football". Terry Venables claimed that, had he lived, it would have been Edwards, not Bobby Moore, who lifted the World Cup trophy as England captain in 1966. Tommy Docherty stated that "there is no doubt in my mind that Duncan would have become the greatest player ever. Not just in British football, with United and England, but the best in the world. George Best was something special, as was Pelé and Maradona, but in my mind Duncan was much better in terms of all-round ability and skill." In recognition of his talents Edwards was made an inaugural inductee to the English Football Hall of Fame in 2002 Jimmy Murphy, Wales Manager, Manchester United Assistant Manager: When I used to hear Muhammad Ali proclaim to the world that he was the greatest, I would always smile. The greatest of them all was a footballer named Duncan Edwards Terry Venables, England Player and Manager: He was my hero and an inspiration. He was potentially the greatest player I've seen. Duncan played in the same position as Bobby Moore, and we'll never know what might have happened in 1966 if he had still been around. He would have been only 29. Perhaps Bobby would have got in the team in another position, because he was a great player, too, but you would never have picked Moore in front of Edwards. Duncan had the edge everywhere, with his remarkable power, pace and strength in the air. Quite simply, Duncan Edwards had the lot. Jimmy Armfield CBE, Blackpool and England captain: I played with Edwards in the Army team, he was a football giant. For my generation of footballers, who knew them all really well, the crash was our Kennedy assassination moment, it captured the nation. Edwards was the best footballer in Britain at the time, a big powerful man, but more than that he was technically gifted and had a great shot - we've not had a player like him in my lifetime.