Football: Minute's silence to honour Sir Matt Busby

The scene outside Old Trafford yesterday, where supporters paid tribute to Sir Matt Busby, who died on Thursday.

The Football League and Premier League have asked clubs staging matches this weekend to observe a minute's silence in memory of the former Manchester United manager. United's club captain, Bryan Robson, whose team entertain Everton today, said: 'Old Trafford will be an emotional place. I hope we can go out and turn on a really great performance in his memory. We all want to remember Sir Matt for the great things he did for this club and for football in general.'

Before the match, the draw for the 1996 European Championship qualifying competition will be made at the Granada television studios in Manchester. Bobby Charlton, the United player most associated with the Busby era, will help to make the draw and is expected to be asked to request a minute's silence at the start of the proceedings.

Charlton, who had been too upset to speak about Sir Matt's death on Thursday, yesterday added his own tribute. 'Sir Matt's death has touched everyone in this city,' he said. 'There has been a great sense of affection here for him for 40 years.

'I count it a great privilege to have been a friend of his. He had a knack of making whoever he was talking to feel tremendously important. He was a big man in every way. He made United a way of life and Old Trafford such an exciting place that he sent people on a road to absolute paradise.'

Ferenc Puskas, one of the delegates in Manchester, said: 'He was a great man, a great friend from the Fifties and it is only right and proper that the world of football pays its respects now we are all together here. I was shocked by the news when I arrived last night. I had hoped to meet him again at Old Trafford tomorrow. Now that will be a sad pilgrimage for me.'

(Photograph omitted)