Comment: Brian Viner's 20th Century Icons - No 5: The Busby Babes. Died young, played beautifully

ON WEDNESDAY evening in Barcelona, 11 Manchester United players and manager Alex Ferguson could eclipse the deeds of all their predecessors, however illustrious, by completing an unprecedented treble. No English team has ever won the League title, FA Cup and European Cup in the same season. Should United win their next two games, then 40 years from now people may remember the skills of David Beckham and Ryan Giggs with quasi- religious reverence.

That is how elderly fans now talk about Duncan Edwards, the most gifted of the so-called Busby Babes. Moreover, Edwards is an icon in a way that Beckham and Giggs never will be - not unless, God forbid, Beckham wraps his Porsche round a tree, or Giggs is beaten to death in a pub brawl.

For nothing turns human beings into icons as quickly and potently as tragedy. And nothing is as tragic as premature death. Edwards was barely 21 when he died in a Munich hospital nearly three weeks after the 1958 plane crash which destroyed, and immortalised, the Busby Babes as they returned from a 3-3 draw in a European Cup quarter-final against Red Star Belgrade, a

5-4 win on aggregate.

Last Monday, BBC2's Reputations attempted a half-hearted assault on the character of Sir Matt Busby, the legendary manager who first showed his faith in youth by picking seven teenagers to represent United in a match at Huddersfield in 1953. The programme accused Busby of not showing due compassion to his fellow crash survivors. Maybe that is so. Maybe not. Either way, there is something peculiarly British about programmes such as Reputations and Channel 4's Secret Lives. We hate to let sleeping gods lie.

It is not hyperbole to call Busby a god, not at Old Trafford anyway. As a player, ironically, he had represented Manchester City and Liverpool, the two clubs United fans now affect to despise the most. But he quickly proved his mettle as a manager, and his young team (he hated the nickname Busby Babes) won the league in 1956 and 1957. In fact, in 1957 they flirted with the same treble now contemplated by - what shall we call them? - Fergie's Fledgelings. Fergie's Effing Fortunate Fledgelings, certainly. For with football's maximum wage still in place, the Busby Babes were accessible, unspoilt, ordinary even, except for their abundant talent.

The Munich air crash killed eight of them. Busby himself somehow clung on to life, despite terrible injuries, and 10 years later guided his rebuilt team to United's only triumph in the European Cup. So far.

We shall never know what the 1958 team would have achieved, but it is significant that one of the surviving players was Bobby Charlton, who went on to make a modest name for himself. Charlton played in the 1968 European Cup-winning team, along with George Best, but both were pipped - by Eric Cantona - in a greatest-player poll recently conducted by a Manchester United fanzine. Some of the older fans were duly affronted. For them, the greatest United player of all time has to be Duncan Edwards, the quintessential Busby Babe.