The scarce Manchester United v Wolves 1958 football programme for the game called off after the Munich tragedy, £7500 at Hanson Ross (offered together with Manchester United v Nottingham Forest 1958 football programme for the game taking place a couple of weeks after the air crash).
Eight Manchester United players died on February 6. The club’s match against Wolverhampton Wanderers, scheduled to take place two days later on February 8, was called off.
Most of the match-day programmes were destroyed. However, a handful are thought to exist - probably either printer’s proofs or souvenirs kept by printing staff. One came up for auction at Hanson Ross in Hertfordshire on January 12, selling within estimate at £7500 (plus 26% buyer’s premium).
The saleroom said it had been kept in a bedside drawer in London for decades. Amanda Butler, director of operations at the Royston firm, said: “The vendor’s uncle worked in the Manchester print shop that made the programmes. Most were destroyed but his uncle kept one and gifted it to our seller. He also gave him a programme for a Manchester United v Nottingham Forest match on February 22, 1958, just a couple of weeks after the disaster. The two were sold together.”
Manchester United v Nottingham Forest 1958 football programme for the game taking place a couple of weeks after the Munich air crash, offered together with a programme for the cancelled Wolves game, £7500 at Hanson Ross.
The seller, retired engineer Peter Jackson, 67, from Wembley, London, said his uncle worked in the Manchester printworks that made the programmes and decided to hold on to them. “They were given to my dad by his brother as a gift for me when I was a small child in the late 1950s. They were always meant for me. When I left home at 18 I took them with me. They have moved house a few times but I’ve always looked after them. They’ve been in a cardboard folder in a bedside drawer.”
Team sheets from the two Man Utd 1958 programmes sold together at Hanson Ross for £7500. The Man Utd v Wolves programme, top, includes players who lost their lives in the Munich air disaster: Eddie Colman, 21, Duncan Edwards, 21, and Mark Jones, 24.
In September last year auctioneer Graham Budd offered another one of the Wolves programmes (No. 20 of the season). On that occasion, estimated at £7000-9000, it sold for a hammer price of £9500 (plus 24% buyer’s premium). One offered in 2013 by Sporting Memorys made £6200, reportedly from a Chinese buyer.
Edwards fundraiser
A 1958/59 Manchester United v Netherton FC single sheet football programme in aid of the Duncan Edwards Memorial fund, £1250 at Fieldings.
The players from the famed Busby Babes team died when British European Airways Flight 609 crashed on its third attempt at take-off from a snow-covered runway at Munich-Riem Airport.
Duncan Edwards was one of the fatalities, aged just 21. He was widely regarded as one of the best young players England had ever produced – Man Utd teammate Bobby Charlton even said Edwards was the only player who made him feel “inferior” on the pitch.
Offered at West Midlands auction house Fieldings (26% buyer’s premium inc VAT) on January 11 was a 1958/59 Manchester United v Netherton FC single sheet football programme in aid of the Duncan Edwards Memorial fund, with team changes added and signed by Manchester United players including Kenneth Morgans, John Giles, Mark Pearson, John ‘Reg’ Hunter, Harold Bratt, Bobby Harrop, Frank Haydock, Bob English, Peter Jones, David Gaskell, John Sheils and Gordon Clayton.
It was acquired by the current owner’s father after attending the match, said Fieldings. Against an estimate of £500-800 it hammered for £1250.
Netherton is just to the south of Dudley town centre. Edwards was from Dudley.
A 1958/59 Manchester United v Netherton FC single sheet football programme in aid of the Duncan Edwards Memorial fund, with Man Utd signatures, £1250 at Fieldings.
Programme high points
Back in 2012, an official one penny match card from the 1909 FA Cup final between Manchester United and Bristol City sold for £20,000 at Graham Budd’s sale in association with Sotheby’s, setting a record for any football programme at auction.
Budd broke his own record just a year later thanks to an FA Cup final programme - Old Etonians v Blackburn Rovers, played at Kennington Oval on March 25, 1882 – which took £30,000.
Last February Budd also sold for £7500 a programme for a Man Utd game never played: a European Cup replay programme. Utd won 4-1 against Benfica in the event but if that match had ended in a draw the replay would have been at Arsenal’s Highbury ground two days later. This programme was printed in case of that result.
