Editing Matt Busby (section)

===Arrival and early days at Manchester United===
During the [[Second World War]], Busby served as a football coach in the [[Royal Army Physical Training Corps|Army Physical Training Corps]], and the experience resulted in Liverpool offering him the job of assistant to their then-manager [[George Kay (footballer)|George Kay]]. However, the experience had also forged Busby's opinions about how football should be played and governed, and when it became clear that they differed from those of the Liverpool board, their chairman Billy McConnell allowed Busby to pursue alternative employment.

After Manchester United had tried to sign Busby from Manchester City in 1930, he became good friends with United's fixer, [[Louis Rocca]]; their relationship was helped by the fact that both were members of the Manchester Catholic Sportsman's Club. United were in desperate need of a manager to take over from club secretary [[Walter Crickmer]] after the war and a board meeting was called in December 1944 so as to ascertain who that new manager might be. Knowing that Liverpool had already offered Busby a job, Rocca convinced the United board to "leave it to [him]" and immediately wrote a letter to Busby, addressed to his army regiment. The letter was vague, referring only to "a job", just in case it fell into the wrong hands, namely the Liverpool officials.

In February 1945, still in uniform, Busby turned up at Cornbrook Cold Storage, one of the United chairman [[James W. Gibson]]'s businesses at Trafford Park to discuss the contents of Rocca's letter with the chairman. Busby requested that he be directly involved in training, pick the team on matchdays and even choose the players to be bought and sold without interference from the club directors, who, he believed, did not know the game as well as he did. Such a level of control over the team was unprecedented in the English game, but the United chairman was in no position to argue. Busby was originally offered a three-year contract but managed to secure himself a five-year deal after explaining that it would take at least that long for his revolution to have a tangible effect.

The contract was signed that day – 19 February 1945 – but it was not until 1 October that Busby officially took over the reins at Manchester United. In the interim, he returned to the Army Physical Training Corps, whose football team he took to [[Bari]], Italy, in the spring of 1945. There, he took in a training session for a football team made up of [[non-commissioned officer]]s led by [[West Bromwich Albion F.C.|West Bromwich Albion]]'s former half-back Jimmy Murphy. Impressed by the Welshman's oratory skills, Busby engaged him in conversation and offered him the job of chief coach at Manchester United, which Murphy accepted verbally there and then, before joining the club officially in early 1946. The two men immediately put their mark on the side, leading them to the runners-up spot in the league, behind Busby's former employers Liverpool, by the end of the 1946–47 season. Manchester United were runners-up in the league in 1947, 1948, 1949 and 1951, and won the FA Cup in 1948, before winning the league championship in 1952. This was a welcome success for a club which had last won a major trophy in 1911 and had spent the interwar years bouncing between the First and Second Divisions.

By 1952, however, the side captained by [[Johnny Carey]], was beginning to show its age, and a new set of players had to be found. Busby, who had achieved a great deal of success in spite of his lack of previous managerial experience, was expected to spend large sums of money on high-profile players. Instead, he gradually replaced the older players with players as young as 16 and 17. These included right-back [[Bill Foulkes]], centre-halves [[Mark Jones (footballer, born 1933)|Mark Jones]] and [[Jackie Blanchflower]], wingers [[Albert Scanlon]] and [[David Pegg]] and forward [[Billy Whelan]]. Among them was [[Duncan Edwards]], judged by many to be England's finest player of his era,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.sportsnet.ca/soccer/2008/02/01/edwards_duncan_charlton/ |title=Charlton remembers 'greatest ever' |publisher=Sportsnet.ca |date=1 February 2008 |access-date=24 October 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090207014521/http://www.sportsnet.ca/soccer/2008/02/01/edwards_duncan_charlton/ |archive-date=7 February 2009 |url-status=dead  }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.reuters.com/article/inDepthNews/idUSL2719728120080202?feedType=RSS&feedName=inDepthNews |title=Edwards had everything but time on his side |publisher=Reuters |date=1 February 2008 |access-date=24 October 2009 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |first=James |last=Wright |url=http://www.thefa.com/England/MensSeniorTeam/NewsAndFeatures/2003/72868.aspx |title=Greatest England XI – Sir Bobby Charlton |work=TheFA.com |publisher=The Football Association |date=7 November 2003 |access-date=24 October 2009 }}</ref> and capped by England at 17 – setting a record for the youngest-ever full international that remained unbroken for more than 40 years. He made relatively few signings from other clubs between 1951 and 1957, rare examples being winger [[Johnny Berry]], forward [[Tommy Taylor]] and goalkeeper [[Harry Gregg]].

Busby managed the [[Great Britain men's Olympic football team|Great Britain team]] at the [[Football at the 1948 Summer Olympics|1948 Summer Olympics]]. The team reached the semi-finals, but lost 3–1 to the eventual runners-up, [[Yugoslavia national football team|Yugoslavia]].

In 1956, just after United won another league title, Busby was offered the [[Real Madrid C.F.|Real Madrid]] managerial role. The [[List of Real Madrid CF presidents|Real Madrid president]] at the time, [[Santiago Bernabéu Yeste]], told him that the role was "like managing paradise". Busby responded by declining the job and adding "Manchester is my heaven".