Manchester United's oldest surviving player Jeff Whitefoot recalls his days with the Busby Babes, the Munich Air Disaster and winning the FA Cup with Nottingham Forest
In the autumn of 1957, as a 23-year-old professional footballer, Jeff Whitefoot arrived at an early crossroads in his career, writes Mercury reporter Chris Harby.
A league champion with Matt Busby’s Manchester United the season before, Jeff had become sidelined and in November left for second division Grimsby Town.
It was not an ideal move for his on-field ambitions, but one which potentially saved his life.
A little over two months later, on February 6, 1968, Jeff was listening to the radio when news broke of the Munich Air Disaster.
Among the 23 who died in the tragedy were eight former team-mates, all young men and friends, including close friend Mark Jones and Eddie Colman who had taken his place in the side.
“I was devastated,” he recalls.
“It’s not something you ever expect. When you’ve worked and been with them for such a long time.”
The loss of so many friends gave Jeff and wife Nell an awful dilemma.
“It was very difficult to know which funeral to go to,” he said.
“All those who died were my friends - we grew up together at the club. It was horrendous.”
At times like these, you may ask yourself whether fate had played a hand. Had the transfer saved him?
“You have to think that way; it was a possibility,” said Jeff.
“When you think about the crash, some did survive, but it affected them quite a lot afterwards.”
Jeff, now settled in Rutland, was one of the first recruits in what became one of English sport’s most iconic teams - the Busby Babes.
Having grown up in the Cheshire village of Cheadle, his star rose quickly.
A member of a title-winning Stockport Schools team, Jeff played four times for England Schoolboys, attracting the attention of a long list of clubs.
A visit from driven young manager Matt Busby put Manchester United top of the list of suitors. Not that everyone was sold.
“It was he who came to the house to sign me up,” he recalled.
“My dad was a Manchester City supporter and wanted me to go to City so he wasn’t too happy about it!
“I must have had about 10 or 12 invitations from clubs, but I took the easy route.”
He left school at 15 to work on the switchboard at Old Trafford, but a place in history soon beckon.
Making his debut aged 16 years and 105 days against Portsmouth on April 15, 1950, Jeff was, and remains, United’s youngest-ever player to start a league match, eclipsing several young superstars to have trodden a similar path at Old Trafford.
“I was really flummoxed, but it was okay - people were pretty kind,” he says of that match.
“United had a really good side, but they were getting to the end of their time and there were quite a few younger players coming through.
“They must have thought I was a baby!”
The epithet is apt.
Jeff became part of a swaggering, all-conquering young side, playing alongside the likes of the legendary Duncan Edwards for United and England Under 23s.
“He was something else, amazing and so strong - we were a good side then.
“It was a really good atmosphere to be in because we were all young men.
“There were a lot of really good young lads all starting there. It was a nice time.”
Then there was the manager.
“Matt Busby was very quiet, but he could be very nasty,” he said.
“In training on Monday if we hadn’t done very well on Saturday he would come up alongside you and say ‘well how did you think you played?’.
“You’d say ‘alright boss’ and then he started!”
Nell added: “We would be invited to his house with other players and their families so we were always mixing.
“It was unheard of at the time to be invited to the manager’s home.”
In the 1955-56 season, Jeff made 16 appearances in United’s title-winning season.
They would retain the league crown the following season, but by then he had been shunted to the fringes of the squad.
“I played on average about 33 games a season, but I played the first 14 or 15 games of the season we won the league and never played a game after,” Jeff explained.
“He (Busby) always used to say ‘give it another couple of weeks’, and would always put you off, but it got to a point where I had to ask for a transfer.”
Missing top-flight football, his spell with Grimsby proved brief.
Still mourning lost friends, just months after the Munich tragedy, Jeff moved to Nottingham Forest.
There his proudest achievement in sport still lay ahead.
At the end of his first season he lifted the FA Cup, despite Forest playing two-thirds of the final with 10 men after Roy Dwight, cousin of Elton John, broke his leg.
“It was difficult,” he recalls.
“We set off well and got two goals, and could have had four or five.
“But after we went down to 10 men we had to hang on in the second half.”
It will be 64 years in May since Jeff helped Forest to their last FA Cup triumph.
Ancient history by football’s modern standards.
But not to some. A treasured and unmarked copy of that cup final programme sits on the dining table in a protective film folder.
It has arrived from a fan requesting a signature.
“We still get these through the post,” said Nell, Jeff’s wife of almost 70 years and his most important team-mate.
Jeff adds a modest summary of his career: “I think generally I was very lucky. All the places we went to - it was enjoyable.”
He is not one for the limelight, at least not anymore.
It has taken a little family persuasion to agree to an interview, but husband and wife are never less than welcoming.
Turning 89 on New Year’s Eve, Jeff’s memory occasionally betrays and frustrates him - a knock-on effect, he believes, of a bout of covid.
Yet there is help at hand from those who remember his contribution on the pitch.
Footballers grow old, like all of us, but in the memories of supporters who watched them, and in sepia photos and archive film they remain at their peak. Frozen in time.
And in Jeff’s case your name is forever immortalised, inked among a cup-winning XI or league champion squad.
Despite an occasionally fragile memory, Jeff still has the robust, tough physique which did him such service at right-half in a 17-year pro career.
After 10 seasons at Forest and more than 250 appearances, Jeff hung up his boots in 1967, aged 33.
While there is a chasm in the money earned by footballers now and then, one thing the different eras do share is a level of celebrity.
During an American tour with United in 1952, Jeff met film stars Bob Hope and Gerry Lewis, and legendary musicians Bing Crosby and Nat King Cole, among many others.
But even these A-listers were trumped in 1965 when a return to the States with Forest brought an unlikely audience with Elvis Presley.
“It was amazing, he recalled.
“I was quite young and a little bit overawed, but talked to him quite a lot.
“They were interested in what we did, which was surprising.”
Despite playing all but a few months at the top level, the maximum wage rules in football and the sportsman’s brief shelf life meant the father-of-two needed a second career.
“It used to be £12 a week and then £15, and that was the top. Then it ballooned.”
Back on civvy street, like many retired players from that era who left school early without qualifications, Jeff ran a pub.
He was also not alone in having to sell his cherished medals when the need arose.
With Nell doing the cooking, the couple took over the Three Horseshoes at East Leake.
“We would have died within six months if I hadn’t got in a pub,” he jokes.
“There was very little option - I never had a trade.”
They ran market stalls for a spell - ‘we were hopeless’ - but soon returned as licensees at the Wheatsheaf in Oakham.
“They were keen to get Jeff in with his football connections and we had lovely times there,” Nell said.
During 13 years before retirement in 1999, they built up a diverse and loyal clientele, from professional sportsmen, Oakham School masters and amateur thespians.
Perhaps they were attracted by Jeff’s ideas of what a pub should be.
“We didn’t allow music or children in the pub, but it was a different time for pubs then,” he said.
Now happily tucked away in a quiet corner of Oakham, Jeff can take or leave the modern game.
Yet Nell remains an avid armchair fan, leaving her husband with ‘no choice’ but to watch the odd game on the box.
“It’s a different game altogether,” he said.
“There was more football played inside the boxes then.
“They hardly get in the penalty area now - it’s all in the midfield and playing across the back. It’s not that interesting to watch.
“I think the time I played was the best time to play.”
