Munichs

by David Peace

On the afternoon of February 6, 1958, British European Airways Flight 609 crashed on take-off at Munich Airport. On board were the young Manchester United team, the Champions of England, known as 'the Busby Babes', and the journalists who followed them, home and away. Twenty-one of the passengers were killed instantly, four were left fighting for their lives while six more were critically injured. Twenty-four hours later, Jimmy Murphy, the assistant manager of Manchester United, faced the press at the Rechts der Isar Hospital - 'What of the future, you ask? It will be a long, hard struggle. It took Matt Busby, Bert Whalley and myself twelve years to produce the 1958 Red Devils. It was long, hard, tiring work, but we succeeded. At the moment, I am so confused, so tired and so sad, I cannot think clearly, but what I do know is that the Red Devils will rise again.'Munichs is the story of how Manchester United did rise again, of the crash and its aftermath, of those who survived and those who did not, of how Britain and football changed, and how it did not; a novel of tragedy, but also of hope.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Sports, Football, Novels, Audiobook, 21st Century

480 pages, Hardcover

Published November 12, 2024

About the author

David Peace was born in 1967 and grew up in Ossett, near Wakefield. He left Manchester Polytechnic in 1991, and went to Istanbul to teach English. In 1994 he took up a teaching post in Tokyo and now lives there with his family.

His formative years were shadowed by the activities of the Yorkshire Ripper, and this had a profound influence on him which led to a strong interest in crime. His quartet of Red Riding books grew from this obsession with the dark side of Yorkshire. These are powerful novels of crime and police corruption, using the Yorkshire Ripper as their basis and inspiration. They are entitled Nineteen Seventy-Four, (1999), Nineteen Seventy-Seven (2000), Nineteen Eighty (2001), and Nineteen Eighty-Three (2002), and have been translated into French, Italian, German and Japanese.

In 2003 David Peace was named by Granta magazine as one of twenty "Best Young British Novelists." His novel GB84, set during the 1984 miners' strike, was published in 2005.

from contemporarywriters.com

Reviews

[emily]

This is brilliant, incredibly well-written, but I feel it was simply a case of 'bad timing' for me. Not in the right 'mood' for this one, unfortunately. That aside, not even a United fan (but that's alright, Peace isn't one either and he writes so well about them). And/but annoyingly, (albeit an irrelevant note) I do find Roy Keane sort of endearing (in any case, his unhinged comments makes me laugh).

[Paul Birtwell · Rating 1 out of 5]

An emotional story, poorly executed. I can see what the author was going for, but the repetitive clauses, long sentences and stream-of-consciousness writing style was something I just couldn't get on with.

I think the blurb falesly gives the impression that the focus will be on both the tragedy and the rebuilding of the club (which I was more interested in). In reality it's a some-what emotional (when your emotion isn't outweighed by irritation at the writing style) recounting of the immediate aftermath of the crash, with a particular focus on the the families of those involved, and a descriptive account of the many funerals of players and staff.

The insight into the families of the players told of another side to the tragedy, often not considered by your average football fan, myself included. In addition to this, the research the author must have undertaken into this, and the details he covers across many of the 'characters'' lives - is also commendable. Unfortunately, neither of these things could save it, from being the long-winded, and boring struggle it was to read. My respect for the topic, and interest in Manchester United, is all that really kept me from giving up on this book halfway through.

I think this would probably be a powerful bit of literature for someone of the time - who was in and around Manchester during these events - but unfortunately wasn't what I was hoping for. Which was a real shame as I had pretty high hopes for this book.

As a life long Manchester United fan, with a real respect-for and interest-in this topic, it's really saddened me to have to write such a savage review.

[Mike Futcher · Rating 3 out of 5]

David Peace's new novel Munichs is a difficult book to appraise. As a lifelong Manchester United fan, born and raised in Salford, I've always had an interest in and a solemn respect for the Munich air disaster of February 1958, which robbed the club, and the world, of the 'Busby Babes', a team that looked set to dominate national and European football for years and which contained, in Duncan Edwards, a remarkable young talent who many greats of the era say could have been the best of them all. And yet despite this interest, I found Munichs itself a strange, sometimes difficult, sometimes redundant, book.

Consequently, I'm somewhat unsure how much of Munichs I enjoyed because of the book itself – and I did enjoy it – and how much because of my fascination with the topic at hand. When Duncan Edwards dies in the book, after a remarkable battle for life in a hospital bed, and the reader finds they don't want to read on past this moment, that they want to keep him there, keep him alive, is this because of the skill of the writer or because of the real-life, emotive tragedy of it all?

I certainly found things in the writing of Munichs which irritated me on a low, but ever-growing, level. I was on guard from the start with the book's title, 'Munichs' being a slur used by rival fans, particularly Leeds and Liverpool fans, to refer to United fans, and therefore a strange choice for the Leeds-born Peace. I had initially thought it had been an unfortunate oversight, that perhaps the title might be a Joycean reference to the various struggles, the 'Munichs', endured by all of the characters, but an Author's Note at the end of the book (pg. 459) acknowledges it was chosen because of the slur, and that it should be reclaimed by United fans. It's a mild headscratcher that the author chose this as his title, his first impression, when the slur itself hardly needs a campaign: it is one most United fans shrug off, and it's not linked to a history of repression, as can be argued for the campaign to reclaim the 'n-word' slur. What is more, the book scarcely addresses antipathy towards United and is otherwise uncontentious in its aims. To jam a lightning rod front and centre into a book which does not thunder is an odd choice.

This relatively minor quibble aside (as with all slurs, the use of the word 'Munichs' says more about those who use it than those who receive it), a more irritating quirk of the book was its writing style. Peace has a dreamy, tautological prose which quickly grows tedious: the night is "the German, Munich night" (pg. 286), when a character speaks, it is "said Duncan, whispered Duncan" (pg. 156), and plain sentences are repeated within themselves for no apparent reason ("Jimmy wondered how he could have been so blind, so very blind to the signs, to the omens, how he'd missed those signs, those omens" (pg. 72)). These are not isolated examples either; the entire book is written like this. It reads like a parody of postmodernism, a clumsy and distracting affectation, and it makes the 450-page book twice as long as it needs to be, and exponentially more fatiguing.

It's for this reason that, while I enjoyed reading Munichs, I believe this was more because of an interest in the Munich air disaster than because of an interest in Peace's rendering of it. While I appreciated some of the small details the author researched (the relatives passing the wreckage of the plane when they were flown in to visit their sons in Munich hospital, the playing of Elgar's 'Nimrod' at a memorial, the callous mockery and antipathy of rival fans and clubs – particularly Burnley, Sunderland and Bolton – after the tragedy), I would have appreciated these just as well if I were reading them in a straight, non-fiction history of the Munich air disaster.

Frankly, I don't think the decision to tell the story as a novel really added anything. It allows Peace to write from the perspective of certain characters, of course, an inner monologue that wouldn't be possible in a non-fiction account, but Peace doesn't really stretch himself here, doesn't really use the licence given to a writer of fiction. He hews very close to the verifiable facts, respectfully refrains from invention, and in truth provides little more than you would find in a straight history of Munich 1958. And such a history would contain all that is good in Munichs, but refrain from the strange, irritating stylistic choices in the writing. Peace's novel is a worthy endeavour, well-researched and providing an able approximation of the rawness of the tragedy at that time, but the Flowers of Manchester have been arranged much better elsewhere.

[Ipswichblade · Rating 5 out of 5]

A rare five star from me, just such an emotional book. The descriptions of everything are so well done but particularly the weather, the rain and snow. Excellent again from David Peace

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is occasionally overwhelming. It displays grief in so many agonizing ways, but the intensity of the emotion combined with the sheer number of people to keep track of throughout this novel nearly makes it unbearable & unsustainable...and the major lumps of stream-of-consciousness writing don't necessarily do it any favours. But it's also magnificent in its overwhelming & uncompromising nature...and I suspect that those far more into football than I am will take away even more from this all-encompassing depiction of the Munich/Manchester United tragedy.

[Amy Carver · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tears in my eyes - never read anything like it. First Peace book and now looking forward to going back into his catalogue, hopefully starting with GB84.

[Francis Pellow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely gripping. I know it’s pitched to be fiction but it reads so true.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

On the 6th February 1958 a British European Airways Airspeed Ambassador ‘Elizabethan’ class aircraft, crashed into a house at the end of the runway at Munich airport in snow and ice, it was its third attempt at take off. Amongst its passengers were the Manchester United football team, they had been returning from a successful night in Belgrade having beaten the Red Star Belgrade team on aggregate to reach the semi finals of the European Cup. They had stopped at Munich to refuel. 20 passengers died at the scene, another died on his way to hospital, and two others died later that month while in the hospital. The fatalities included 8 Manchester United players, 3 staff members and 8 journalists including ex Manchester City and England goalkeeper Frank Swift. Two of the players who survived would never play football again.

The only other book I have read about this tragedy is Frank Taylor’s excellent ‘The Day a Team Died’ published in 1960. Frank was a journalist working for the ’News Chronicle’ at the time and was one of the survivors of the crash. Being an eye witness account it is the definitive record of the crash and thoroughly recommended.

‘Munichs’ is the third of Peace’s books about football, the other two being ‘The Damned United’ which is about Brian Clough’s short tenor as manager of Leeds United and ‘Red or Dead’ which is about Bill Shankly. ‘Red or Dead’ is the only other book I have read by David Peace and is excellent.

It is a fictional dramatisation of the Munich air disaster told from the third person perspective and takes into account the stories of several of the survivors, players, boardroom members and journalists. It also looks at it from the point of view of the families. It’s a story of guilt, loss, grief, blame and duty.

It is a formidable and stirring subject to tackle and could easily fall apart in the wrong hands. And at times Peace does slip into the trap of sentimentality. Early on in the book he describes Bobby Charlton’s mum as being worried and sensing something was wrong just before he cuts to the plane wreckage, he also describes the United team of a month earlier entering the pitch at Arsenal’s Highbury Stadium all in white like “a ghost train”. But despite this for the most part ‘Munichs’ is a down to earth atmospheric and emotional account. As with ‘Red or Dead’ it uses repetitiveness to great effect. This style together with earthy down to earth dialogue and at times highly descriptive passages of mundane events brings to life the people and the times creating a more personal account and enhancing the grief and emotions. In his descriptions of the many funerals he names the route they take, the roads and streets, mundane action narrated to emphasis states of minds.

“They went from funeral to funeral that day, that week. So many funerals those days, that week, on those black days in that black week. Two yesterday seven today seven tomorrow four on Friday. Shops had run out of black ties florists could not keep up with the demand for wreaths and for sprays, the wholesalers had had to send to Holland for more flowers. But with flowers or without in black ties or not they came. On foot or by bicycle, chained they left their bicycles down the road and took off their clips, walked up the road towards the church or they caught a bus or took a cab or shared a car, sometimes three or four wedged in across the back and tried to think of what to say, of what not to say.”

And whether with the funerals or the deaths or the games, Peace illustrates the emotional numbness with lists, lists of names. Then there’s the guilt, the guilt of survival, the guilt of not doing enough.

“Racked by the ifs, the only’s and the buts, the might have should have could’ve beens” and though Bill and Jimmy knew there was no sense in the ifs, the only’s and the buts, the might have should have could’ve beens still they racked, they plagued them both”

This sense of guilt is highlighted in Bobby Charlton, Charlton manage escaped the crash almost unscathed.

“But Bobby didn’t like to go down to the restaurant, the lounge or the bar. Didn’t really want to show his face, his face that barely had a scratch, just a stitch or two. Not when their husbands or boyfriends, their fathers or sons were all laid up in bed some still close to death so close to death. While other lads, all the other lads were dead all dead. So Bobby just sat upstairs on his own in his room on his hotel bed.“

As well as the individual trauma Peace reflects on the collective emotions of families and communities.

“Now we now know that Liam is with God then. From the Friday morning to the Monday afternoon when Liam came back home again no one in the city, in Cabra, let alone the hours on St. Attracta Road could tell you how the passed those hours that felt like days that felt like weeks that felt like months that felt like years that felt like they would never end”

Unlike the footballers of today, footballers back then weren’t unreachable multimillionaires living in mansions, they lived amongst the community, amongst the fans. They went to the pictures, the pubs and caught the buses and trains. This makes the descriptions of the funerals in Manchester particularly the more poignant (and there are many funerals, one funeral after another).

“They went from funeral to funeral that day, that week. So many funerals those days, that week, on those black days in that black week. Two yesterday seven today seven tomorrow four on Friday. Shops had run out of black ties florists could not keep up with the demand for wreaths and for sprays the wholesalers had to send to Holland for more flowers, but with flowers or without in black ties or not still they came. On foot or by bicycle, chained and left their bicycles down the road and took of their clips, walked up the road towards the church or they caught a bus or took a cab or shared a car, sometimes three or four wedged in across the back and tried to think of what to say, of what not to say.”

Each page streams with tears permeated with the cold damp slush of Munich. It’s a book that’s heavy with grief. The constant grief can become claustrophobic, there is little light here. And the most emotional part for me was the long drawn out death of Duncan Edwards, even though we know the outcome when it comes it’s a heavy blow. And Peace portrays this in his usual facile way stating simply “Duncan was dead.”

‘Munich’s’ can be a tough read, it’s emotionally draining. The repetitiveness won’t be to everyone’s liking. Although I found it enhanced the story and together with the earthy dialogue created an authentic fifties feel and atmosphere. Peace attempts to give everyone a voice in ‘Munichs’ however the pitfalls of that are that characters can became a bit blurred, difficult at times to distinguish between each other. The books appeal does fade slightly in the second half, especially once it becomes less a story of the disaster and its aftermath and more of a footballing story, the matches that followed, in the league and especially on United’s cup run that year, every goal described. Also the book may alienate some due to the rivalries and tribalism of football, which is sad. (I am not a United fan).

Despite these criticisms ‘Munichs’ is a credible fictionalised version of events and does give a good overall picture of how the events unfolded and how it effected the people involved and those associated with them. Being a fictional account It won’t trouble ‘The Day a Team Died’ as the definitive telling of the Munich disaster but it’s a credible version and a recommended read.

In the authors notes at the end David Peace explains why he wrote the book and named it ‘Munichs’. He hopes his book will make people desist from tragedy chanting, “I would defy anyone to read this novel and then ever use “Munichs” as an insult again.” I am not sure if he’ll get his wish.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Don’t be put off by the topic—this is a brilliant and moving read. It brings a tough story to life in such a powerful way. Easily one of my favourites this year. You don’t need to be into football to enjoy it, but if you are, you’ll love it even more. And for United fans, it’s a touching reminder of what makes the club so special.

[Sebastiaan Nijland · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just didn’t get on with this too well, something about it just never clicked.

[Spiros · Rating 5 out of 5]

On February 6 (or I should say, 6 February) 1958, the Manchester United Football Club was returning from a European Cup match against Red Star Beograd, stopping in Munich for their plane to refuel. After a couple aborted takeoffs, the Airspeed Elizabethan aircraft attempted a third takeoff, which ended disasterously, crashing into a house a few hundred yards past the end of the runway: eight members of the team died as result of the crash, as well as eight journalists accompanying the squad, three Yugoslavian nationals, and the plane's co-pilot.

David Peace takes the tragedy, and crafts a remarkable dirge. The first two thirds of the novel basically move from a horrific account of the crash and immediate aftermath, and then goes on to describe what seems to be every single funeral of the Dead. It examines the trauma and survivor's guilt of those left behind, and brilliantly is couched in the vernacular of the regions where the funerals took place; Liam Whelan's in the cadences of Dublin, Mark Jones' in broad Yorkshire tones. Peace contextualizes the tragedy in terms of other tragedies: a mine disaster in Barnsley, in which over 50 miners lost their lives, the earlier plane crash which cost the entire Turin squad their lives, and the fact that the Munich crash happened barely a dozen years after millions of people had lost their lives all over Europa and Asia. All tragedies are horrific, all have their own special resonances.

[Fred Lynch · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t normally put reviews on here but felt compelled to write something down about this. I was born in June 1958 a few months after the Munich air crash and grew up in a family of United fans. I spent my early years going to Old Trafford seeing Charlton, Foulkes and, of course Best and Law etc. I was regaled with stories of the 1958 Busby Babes, players like Duncan Edwards and Tommy Taylor. I have read and watched anything I could about that team and the disaster but this more than anything brought that time vividly to life. David Peace’s style may not be to everyone’s taste but I found this beautifully written in fact on many occasions I had to go back and read paragraphs again they were so good. For someone as invested in this story as I am this is a very emotional, at times heartbreaking book, it shows more than anything the resilience of the human spirit and it’s ability to recover and rise above adversity. I don’t ever give a book five stars as no book is perfect but this is a 4.75

[Preeti Mahatme · Rating 4 out of 5]

A blow-by-blow account of the tragedy surrounding the plane crash that wiped out nearly the entire Manchester United Football team and its aftermath. The writing is dramatic and very conducive to a visual overview. It fluctuates rapidly from character to character as they elucidate their thoughts and feelings as the news of the crash unfolds. The pacing is slow, you already know what happens next and the writing is repetitive in parts. However, I loved it. I think the repetition is purposeful to ensure that the gravity of the tragic events actually sinks in. I am not a football fan but if you are then that would be an added bonus. I would definitely recommend this book and will look up more from this author.

Thank you Netgalley and W W Norton for the ARC

[Denise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Usually the writing style would have driven me crazy, but somehow it worked for me in this book. An absorbing, haunting exploration of the grief, survivor's guilt, and more experienced by survivors, bereaved, and others affected by the devastating 1958 crash on take-off at Munich airport of a plane carrying the Manchester United team on their way home from an away game.

[Linden · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fictional account of the Munich air crash of 1958 which killed many members of the Manchester United football club. It's mostly written in a stream of consciousness style and from many points of view. It details the suffering, both mental and physical, of the survivors. A very moving tribute to the team and their coaches.

[Aoife Cassidy McM]

DNF. The style in which this narrative non fiction is written became extremely tiresome. The repetition of words appears designed to evoke emotion but instead it felt faux sincere and very irritating. This was nominated for awards so some will love it I’m sure.

[Emily Howarth · Rating 1 out of 5]

Struggled with the writing style - the sentences are long drawn out and repetitive. When the story moves at such a glacial pace it becomes a painful read. I got half way through and gave up.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

I hate to say it, but this was a real struggle to get through - and not just because of the tragic subject matter. The writing style is repetitive, and the book feels far too long. I went in expecting a more factual, focused account of the disaster and its aftermath (perhaps my mistake, as I didn’t realise this was a fictionalised retelling).

I’m not a Manchester United fan and only had a surface-level understanding of the Munich disaster, so I did appreciate learning more about the players - where they came from, how they joined the club, and who they were off the pitch. That was the strongest part of the book for me.

Unfortunately, the second half lost me entirely, with detailed accounts of the matches that followed the crash. I found it hard to stay engaged and lost interest well before the end.

A real slog to finish

[Andreas · Rating 1 out of 5]

I tired. I really did. And I was hoping for so much more

The writing style, repetitive and often dense nature - fair enough, given the subject matter, that Peace was trying to create a mood here but....- just got very tiresome.

('the hour was late, so very late, and the night so cold, so wet, so very cold and wet…')

The length and pacing was an issue. Could have been more concise.

In the end, I made it, but there were a number of moments where I just wanted to bin this.

[Joseph Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

More of a 3.75 - a beautifully written and difficult read that paints a vivid picture of grief and its many forms.

At times slow but this pacing lent itself to the subject matter, emphasising the length of time that such trauma lingers, if it ever goes away.

[Markod0101 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good listen, very tough few chapters as the new reaches home, but it turns incredibly uplifting as the survivors move on with their careers and indeed, their lives

[Greta Halliday · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sorry but I could not finish this book. It was so badly edited that I found it very hard to read.

[Amos · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5*

[Keith Oliver · Rating 4 out of 5]

A tough read. Not a United fan so did wonder what I'd have felt if I was. I liked the way the author structured the story

[Freddie Tuson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really tragic story, maybe not the most compelling novel

[Hugo Collingridge · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely brilliant book. I made fun of his use of repetition but it worked better here than in any of the other books of his that I've read. This is a book that will help you to understand football fandom, help you to understand Manchester and help you to understand Britain in the 1950s. But it's also about grief, about friendship, family and lots of other things. I loved it.

[Paul Hyslop · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant and incredibly well written, bringing the emotion of the most significant moment in Manchester United history.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I clearly didn’t pay enough attention when I started reading. I thought this was a non fiction, turns out that - while based on true events - essentially none of those conversations ever happened. I’m now confused as to my thoughts.

[Z.Adams · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5/5. As a Manchester United fan, this book was squarely in my wheelhouse and I was immediately interested when I heard about it (via Roger Bennett). I previously had a very surface level understanding of the Munich Air Disaster, and this book was insightful on the details and impact of the tragedy down to a granular level. The writing is beautiful. Peace paints an empathetic picture of the grief and trauma of those affected and really immerses you in this world. However, I found the nearly 500 page book pretty repetitive and too slow by the end. I was hoping that it would switch gears a bit and discuss the rebuilding of the club and move forward a bit in time, but it really dwelled in exploring the immediate aftermath of the tragedy. It ultimately doesn't justify its length imo, but was still very good!

[Mike Lord · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great account of what happened in 1958 and the aftermath. The depth of research appears to be outstanding and the stories are presented in a very real way (no Hollywood glitter applied)