There are certain things that English football fans just “know”. They know Pele was the greatest player to ever play the game, that Bobby Moore captained England to the World Cup in 1966, and they know that the Busby Babes died in the Munich Air Disaster of 1958.
 
Anyone in England with the vaguest interest in football history grows up absorbing these facts. Your dad has told you, or your mates, or you read it when you were a kid in comics. Or if you’re of a different generation, you’ve Googled it.
 
This week is the 50th anniversary of the Munich Air Disaster in which eight Manchester United players died when their plane crashed on takeoff after a refuelling stop on the way home from a European Cup quarter-final in Belgrade.
 
Tens of thousands of words will be written over the next few days about the crash: about the players who died, the ones who survived. How Sir Matt Busby, the manager fought for his life and pulled through. How Duncan Edwards, the 21-year-old star of the team, lost his fight for life.

Sometimes, words trip off the tongue all too easily, and, at a distance of 50 years, the words “Munich Air Crash, Manchester United, Busby Babes died” are not all that shocking simply because they are so familiar.

But two weeks ago, Manchester United organised a very special media day with four survivors of the the crash: Sir Bobby Charlton, Bill Foulkes, Kenny Morgans and Albert Scanlon. Sandy Busby, Sir Matt’s son, and Jimmy Murphy junior, the son of Busby’s assistant manager Jimmy Murphy, also told their tales and their reminiscences were heart-rending.

Spending time in the company of four remarkable men who survived the crash was a humbling experience (click “play video” above to here Charlton and others talk about it).

Charlton, of course, recovered from minor injuries and had a glittering career for United and England. Foulkes too survived, and no one, apart from Charlton and Ryan Giggs has played more times for United.

But the career of Kenny Morgans was blighted by the disaster. He was the youngest of all the Babes at 18. In 1968 when United won the European Cup he was 28 and could have been in the side. Instead, he had retired as a footballer and was running a pub.

Scanlon’s career too was cut short by the crash. Within a few short years of playing for United, he was struggling to find work as a docker.

The disaster was half a century ago now, but the pain and the anguish lives on for so many touched by it. Bobby Charlton and Kenny Morgans said they thought about it every single day of their lives.

Many fans today dislike Manchester United for their successes, their wealth and, perhaps, for what they see as the club’s self-importance. But no fan would ever want their club to go through what United suffered half-a-century ago.

UPDATE: This post was updated at 1745 GMT to add video.

* You can read Mike’s package of interviews and features by visiting our main soccer website. Click here for a look at Duncan Edwards and what might have been and here for Mike’s view on how the accident changed Manchester United. Follow the links for interviews with Kenny Morgans and Bobby Charlton.