Busby Babes

Manchester United's "Busby Babes", pictured in 1958, before their last match.

The "Busby Babes" were the group of footballers, recruited and trained by Manchester United chief scout Joe Armstrong and assistant manager Jimmy Murphy, who progressed from the club's youth team into the first team under the management of the eponymous Matt Busby from the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s. The squad most associated with the name "babes" was that of the 1957–58 season, many of whom died in the 1958 Munich air disaster, and who, with an average age of 22, had been touted to dominate European football for the next few years.