![]()
Crystal Palace’s Welsh football manager Tony Pulis poses for photographers with a team shirt after being unveiled as the club’s new manager in south London, yesterday. Pulis was confirmed as Palace’s choice to succeed Ian Holloway, yesterday.
LONDON: Former Manchester United defender Bill Foulkes, a survivor of the 1958 Munich air disaster, has died at the age of 81, the club announced yesterday.
Foulkes made his United debut in 1952 and played 688 times for the club -- a figure surpassed by only Ryan Giggs, Bobby Charlton and Paul Scholes.
He was one of the people who survived after a plane carrying the United squad crashed on a snow-covered runway in Munich in February 1958 while returning from a European Cup match in Belgrade.
The crash claimed the lives of 23 people, including United stars such as Duncan Edwards and Tommy Taylor, but Foulkes went on to play for the team that won the club’s first European Cup in 1968.
United said that he had passed away in the early hours of Monday morning but did not disclose the cause of death.
“Bill was a giant character in the post-war history of Manchester United,” said United executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward.
“He was a very gentle man, who I was privileged to meet on several occasions, including most memorably with his team-mates at the Champions League final in Moscow, 50 years after his heroics in the Munich air crash.
“Bill’s contribution over almost 700 games and nearly 20 years will never be forgotten. The thoughts of everyone at the club -- directors, players, staff and fans -- are with Bill’s family.”
Foulkes started work as a coal miner and was still working down the pit in the mid-1950s, by which time he was a regular member of United manager Matt Busby’s side.
A centre-back, he played for United for his entire career and became captain following the death of Roger Byrne in Munich.
AFP
