Today marks the 50th anniversary of the Munich air disaster and football fans will be remembering the Manchester United players who died. But we in the journalistic community should not forget the eight journalists who died that night. They were:
Alf Clarke (Manchester Evening Chronicle), H D Davies (The Guardian), George Follows (Daily Herald), Tom Jackson (Manchester Evening News), Archie Ledbrooke (Daily Mirror), Henry Rose (Daily Express), Frank Swift (News of the World), and Eric Thompson (Daily Mail).
The young Manchester Evening News reporter chosen to replace Jackson, David Meek, returned to Old Trafford to write about a match 13 days after the crash. He recalls: "It was a surreal atmosphere. The press box mood was weird as well. All the number one writers had gone and the replacements were all very young, very inexperienced, and very nervous." (Source: Manchester Evening News)
