Famed Manchester United and Northern Ireland Goalkeeper Harry Gregg Enters Texaco Hall of Fame
Dublin, Ireland 14TH December 2008 - Harry Gregg, the legendary Manchester United and Northern Ireland goalkeeper, has been chosen as the worthy recipient of this year's 2008 Texaco Sportstars Hall of Fame Award.
One of the most heroic and admired figures in the world of football, Harry Gregg is a man who has met with Triumph and Disaster - AND treated both imposters just the same. He is certainly a disciple of Kipling - but it couldn’t have been easy.
The triumph came when a talented youth signed for Windsor Park Swifts before moving on to Coleraine, Doncaster Rovers – and subsequently Manchester United for a then world record fee for a goalkeeper. Within 12 months he was on his way to the World Cup with Northern Ireland where he was voted the goalkeeper of the tournament, getting 478 votes to Russia’s Lev Yashin’s 122.
Back at Old Trafford he had 48 clean sheets in his 210 games, yet he was to be denied a medal during one of United’s most successful periods. He missed the 1963 Cup final through injury, and a succession of injuries meant he could not play enough games to qualify for a league championship medal in 1964-65 and again in 1966-67.
A brief spell at Stoke and managerial jobs at Shrewsbury, Swansea, Crewe and Carlisle brought his football career to a conclusion in 1987. Later he returned to Portstewart on the north Antrim coast as host and owner of The Windsor Hotel.
This wonderful sporting career, though, was devastatingly interrupted in his second year with Manchester United in 1958 when he was one of only nine players to survive the Munich Air Crash. The disaster claimed 23 lives. Harry Gregg pulled a child, a woman and two fellow players, Bobby Charlton and Dennis Viollet out of what was left of the aircraft, yet is uncomfortable with the tag, Hero of Munich, which has followed him through life.
The legacy of the crash lived on for Harry as he was to suffer from classic survivor’s guilt. That was until 1998 when he finally confronted his demons at a Munich Memorial Service and a day later spoke to Roger Byrne’s widow for the first time since the crash. In his own words “that night washed away years of guilt”.
Commenting, Enda Riney, Country Chairman for Chevron, which owns the Texaco brand, described Harry as, “A sporting hero of whom we can all be proud and a worthy recipient of the Texaco Hall of Fame award.”
His award will be presented at a ceremony which takes place in Dublin on Wednesday evening next at which An Taoiseach, Brian Cowen TD will be Guest of Honour.
