In Safe Hands Now

The Hero of Munich, and one of the finest sons of Magherafelt, Manchester United and Northern Ireland goalkeeper, Harry Gregg, has died, aged 87.

Gregg has become the world's most expensive goalkeeper when Matt Busby brought him to United from Doncaster in 1957, for £23,000.

In 1958, the plane in which the Manchester United team was travelling in, crashed during take off in Munich, killing 23 people, many Manchester United players and injuring 24 more.

Harry Gregg ran back into the plane twice, dragging team mates, his manager and the wife and child of a Hungarian diplomat to safety.

Outsideleft more than anything derives it's name, and hopefully, a smidgeon of its style from the most fabled of the Busby Babes, George Best. You might have seen the recent profile of his return to first team football for Manchester United when he scored six goals in an FA Cup game. Football means something here. What I did as kid was play football a lot. I played all the way through 'til I climbed onto the soccer scrapheap at 15 and hung up my boots. Growing up in an Irish household in the UK, the Northern Ireland footballers playing in England got a lot of interest from my mum. Harry Gregg was one of those guys. You've got to know, back then in our house we had statues of saints, of Jesus Mary and Joesph and George Best. If there'd been a Harry Gregg statue, I think we'd have had that too.

As an apprentice footballer, George Best was assigned Harry Gregg's boots to clean, of the Munich air crash, Best said, "Bravery is one thing but what Harry did was about more than bravery. It was about goodness."

Gregg was voted the greatest goalkeeper of the tournament after Northern Ireland's run at the 1958 World Cup, where the world was introduced to the incomparable Pele.

His legend in UK sports history, indelible. One of the good ones.