Events at Highbury had underpinned once again our belief in our prospects, and certainly almost everything that happened in the first half in the big, cold concrete stadium of Red Star served to deepen the confident frame of mind we now seemed to be carrying from match to match as permanent baggage. We played with a freedom that could only be described as sensational.
In our work-out on the day before the game we had been relaxed and that mood had been maintained on the drive to the stadium on match day. The banter was ceaseless – and inevitably led by Eddie Colman. He talked about the latest Sinatra song. Albert Scanlon discussed Marilyn Monroe’s latest film. Through the windows of the bus there were so many new things to see: great banners of Tito on the big grey buildings, a unit of tanks clanking over the cobbles, smoke rising from the street stalls where they sold food and roasted nuts, and women in heavy boots working on the road. There was plenty of material for social observers – and the comedians – on the bus.
I was still the young boy among the young men, but my self-belief was growing with each game and I no longer feared so much the kind of rebuke that had once been delivered to me by Allenby Chilton when I spoke out of turn. I had scored a few goals so maybe I could make the odd contribution to the talk.
In the dressing room before we went out Matt Busby was as composed as ever in his big dark overcoat and smartly snapped trilby. ‘There are no terrors out there for you boys now,’ he said. ‘You know this team: they are good but not good enough to beat you. We’ve beaten them once. Now let’s do it again. Enjoy the game, express yourselves. Don’t forget your own strengths, always play to them. You should know that you have nothing to fear.’
We started as we had at Highbury, Dennis Viollet scoring after two minutes, with me adding two more in the thirtieth and thirty-second minutes. It was a cold day and there was a light covering of snow. There was frost on the pitch, but not so much that the surface wouldn’t take a stud. You could run and you could pass and shoot, and we did enough of all three to subdue the big crowd in their long coats and their woollen hats. Duncan retained the dominant mood he had displayed at Highbury, and for most of the half we seemed to be quicker to the ball and to have plenty of time to play it.
Red Star had fought hard and showed a lot of skill in the first leg at Old Trafford, and our long journey to Belgrade had not been without a touch of apprehension. They had a little midfielder, Dragoslav Sekularac, who was so good, so clever in Manchester, that I found myself asking, ‘Why haven’t I heard of this fellow before?’
They also had a player, Kostic, who showed us for the first time how it was possible to bend a free kick round a defensive wall. He did it brilliantly after Harry Gregg was caught handling the ball outside his area – and this was after the Yugoslavs had already pulled back two goals. The first of them seemed to be no more than a small alarm call at the time. With the goal advantage from Old Trafford, we were still three goals clear, and in the first half we had simply torn them apart. But Red Star came alive with their strike and when Kostic brought the score on the day to 3–3 with four minutes to go we were under hard pressure. It was another glimpse of the depth of European football and its capacity to spring an ambush the moment you took anything for granted.
Sekularac was a classic example of somebody who, despite being completely unheralded when he first arrived in England, had skills and subtleties which gave a whole new dimension to the game. In my international career I would collide with him again on several occasions, and each time I marvelled at his ability to shape a game with both his skill and speed of thought. Over the years I would get to know him quite well. He was a proud gypsy and told me about his background. Certainly it was not difficult to imagine him performing intricate dance steps beside a camp fire. In 1970, when I was preparing for the World Cup in Mexico, I met him in a little town in the Andes. I said how strange it was to find him in such a remote place, but he explained that there was good money to earn in Colombia if you were able to teach the game. He was surrounded by youngsters who seemed to hang on his every word and gesture.
In Belgrade he had a few lessons for a Manchester United whose belief they could win the European Cup was still on the rise. However, we were quick and confident students and just as we did at Highbury, we avoided the worst consequences of relaxing, however subliminally. The Serbs invaded our goal but Harry Gregg put behind him his earlier mishap, as did Bill Foulkes who had conceded a penalty, and we held firm under the pressure.
The Old Man told us we had passed another test on our way to the semi-final with, as it turned out, the powerful Italian club AC Milan, and this, with local beer and a drop of slivovic, was more than enough fuel for a night of celebration in a club which featured the usual array of East European cabaret acts, including jugglers and dancers, and later on at the home
