Interview | Bill Shaw | Former MUJAC player and lifelong United supporter

Shaw is right: he’s not your normal nonagenarian. He’s not a typical United fan, either. For starters, he was spotted by the club at 15, in 1947, and has memories most Reds would happily chop off an arm for.

 

“I’d played at Platt Fields and we were changing behind the goal, as there were no dressing rooms,” he remembers, “and this guy came up and told me he was a United scout. He told me to tell my mother he’d been speaking to me, and to write in to United for a trial.

 

“I went down to Old Trafford, and we were allowed to go in the first-team dressing room to get changed. Just pulling on a United shirt… oh God… I thought I was King Kong! They took us in a coach, somewhere near the university. I did okay, and the manager told me to come down for training.

 

“We used to train on Tuesdays and Thursdays. All the scaffolding was in at Old Trafford then – it was like a building site. They weren’t using the ground for anything other than the B team. I played in two practice games on the pitch itself.

 

“The first team and Reserves used to come down on Sundays,” Bill continues. “Matt Busby had a word with me. All he said was ‘Good luck, son’ but it lasted me about a month! Jack Rowley was there, Johnny Morris, Charlie Mitten.”