Of all the players who perished in the Munich air disaster of February 6, 1958, Edward Colman was the youngest. Born on November 1, 1936, in Salford, he was just twenty-one years and three months old when the plane carrying Manchester United home from Belgrade came down on a snowy runway. His career had barely begun, yet in the brief time he played at the highest level, he had already shown himself to be among the most naturally talented players of his generation.
Colman joined Manchester United's youth set-up in the summer of 1952 upon leaving school, entering the conveyor belt of talent that manager Matt Busby and his coaches had constructed to develop the next wave of English football greatness. The youth system at Old Trafford during this period was producing players of rare quality, and Colman fit comfortably among them. He was a wing-half — a midfielder by modern standards — who played on the right side of the formation. His defining physical characteristic was his body swerve, a sinuous, hip-led movement that left opponents grasping at air. This talent earned him a nickname that followed him throughout his short career: Snakehips.
He forced his way into United's first team during the 1955-56 season, ousting the established Jeff Whitefoot to claim a regular starting berth. Playing alongside the formidable Duncan Edwards, Colman quickly established himself as an indispensable component of what was arguably the finest club side in England. He ended that debut full season with a Football League First Division title medal. He would collect a second championship medal the following year, and in 1957 he played in the FA Cup final, though United fell 2-1 to Aston Villa and Colman had to settle for a runners-up medal. He also played a role as United became the first Football League club to enter the European Cup, helping the side advance to the semi-finals in 1957.
In total, Colman made 108 first-team appearances for Manchester United, scoring two goals. The second of those goals came in the first leg of the European Cup quarter-final tie against Red Star Belgrade in early 1958, a match that would form part of the prelude to the tragedy on the return journey. After United's victory over Red Star, the plane stopped to refuel at Munich airport. The aircraft made two unsuccessful attempts to take off in deteriorating conditions before the third attempt ended in disaster, with the plane skidding off the runway and breaking apart. Twenty-three people died in the crash and its aftermath.
Colman was among the eight United players who lost their lives, the youngest of all those who perished that day. The impact of his death on the community around him was profound. At his funeral, twenty-seven workers from a Manchester boxmaking firm walked off the job to attend — and were subsequently dismissed. The solidarity that followed was immediate: every one of those workers was reinstated. It was a small but telling illustration of what this young man had meant to people whose lives had barely overlapped with his.
His grave at Weaste Cemetery in Weaste, Salford, was later marked with a statue, though vandals damaged it severely within a few years of its installation. After being repaired, the statue was removed from the cemetery and placed in the home of his father, Dick Colman, for safekeeping. Dick passed away in October 1986 at the age of seventy-six and is buried alongside his son. Eddie's mother, Elizabeth, who died in November 1971 at the age of sixty-two, rests there as well.
Colman's memory is preserved beyond the family plot. The University of Salford named a student accommodation building the Eddie Colman Court in his honor, a block of flats located close to the main campus. His name also appears on the street plan of a housing development in Newton Heath, where Eddie Colman Close sits among roads named for other Munich victims. For a player whose first-team career lasted fewer than three full seasons and amounted to 108 appearances, the endurance of his memory speaks to both the grace of his talent and the enormity of what was lost on that February afternoon in Bavaria.
