David Peace has written about footballing icons such as Brian Clough – The Damned United – and Bill Shankly – Red or Dead – and his new novel, Munichs, details the tragic disaster that gripped the beautiful game.
The Munich air disaster was and remains a national tragedy.
A new book, Munichs, written by David Peace, seeks to honour the devastating accident through various third-person accounts from individuals attached to Manchester United and Manchester as a city.
The novel was published in August and has since received critical acclaim and been nominated for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award.
The idea came following the death of Peace’s father in 2022, which inspired him to write about the impact the disaster had on football and society in general.
He said: “I found it hard to pick up the book I was working on at the time, so I wanted to write a book that kept the conversation going with my dad.
“The Busby Babes were the team that had the biggest impression on my dad and the crash had a big impact on him.
“I had written two other books about football – Damned United and Red or Dead – and hoped I would write another; I thought it possibly be about Man United or possibly Bobby Charlton or Matt Busby.”
Peace initially planned to write a book about some interlinked short stories that connected the crash to the club’s relegation in 1974.
The author changed his approach when deciding he wanted to tell the story of the immense effort and courage shown by survivors of the crash in the months that followed.
He explained: “From the beginning I wanted to have as many voices as possible and that reflects on the title.
“Munich is not a singular event; making Munichs a logical title, it affected people in different ways.”
To convey an accurate portrayal of 1958, Peace read newspapers and A-Zs from 1958 but was further aided having lived and studied in Manchester between 1986 and 1992.
He continued: “Although the book is set in ’58, as I’m writing I’m trying to steep myself in the place as much as possible.
“I’m reading these books about Munich, reading all these autobiographies, but I’m drawn to the facts that strike me as I’m writing, like Bobby Charlton and Duncan Edwards would get the bus I used to get myself into Manchester.”
As an avid Huddersfield Town and football supporter, he wanted to reiterate the fact the Munich air crash was a national tragedy and demonstrate how MUFC embraced the incident which moulded it into the club they are today.
He said: “My hope with the book was that I would convey the scale of the disaster.
“What I try to show is originally it wasn’t something that just affected Manchester United supporters, but the whole city and actually the country was grieving.
“Specifically, it was a working-class tragedy, these footballers, coaches, journalists who were killed came from working-class communities and it had a tremendous effect.
“It is a tragedy but the fact that United were able to keep going, I think is an inspiration.”
Moving forward Peace would like to write two more book about MUFC and create a trilogy.
Referring to his books from the Tokyo Trilogy, Peace doesn’t want to write the MUFC Trilogy ‘parts’, and insists challenges await to not write them in the same style as Munichs.
