Walter Crickmer: The genius who began Manchester United's remarkable 4000-game streak of academy excellence

Every one of the 279 youth team players that have been part of Manchester United’s matchday squad over the past 82 years has their own story to tell, and plenty of those will be regaled this weekend as the club prepares to reach an extraordinary milestone.

Take Billy Garton, for example. His big break came one September night in 1984 in a League Cup tie against Burnley. Still only 19 and without a car, the former defender took his usual route to Old Trafford via the No. 58 bus from Ordsall Lane to Trafford Bar as he had done so often as a fan, sneaking in to watch the last 20 minutes of games when the gates were opened in the hope of a glimpse of his hero Martin Buchan.

Little could the man sat on that bus reading a newspaper carrying the back page headline, “Billy the Kid”, in reference to Garton’s promotion, have known that the subject of that story was looking eagerly over his shoulder and on the cusp of realising a lifelong dream. Boots stuffed in a plastic bag, Garton crossed the forecourt at Old Trafford unrecognised before slipping into the players’ entrance. He celebrated a 4-0 win with a pint in the Jubilee Pub on the Salford council estate where he had been raised.

Everton’s visit to Old Trafford on Sunday will mark the 4000th consecutive game in which at least one youth team graduate has been included in United’s first team squad, a run that predates the outbreak of the Second World War and one of which a club arguably more synonymous with youth production than any other are justifiably proud.

It is a storied history and culture, one of the most fabled in sports, a tale of constant renewal and an uncrushable spirit encapsulated by the way they rebuilt in the aftermath of Munich in 1958 when a plane crash destroyed a team of precious homegrown talents destined for greatness.

None of the 10 academy graduates who have been handed first team debuts by Ole Gunnar Solskjaer this year alone will have to get the bus to Old Trafford like Garton. But, right down to the small details, such as academy players only being allowed to wear black boots, the importance of discipline and humility are impressed on them from an early age and, on the evidence of this season, the production line remains strong. Of the 38 goals United have plundered this term, 34 have been scored or assisted by an academy graduate, with Marcus Rashford claiming 13 of them.

Of course, any discussion of United’s talent factory tends to focus on the sprawling Busby and Ferguson eras, when success and swashbuckling football were underpinned by a nucleus of carefully nurtured local and British talent that produced icons whose surnames alone evoke a mixture of wonder and awe - Edwards, Charlton, Best, Giggs, Scholes and Beckham.

Others such as Jimmy Murphy, Busby’s long-time lieutenant, and youth team coaches, Syd Owen, who helped usher through the likes of Norman Whiteside and Mark Hughes, and Eric Harrison, a guiding light for the famous “Class of 92”, were intrinsic figures.

Yet one name in United’s youth history too often overlooked is that of Walter Crickmer and, if nothing else, this weekend’s milestone, dating back to October 1937, offers a timely opportunity to reflect on how different the club might have looked when Matt Busby took charge in 1945 but for the vision and tireless efforts of its secretary during the six years that World War Two raged.

“He’s one of the true unsung heroes in United’s history,” says Tony Park, one of the most respected United historians. “I challenge the people who say Busby revolutionised our youth system - no he didn’t. That youth system had been in place for seven years before Busby arrived and it was largely thanks to Crickmer’s genius during the War years that Busby inherited a ready made team capable of performing to that level.”

It was Park, together with fellow United historian and season ticket holder, Steve Hobin, who unearthed the statistic about the club’s remarkable youth lineage during painstaking research for their 2012 book, Sons of United, an exhaustive chronicle of United’s youth team.

But, as Park explains, Crickmer’s contribution during wartime is a story seldom told. Even United’s Official Encyclopedia dedicates just 366 words to that period between 1939 and 1945 when Crickmer had been determined that the War would not deprive the club’s emerging talents of the chance to play football.

Only a year before its outbreak, Crickmer, James Gibson, the United chairman, and scout Louis Rocca, had created the Manchester United Junior Athletic Club (MUJAC) with the intention of providing a gateway for gifted local youngsters by targeting school leavers at 15 and 16, but German bombers threatened to bring that ambitious venture to a premature conclusion.

Yet Crickmer was undeterred and, amid the chaos and loss of players and coaching, secretarial and administrative staff to the war effort that placed an extraordinary burden on his shoulders, he managed to maintain a MUJACs side at the same time as guaranteeing the development of players effectively moving up this ladder system the club had conceived.

The masterstroke was an alliance forged at the start of the 1941/42 season with Goslings, an amateur Manchester club run by three brothers, Abraham, Frederick and Clifford, who owned fruit shops in the city. Recognising that United could not afford to run four teams - the firsts, reserves, an A team and the MUJACs - but not wanting to abandon any of them, Crickmer effectively outsourced the A team to Goslings.

“It was an act of brilliance from Crickmer to keep everyone tied to United but at the same time not have to pay the wages and be able to watch these players progress,” Park explains. “All these juniors were getting older so they couldn’t play in the MUJACs any more so they needed more experience and to be playing against adults and Goslings provided that.”

The partnership ceased with the end of the War but it was because of the Goslings tie in that United would unearth goalkeeper Jack Crompton and left half Henry Cockburn, who formed part of the United team that won the FA Cup under Busby in 1948. The Gosling brothers would attend a dinner dance to mark that occasion as guests of United.

Busby bought in wholly to United’s youth culture and his achievements and legacy have few rivals in the British game but there is little doubting the Scot had the richest of inheritances and, for that, United owed an enormous debt of gratitude to their former secretary. “There is no doubt Crickmer is one of the great visionaries of English football,” Park said.