BBCA football shirt worn by a member of Manchester United’s legendary Busby Babes team has been restored to its former glory after 67 years.
Sara Johnson, from Crewe in Cheshire, took her late father Ronnie Cope’s badly faded 1958 FA Cup final top to the BBC’s The Repair Shop team.
Expert Rebecca Bissonnet was able to carefully restore the shirt – complete with the Red Devils’ old badge and adorned with the words Wembley 1958 – for an episode of the BBC One programme which aired on 23 October.
Sara said: “I think he’d be really proud – he’d be happy that it’s repaired and not pink!”
Preparing to move house, Sara said she rediscovered her dad’s shirt while going through some drawers.
“I thought ‘Look at the state of it’ – and I felt a bit guilty because I’d had it in the frame with sunlight on it,” she told BBC Radio Manchester.
The shirt also had a few holes in it, a ripped label, and had faded in colour from its trademark red to a washed-out shade of pink.
But thanks to The Repair Shop team, it is back to its trademark red.
“I’m really, really grateful to them,” said Sara.
Cope played for Manchester United in the FA Cup final on 3 May 1958, less than three months after the Munich Air Disaster in which 23 people were killed, including eight players.
Their plane over-shot the runway while attempting to take off in wintry conditions.
United were returning home from a European Cup match against Red Star Belgrade in the former Yugoslavia and had stopped in Munich to re-fuel.
Sara said her dad “should have been on the flight to Munich” and would have been barring a sudden twist of fate.
“He had his ticket and his bag packed and everything, but someone got injured and they moved the team around,” she explained.
“They took Geoff Bent instead – and unfortunately he died in the disaster. Geoff was one of his best friends, so he was absolutely devastated.”
Getty ImagesCope’s shirt not only holds historic significance for Manchester United and their fans, but is a sentimental piece of Sara’s childhood.
She said: “I originally found it in my dad’s garage in a paint tin when I was about eight.
“I asked my dad what it was and he just went ‘Oh, that’s my United shirt.’
“When I asked why it was in the paint tin he just said ‘I do some painting in it.’
“So I brought it into the house and wore it as a nightie for a while.”
Sara took the shirt with her when she moved out of her childhood home.
She said it was displayed at the top of her staircase for 20 years in a “makeshift” frame she built with her husband.
“My dad was proud to see it there and when people asked about it, it meant I got to speak about him.”
Cope died, aged 81, in 2016.
“My dad was a gentle giant,” said Sara.
“He was lovely. I’m going to hang the shirt in my kitchen now so I can tell people all about my dad, now he’s no longer with us.”
