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Busby Babe's Man Utd shirt restored for daughter

Georgie DockerNorth West
BBC Woman with a brown bobbed haircut holds a very faded red Manchester United football shirt in front of her for the BBC's The Repair Shop programme.BBC
Sara Johnson poses with the faded Manchester United shirt worn by her dad Ronnie Cope in the 1958 FA Cup final at Wembley Stadium

A 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!"

Sara Johnson, with brown bobbed hair and wearing a red and white blouse, holds her late father's faded red Manchester United shirt from 1958. To her right, Rebecca Bissonnet has short grey hair and wears black dungarees over a white t-shirt. To Sara's left, Dominic has dark hair and a beard. He is wearing an open-collared dark grey shirt.
Sara Johnson (centre) received help from The Repair Shop's experts Rebecca Bissonnet and Dominic Chinea

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.

Rebecca Bissonnet, with short grey hair and wearing black dungarees over a white t-shirt, is restoring the red vintage football shirt.
The Repair Shop's Rebecca Bissonnet gets to work on the historic shirt

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 Images Black-and-white photograph from 11 August 1959 of Manchester United star Ronnie Cope. Wearing his club shirt, Cope, with swept-back dark hair, grins for the camera.Getty Images
Defender Ronnie Cope was replaced in the Manchester United squad for their European Cup tie in Belgrade by one of his friends, who subsequently died in the Munich air disaster

Cope'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."