THE DREAM COMES TRUE FOR UNITED

Last updated : 26 May 2003 By Editor
BY ADRIAN LEE IN BARCELONA
AND JOHN GOODBODY

MANCHESTER UNITED and their manager Alex Ferguson found
their Holy Grail in Barcelona last night.

They won the European Cup 2-1 in the most dramatic possible
way by scoring twice in the 90th minute after they had
trailed 1-0 to Bayern Munich for most of the final.
With the historic victory, they completed a unique treble by
an English club, having already taken the Premiership title
and the FA Cup.

The 45,000 United supporters stayed in the Nou Camp stadium
to celebrate the amazing win as their heroes ran round the
pitch, draped in scarves and banners.

Many fans who had been unable to get a ticket so were forced
to watch the game on television, began a huge street party
in the centre of the Catalan capital to salute their heroes,
who had pulled off perhaps the most amazing victory in the
45-year history of the competition.

Their triumph was achieved before a capacity crowd of 90,000
and an estimated global television audience of 500 million
people, a record for a club match. This included an
estimated 16 million people in England.

United last won the trophy 31 years ago with their
celebrated team, including Sir Bobby Charlton and George
Best and managed by the late Sir Matt Busby.

Ferguson had made victory in this competition a personal
crusade, just as Sir Matt had done after the 1958 Munich air
disaster when so many of his first European Cup team - the
Busby Babes - died.

Last night Ferguson hailed his players as "incredible human
beings" and predicted that their hunger for success would
lead to more trophies. "The future is to keep playing with
such pride and the players won't rest on that because
they're young. Tonight they just never gave in. We got off
to a bad start but kept at them and got our reward."

United went behind to a sixth-minute goal from a free kick
by Mario Basler but in the last minute of ordinary time,
with their dream seemingly over, both Teddy Sheringham and
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer scored