“It sounds silly, but the stadium went silent at that moment,” recalled former Manchester United defender David May.
“All you could hear was his leg snapping – like two shin guards hitting each other – and then a scream.”
He recalled April 8, 1996, the day Coventry City defender David Bust suffered a horrific leg fracture at Old Trafford. To many, it remains the worst football injury ever filmed.
With four games left in the Premier League season, Manchester United are six points ahead of Newcastle United with a game in hand.
Coventry were a point behind safety but their start awoke thousands of away fans, winning a corner after just 86 seconds.
Avery Pickering’s pass was met by Noel Whelan at the front post, but his header was blocked in the air by Peter Schmeichel who made a diving save.
Buster went “all out” to grab rebounds, beating him 40-60 at most.
He was 10 yards outside the post but accelerated so quickly that he got the ball ahead of two United players, Denis Irvine and Brian McClair, who used their legs to pounce on the bouncing ball.
The collision meant the ball was only slowly flying towards the goal.
“Instinctively I thought, ‘He should score there’,” May said.
“But then I saw his legs and, oh my God, it was horrible. You could see David’s pain. Just thinking about it gave me chills down my spine.
Schmeichel was lying on the ground with the ball safely in his hands, but as he made the save, he appeared to see Bust “sitting on his lap.”
When the Danish goalkeeper looked up, what he saw will be etched in his mind forever.
Buster suffered compound fractures to both his tibia and fibula, causing his right leg to hinge at a sickening angle.
“We had five set-piece drills with Ron Atkinson and Gordon Strachan and the number they called was the number we flicked on at the near post and I came on at the back post. Everything was going well until I was challenged,” Busst, who now works for the charity Sky Blues In The Community in Coventry, told us Athletic team.
“I just froze. I had a feeling that something was wrong. I thought, ‘Don’t move and the pain will go away, but the pain didn’t go away.’ I was afraid to move because Dion Dublin had so much on his face. Horrified expression.
“Owen came at me from the post and caught me above the ankle, but McClair came from behind and caught me with his foot above the shin. All three of us wanted to win the ball or block it, so I Don’t blame anyone.
“If two opposing forces collide at the same instant, only one thing can happen. It may never happen again.
Manchester United and Coventry face each other in the FA Cup semi-finals on Sunday in a tie that has not been seen in the Premier League since 2001 but which will always be the end of Buster Synonymous with career nine-minute shutouts.
“I knew the noise he was making was really bad, but when I saw Buster’s hand raised, I knew it,” said Coventry teammate Paul Williams, who went with good friend Buster Meet the team bus that morning.
“When he was down, everyone was in their own world. I don’t think two people on our team talked to each other.
“I don’t remember I passed the ball that day. I can’t even confirm the score to you.
United eventually led 1-0, with Eric Cantona scoring the only goal of the game two minutes after half-time.
Details remain hazy to those who were on the pitch that day, including Manchester United midfielder Lee Sharp, who heard a “cracking” sound just outside the penalty area.
“The game was terrible,” Sharp said. “No one wanted to be near anyone. It was a strange atmosphere and I think everyone was shocked.
“I remember Peter (Schmeichel) throwing a bucket of water over the blood on the pitch and seeing the water splash red.”
In 1996, the rudimentary set-up of the football ground meant that both club doctors had to sit in the directors’ box, while paramedics had to remain in the tunnel of the Stretford Stand, so no treatment was allowed on the pitch.
It was an unprecedented incident and United players called on their team doctor David Favre for help.
“Our guys called us and said, ‘Dave, you need to fix this,'” Favre said.
“When I got there, David was screaming in agony, so my first thought was, ‘I need two sensible players to help me.'” Dion Dublin and “Choccy” Mike Claire) was talking to him, taking the pressure off of me, and creating a physical screen so he couldn’t see underneath.
By the time Favre arrived, Buster’s bones had pierced the skin, leaving a pool of blood in the six-yard box.
His first priority was to stop the bleeding and prevent Buster from losing consciousness or any further complications. He tried spraying salt water on the open wound and then bandaging it to soak up the blood, making sure all the grass and dirt was washed away.
Only then could he deal with the fracture itself.
“His legs were almost at a 90-degree angle,” Fevre said.
“Because of the angle, I checked for a distal pulse in the foot. If you lose that, you lose blood supply to the leg, and then I have a bigger problem to deal with.
“I decided to keep the limb in that position because I didn’t want to lose those pulses. I held the top and bottom of the fracture as we put him on the stretcher, and as we carried him around the field and into the tunnel, I That stability was maintained, and medical staff were able to give him oxygen there.
In this image, cropped due to the gruesome nature of his broken leg, David May (left) and other players react to David Booster’s injury (PA Photo via Getty Images)
Only the St John Ambulance service was allowed at the time, meaning Favre had to lead a complex response without much support.
He is one of the FA’s staff mentors, and Buster’s injury is one of the recurring issues.
“I don’t want to sound jaded, but after 10 years in rugby league I’m used to injuries like this,” Favre said. “It toughens you up to deal with it.
“I went back to my seat and concentrated on covering the rest of the game because something else could happen in the next minute.”
There was chaos and referee Dermot Gallagher had to allow the groundskeeper to take the field with a bucket of water and sand.
Twenty-seven years later, Gallagher still can’t let his mind wander to the incident.
“It took me almost two years to get back to Old Trafford again,” he said Competitor.
“It was the worst day of my football career and it still haunts me. I avoid talking about it like the plague.
Buster fell asleep as doctors repositioned his leg and placed it in a backboard, but that was only the beginning of his recovery during his initial six-week stay in the hospital.
“I remember that journey because the speed bump outside Old Trafford was so big it felt like I was going over it again and again,” Bast said.
“Most people thought it was a road traffic accident until they saw the football equipment.
“When Big Ron came to see me, the first thing he said was, ‘Basti, you should score!’. You don’t want anyone to be sick because you want people to take the pressure off. There’s no one better at that.
Busst needed mild relief because he underwent 10 surgeries in the previous 12 days in an attempt to clean and disinfect areas where he had contracted tissue infections, including MRSA.
He also had a hematoma on the outside of his leg that was causing so much inflammation that they had to remove it to relieve pressure on what felt like a giant dead leg.
The infection then reached his tendons, which also had to be removed, leaving only the one connecting to the big toe.
Buster had a six-inch pin inserted into his leg to help connect the bones and an external fixator on each end of his tibia in the hope that the bones would calcify and connect in the middle.
He ran into more problems when the infection spread along the outside of the pin. It must be removed in another surgery three months later. Buster even needed surgery to repair a hole in his left Achilles tendon caused by overcompensating while limping.
“One of the big problems I encountered was that there was no blood supply to the fracture. There was a real risk that the leg would have to be amputated below the knee,” Buster said.
“They removed the skin from the calf muscle to cover the hole where the bone had fallen out. Then they took a skin graft from my back and put it on the back of my calf, which is why it looks like it does now.
“One of the best surgeries I had two years later was to repair it so I could lift my toes. That’s why I stopped playing, my foot dropped. You couldn’t chip the ball. It took me three It took a year to play football again.
Buster used to cut the ends off his shoes so he could get them back to normal, but he knew after three months he would never compete again due to various serious injuries.
“The first night he just wanted to know if he could play again and they couldn’t give him an answer. It was horrible,” said Williams, who now plays in the Over-35 League with Bust.
“On my days off I would take him to Manchester for treatment. I put the front seat of the car down and he sat in the back with his legs up and all the metal sticking out.
“He came into professional football late and that’s what he wanted. Losing his ability is devastating but he’s more resilient than me.
“He was responsive, honest and loyal. That’s what he brought to the game that day and that’s what ultimately ended his career.
Old Trafford was already of great significance to Buster’s entry into professional football. He was a latecomer, playing for non-league club Moor Green in Birmingham until the age of 24.
One of his trial days with Coventry came at Old Trafford in 1991, but five years later, at the age of 28, he had already played 50 Premier League games.
Williams thinks he still has many years left, which begs the question: Does he regret throwing himself into the challenge like he did that day in 1996?
“It’s just something I never thought about,” Bust said. “I’m an honest player, I’m not the most talented but I put my head and feet where it hurt.
“You don’t look around and think about who could hurt me, you just hit the ball with all your might. I was raised to attack the ball. If I think about these things, I would have gotten hurt years ago.
“I couldn’t change anything, but I could see what good I could get out of it. From then on, opportunities opened up for me. It’s better to be famous for something than not to be famous at all.
David Bust never played professionally again, but did play in veterans football games (Getty Images)
Buster, 57, who also plays for Leamington’s senior team, has spoken to players and families who have suffered the trauma.
“He’s still getting steals on Sundays now,” Williams said.
“I remember playing a few games and being angry about people attacking him because I didn’t want him to go through the same thing again, but he was the exact opposite.
He just wants to win. He still gets angry when decisions don’t go his way!
In Schmeichel’s autobiography, One, he recalled how, many years after the incident, he gave the Scandinavian visitors a tour of Old Trafford as Bust emerged from the tunnel.
He is now a youth team coach and has taken a bunch of kids to Old Trafford.
“It was a brief moment of closure. What happened to him has never left me,” Schmeichel wrote.
“It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen on a football pitch and it was so close it almost felt like it was a part of me, if that makes sense.
“It might be a little weird to say it, but it kind of connects me to David Booster.”
(Above: Laurence Griffiths/EMPICS via Getty Images)
