United's annual Best Junior Player Award, named after the Jimmy Murphy Award, has been held since 1989 by winners such as Giggs, Paul Scholes, danny Welbeck and Federico Macheda. Among the members of the first team now, Axel Tuanzebe, Rashford, Greenwood and Tahith Chong, who is being loaned, have also been winners.
Who is Jimmy Murphy? Why is United's Best Young Player Award named after him?
Jimmy Murphy is a footballer himself, playing for West Bromwich Albion and Swindon before World War II, but never for Manchester United. Sir Matt Busby was impressed by his football philosophy in a speech during World War II, so the first thing Sir Matt Busby did when he became United manager in 1945 was to hire Jimmy Murphy as an assistant coach, including youth training. Under his leadership, The Manchester United Youth Army won the 1953-55 Youth FA Cup, trained players such as Duncan Edwards and Bobby Charlton, and provided the Manchester United first team with the "busby babes" that would later become famous. Because of these achievements, Sir Matt Busby promoted Jimmy Murphy to team management in 1955. Since 1956, Jimmy Murphy has also been the coach of the Wales national team.
It was in his welsh manager's capacity that Made Jimmy Murphy escaped the Munich air disaster in 1958. Instead of travelling with Manchester United to Yugoslavia due to leading Wales to Israel for a World Cup qualifier, Jimmy Murphy spent half a season as manager during Sir Matt Busby's recovery. His first game was to lead United to an FA Cup round 5 against Sheffield Wednesday 13 days after the crash, and despite losing eight regular players, United were still able to beat their opponents 3-0 at Old Trafford to advance. In the end, Jimmy Murphy overcame all kinds of difficulties and led Manchester United to the FA Cup final, but unfortunately, the final defeat to Bolton could only be relegated to the second place. To know the grief that Manchester United suffered at that time, it is really rare to be able to achieve this achievement.
Eventually, Jimmy Murphy remained at Manchester United, and after leaving his assistant coaching role in 1971, Jimmy Murphy continued to work for United as a scout and continued to scout for young talents for the team until his death in 1989, when he was 79 years old. Although Jimmy Murphy has been invited several times by other teams, including Juventus and Arsenal, to take on the managerial role, Jimmy Murphy was unmoved and chose to stay at Manchester United to work behind the scenes. In the end, Jimmy Murphy worked for Manchester United for a total of 43 years, and has always made it his mission to develop and develop young players. So after his death, United also named the best young player after him in 1989.
United's Best Young Player Award was established in 1983 as the "Supporters' Club Young Player of the Year" because the winners were chosen by the Fans' Club. The inaugural winner was Northern Ireland international Norman Whiteside. When Mark Hughes won two consecutive awards in '84 and '85, the award was renamed the Denzil Haroun Young Player of the Year Award. Denzel Hallon was a former member of United's board of directors and the brother-in-law of former chairman Louis Edward.
When the Award for Best Young Player was renamed the Jimmy Murphy Award in 1989, the Denzil Haroun Reserve Team Player of the year was established that same year.
Since the 31st edition of the Jimmy Murphy Award, three people have won the award twice, including Mark Hughes, Giggs and Wes Brown, while the most recent winner is young Swedish winger Anthony Elanga. The Winners of the Jimmy Murphy Prize and the Denzel Haron Prize were Mark Robins, Giuseppe Rossi, Axel Tuanzebe and Tasi Chung.