Manchester United, almost certainly the biggest football club in the world. As a result, they've had a few pretty decent players run out onto the pitch for them over the years. Rightly or wrongly, the position in any football team that gets the most attention is striker.
With that in mind, who have been the top strikers for Man United over the years? For what they are worth, here are my thoughts on the top 5 strikers in the years prior to Sir Alex's reign at United. Don't worry, I'm well aware not everyone who reads this will agree with me.
Let's start in the past and work forward - seems to be fairly logical. I'm going to claim that the first forward of real note is a certain Jack Rowley who was part of the team before and during the Busby Babes era. Rowley played for United between 1937 and 1955, amassing a grand total of 211 goals in 424 appearances. That alone gets him a spot among my top strikers.
Overlapping in time and therefore sharing the pitch, my next selection is Stan Pearson who scored 148 goals in 343 appearances playing between 1937 to 1953.
Next I've picked out Dennis Violet who played for the reds of Manchester in no fewer than 291 games during the Busby Babes period. The lightening quick centre forward scored 178 goals for United and was one of the survivors of the Munich air disaster.
Moving on we have non other than Bobby Charlton - now Sir Bobby Charlton of course. Another member of the Busby Babes who also survived the crash in Munich Bobby netted 249 times for United - the club record. For a long time he also held the record for the most appearances for the club at 758, a figure that has since been surpassed by Ryan Giggs.
My final selection, and surely few will question this one, is a certain Dennis Law. 'The King' or the 'Lawman' as he was affectionately know played for Manchester United between 1962 and 1973. During that time he played for United a total of 409 times, scoring an impressive 237 goals. Law won European Footballer of the year in 1965, during a season in which he top-scored for United with 28 and helped then to win their first league title since Munich.
Well, there you have it. My selection of the best strikers to play for United in pre-Ferguson. Why did I make the distinction and only feature forwards who played for Manchester United before Alex Ferguson became manager in 1986? Well, there have been a good many years since then so the Ferguson reign deserves special attention. There are plenty of great strikers who have played for the red half of Manchester under Sir Alex. Details of my pick of that bunch will have to wait for another day.
Emil Flore is a pretty keen sports watcher - though he doesn't actually play much sport himself! Among his sporting passions is a love of football. This is reflected in his site http://www.footballshirtsearch.co.uk where you fill find Manchester United Shirts along with football shirts for many other teams.
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