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Excerpts and photo from the Daily Star, Tues., April 9, 1996

An horrific injury to Coventry defender David Busst overshadowed Manchester United's march towards a third Championship in four years.

The Sky Blues injury jinx struck again in the most gruesome of circumstances after just 70 seconds.

Busst lay in agony, his blood staining the turf, after colliding with United's Denis Irwin as he-charged in to try to notch a shock goal. The massive 50,332 crowd - the biggest domestic attendance in nine years - was shocked into awful silence as Busst had his legs strapped together before being carried off.

He later endured three hours of surgery for a compound fracture to right leg.

Players from both teams were visibly horrified as they turned away from Busst's prone figure, inside the six-yard box.

Play was held up for nine minutes, partly to allow groundstaff and United keeper Peter Schmeichel to clean up a dark patch of blood in the goalmouth.

Update:

"David has now had 17 operations on his damaged leg, and not surprisingly, has been forced to give up the game, although the club stood by David and kept his contract active till the end of this season, even though there was really no hope of him kicking a football again in anger. A testimonial game has been organised for him which will be played this Friday evening (16th May 1997) at Coventry City, against Manchester United, with guest players Paul Gasgoigne, Ally McCoist and Les Ferdinand turning out for Coventry. The game has been fully sold out for a while now, so it should be a good final payout for David to allow him to continue life as best he can, and we all here wish him well."

Steve Spires