WHEN Val Hillier stood patiently in line to meet Manchester United's star players of the 1950s, she had no idea that just a few weeks later half of them would die in the Munich air disaster.

Val, a 15-year-old typist at the time, queued for the signing session at Lewis's department store during her lunch hour.

She remembers clearly the sight of 12 of United's Busby Babes squad sitting at a long table, ready to sign autographs.

With female football fans still rare in the 1950s, she admits she stood out from the queue of fathers and sons and caused quite a stir with the players.

And as Val made her way along the line she says the players chatted and joked with her, until finally she had to get back to work.

Just weeks later, on February 6, she was devastated when she found out the team's plane had crashed.

Six of the young players who had signed the brochure - Tommy Taylor, Eddie Colman, David Pegg, Liam `Billy' Whelan, Mark Jones and Duncan Edwards - had lost their lives.

Of the men she who signed the photograph, only Bobby Charlton, Wilf McGuinness, Dennis Viollet, Danny Blanchflower, Bill Foulkes and Johnny Berry had survived.

For 50 years Val, 66, cherished her memories of that lunch hour and kept the signed brochure in a hat box at her Heaton Chapel home.

Today it goes under the hammer at Frank R Marshalls Auctioneers in Knutsford, where it could easily sell for more that its valuation of £300 to £500.

Val has decided to part with the treasured possession because she has only granddaughters to pass it on to, who do not share her love of the beautiful game, and she wants it to find a home where someone will care for it as she has done.

Val, a life-long City fan who used to watch United's mid-week European matches because they were played at Maine Road, said: "I remember the players very clearly. They were all laughing and joking.

"They were asking if I was a United fan - but I had to tell them that I was a City fan. They laughed. It was all in good fun."

On the day news of the plane crash broke, Val says there was a sense of devastation all across the city - regardless of football allegiances.

She said: "I was in work after the Munich air crash and Manchester just came to a standstill.

"Everybody just cried. It was heart-breaking."

Munich Remembered - 48-page special on sale now.

Pay your tribute at www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk

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