Manchester United FC

Matt Busby's appointment as manager in 1945 began the transformation of Manchester United from a bomb-damaged club without a ground into the most romantic institution in English football. Busby's first great team won the FA Cup in 1948 and league titles in 1952 and 1956, but it was his "Busby Babes" - a dazzling young side featuring Duncan Edwards, Tommy Taylor, and Roger Byrne - that captivated the nation.

On 6 February 1958, the plane carrying the team home from a European Cup match in Belgrade crashed on the runway at Munich-Riem airport. Eight players died, along with three club staff, eight journalists, and two crew members. Busby himself was given the last rites twice. The disaster devastated the club but also forged an emotional connection with the public that has never been broken.

Busby rebuilt once more, and a decade after Munich, his team - now built around Bobby Charlton, George Best, and Denis Law - won the European Cup at Wembley in 1968, defeating Benfica 4-1. Charlton, a Munich survivor, wept at the final whistle. It was the first time an English club had won the European Cup, and it represented the fulfilment of Busby's dream and the Babes' legacy.

When Alex Ferguson arrived from Aberdeen in November 1986, Manchester United had not won the league title since 1967. It took him nearly four years - and the threat of the sack - before the 1990 FA Cup victory provided the platform for a dynasty that would dwarf everything that came before.

Ferguson's genius lay in his ability to reinvent his team repeatedly. The Class of '92 - Beckham, Scholes, Giggs, the Nevilles, and Butt - emerged as the core of a side that won the Double in 1996 and then achieved the impossible in 1999: the Treble of Premier League, FA Cup, and Champions League, the latter clinched with two injury-time goals against Bayern Munich in Barcelona. Teddy Sheringham equalised in the 91st minute and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer scored the winner moments later, in a finale so dramatic it defied belief.

Ferguson then built two more championship-winning sides: the Ronaldo-Rooney era that won the Champions League again in 2008 and three consecutive league titles, and a final team anchored by Robin van Persie that won the title in 2013. When Ferguson retired in May 2013, aged 71, he left behind a record of 13 Premier League titles, five FA Cups, and two Champions League trophies in 26 years - the most successful tenure in the history of English football.