William Anthony Foulkes ( /faʊks/ or /foʊks/; 5 January 1932 – 25 November 2013) was an English footballer who played for Manchester United in the Busby Babes teams of the 1950s, and also in the 1960s.

For Manchester United, he played 688 games which places him at number 4 on the all-time list of appearances behind Ryan Giggs, Bobby Charlton and Paul Scholes.

Foulkes himself played for the Whiston Boys Club in his teens, and also worked at the Lea Green Colliery as a miner,[4] a job which he continued into the mid-1950s by which time he was a regular member of the Manchester United first team and had made his solitary appearance for the full England side.

[4] During this time, he continued to work part-time at the coal mine, feeling he was not good enough to play full-time league football.

[7] Foulkes scored his first of only nine goals for the club during the 1953–54 season against Newcastle United in a First Division match on 2 January 1954 at St James' Park.

Foulkes won his first cap for England 22 months after making his United debut, playing at right-back against Northern Ireland on 2 October 1954.

Because of that, United manager Matt Busby began to favour Ian Greaves over Foulkes at right-back.

Foulkes responded by training harder than usual, determined to be called back to play for the first-team.

United also reached the FA Cup final, losing 2–1 to Aston Villa, and successfully defended their Championship title that season.

[9] On the return journey to Manchester on 6 February 1958, the British European Airways aircraft that the team was on stopped at Munich to refuel.

At that time, Foulkes had been running a card school with Kenny Morgans, David Pegg, Albert Scanlon, Roger Byrne and Liam Whelan in the middle of the plane.

"[9] On the third attempt to take off, the pilots managed to control the surging, but as the plane reached the V1 speed, after which it is dangerous to abort takeoff, airspeed suddenly dropped.

In the 1998 interview, Foulkes recalled, The plane was bouncing along and obviously not going fast enough and then suddenly there were three tremendous sickening thuds and everything was spinning around.

He visited Duncan Edwards, Johnny Berry, Jackie Blanchflower, Viollet, Scanlon, Charlton and Ray Wood.

Seven of his teammates – Mark Jones, David Pegg, Roger Byrne, Geoff Bent, Eddie Colman, Liam Whelan and Tommy Taylor – had died at the scene of the crash, as had a further 14 people including three Manchester United officials.

Club secretary Walter Crickmer and coaches Tom Curry and Bert Whalley were also killed instantly.

Over the years since the disaster, Foulkes felt anger about the fact that the pilots had tried to take off a third time, despite the obvious dangers.

After matches against Sheffield Wednesday, West Bromwich Albion and Fulham, United reached the FA Cup final, losing 2–0 to Bolton Wanderers.

In the 1962–63 season, United did badly in the league, finishing in 19th place, but won the FA Cup after winning the final 3–1 against Leicester City on 25 May 1963.

On 11 November 1964, in a European Cup game against Borussia Dortmund Foulkes played in his 511th United match and became record club appearance-maker, taking this title from Joe Spence who held it for more than 36 years.

Foulkes sidefooted the ball into the net, scoring one of the most important goals of his career and sending United into the final.

Then, Best, Brian Kidd and Charlton scored a goal each, and United triumphed 4–1, becoming the first English team to win the European Cup.

10 years after the Munich air disaster, Foulkes had finally won a European Cup winners medal at the age of 36.

In the 1968–69 season, Wilf McGuinness (who had played alongside Foulkes in the late 1950s) replaced the retiring Busby as manager of United.

Foulkes played only three games under McGuinness, the last coming early during the 1969–70 season in a 1–4 loss against Southampton at Old Trafford on 16 August 1969.

[14] After retirement, he stayed at Old Trafford as a youth team coach from 1970 to 1975, when he finally left United after 25 years of unbroken service.

He was in attendance along with the four remaining players who survived the Munich tragedy on 21 May 2008, when United beat Chelsea on penalties in the final of the European Cup in Moscow, Russia.

[19] In April 2011, he was portrayed by actor James Callàs Ball in the BBC TV drama United, the storyline of which was centred around the Munich air disaster.

[24] His last appearance in public was almost four years earlier at the funeral of Albert Scanlon, another United player who survived the Munich crash.