On Tuesday 9th August members of the MMMF attended the Copthorne Hotel in Dudley to present a replica of the stained glass windows from St. Francis Church in Dudley to Mr Stuart Fleming, manager of the hotel. This iconic replica will be on long term loan to the hotel and will be located in the Duncan Edwards tribute room.

The windows were lovingly constructed by Steve Melgie Merry, member of the MMMF and we are delighted and proud that his work is on display in Duncan’s home town.

Below is a video of MMMF Chairman Pat Burns making the presentation in which he said:

“Thank you for that lovely introduction and a huge thank you to Stuart Fleming from the Copthorne Hotel here in Merry Hill in Dudley for warmly welcoming us here today. I am Patrick Burns, Chairman of the Manchester Munich Memorial Foundation MMMF.

We are a UK registered charity, which does charitable work relating to child welfare and children’s sports in memory of the Busby Babes in Manchester, Munich and Belgrade.  We are a small group and one of our number, a recent recruit, is Steve “Melgie” Merry. He is an incredibly talented craftsman and is also a local Black Country lad. He has been a devoted Manchester United fan all his life.

He has reproduced a replica of the famous stained glass window from St. Francis Church in Dudley in memory of Duncan Edwards. Lovingly constructed, it was temporarily homeless, but now fittingly is to be loaned long term to the Copthorne Hotel and displayed here in the Duncan Edwards tribute room, which is most apt.

Steve I hope you won’t mind me saying that other people’s loss, and it is their loss, has indeed been our gain. Steve has crafted some wonderful pieces that commemorate the Munich Air Disaster, and they are always done in an incredibly sympathetic and respectful way.

Whilst this is not strictly charity business, we take enormous pride in our group membership and so we are delighted to be able to celebrate this fantastic event with Steve and applaud his superb work. It is a huge honour for him and we are delighted his work can be appreciated by a wide audience.

This replica stained window from St. Francis Church is a magnificent addition to this wonderful tribute room in memory of Duncan and I hope it gives people much pleasure and will be a continual topic of conversation for everyone who visits and gets to see it.

Finally, Stuart, Steve has created an exact miniature replica of the memorial stone in Manchesterplatz in Trudering Riem, Munich and has asked me to present it to you Stuart in thanks for allowing and facilitating this event today.

Steve also presented a miniature replica of the Munich memorial stone at Manchesterplatz to Mrs Betty Cooksey who is the 1st cousin of Duncan Edwards

As an added bonus, the presentation was featured in the match programme v Liverpool on 22nd August – photo below

Whilst updating the content of this page, we came across a piece on the Halesowen News website