MARK Jones was one of the most talented footballers to come out of Barnsley.
Born on June 15, 1933, he lived with his family in Wombwell.
Tragically, he was one of eight Manchester United 'Busby Babes' to lose their lives in the Munich Air Disaster on February 6, 1958.
Mark showed his talent on the football field at a very early age and went on to play regularly in Manchester United's magnificent young team at centre half collecting two League Championship medals.
He missed the 1957 FA Cup Final 2-1 defeat to Aston Villa because of an eye injury and looked set for an international call-up which many sources believed would come his way.
Mark, who was 24 when he died, had played for Manchester United in a European Cup match against Red Star Belgrade, Yugoslavia. The match ended in a 3-3 draw putting United through as they had won the first leg 2-1. The plane taking the United team back to Manchester stopped at Munich for refuelling but tragedy struck when the plane tried to takeoff in icy conditions.
It made two attempts and on the third it lost height, crashed through a fence, went across a road and into a house. Twenty-three died including Mark's Barnsley-born team-mate Tommy Taylor and other United players - Geoff Bent, Roger Byrne, Eddie Colman, Duncan Edwards (he survived the crash but died in hospital 15 days later), David Pegg, Billy Whelan, the club's chief coach Bert Whalley, trainer Tom Currey and former England and Manchester City goalkeeper Frank Swift who was covering the match as a journalist for the News of the World. Other journalists also lost their lives and several others in the party were critically injured, including manager Matt Busby.
Mark was always a keen footballer and as a young lad played for Don and Dearne and Darfield Foulstone schoolboys' football teams and Barnsley schoolboys. He also played for England schoolboys four times.
It was during one of these latter games that a Manchester United scout spotted him and he became the youngest player, at the age of 16, to appear in their reserve team.
Mark's debut for Manchester United's first team was on October 7, 1950, at Old Trafford against Sheffield Wednesday. He did not play in many first team matches in the next two or three seasons but in the 1955-56 season he played 42 games for the club and went on to win a First Division Championship medal.
Photographs showing Mark as a young promising footballer have come into the possession of the Chronicle's chief photographer Wes Hobson.
One of them shows Mark playing for Don and Dearne schoolboys in 1947-48. Mark is second from the left on the back row.
Two other photographs show Mark when he played for Darfield Foulstone School. On both of them he is proudly wearing his England schoolboy's kit.
