He will be football's time traveller par excellence ; the player, who with the help of team-mates like Denis Law and George Best, fought his way back on to the highway of a compelling destiny.

Overlooking today's Old Trafford from a plush box, he recalls the first time he ran onto a field that was framed by rickety stands and says: "For a young footballer like me Europe gave everything anyone would have needed to fill their dreams and their ambitions, and then at Munich it took it all away for a little while. Well, that's how it seemed for a few years, but really it wasn't true.

"It wasn't true because when Sir Matt Busby fought to compete in Europe, against opposition from the Football League, which the previous year had stopped the champions Chelsea, he was really saying that you can't turn your back on the future, whatever the risks.

"No-one imagined that the risk would involve the loss of great young players he had come to regard as sons, and a team that he believed could grow into the best in the world. We all know that when it happened he suffered terrible pain and doubt, even to the point when he wondered whether he could go on. He did go on, United went on and so did European football to an unbelievable, magical degree."

For Charlton, 68, next week's match is one end of the rainbow that began to form on September 26, 1956 at Maine Road, the home of Manchester City. United, who were still awaiting floodlights at Old Trafford, over-ran Belgian champions Anderlecht 10-0. Charlton, still short of his 19th birthday and a few weeks away from his debut, watched mesmerised from the stand. "It was a cold, wet night but the performance of the lads was just awesome, " he says. "The floodlights were so feeble the players had to wear shiny shirts but the football was electric. I kept thinking how much I wanted to be part of this new world."

The reward for his next pilgrimage was a performance that persuaded Busby that on his first adventure into Europe he might just win it all. It was a 3-0 defeat of Bilbao Athletic, the Spanish champions. Charlton recalls:

"It was the first classic example in Europe of Matt Busby's philosophy on preparing his team for big games. Time and again, he stressed that the key was to play your own game, getting on the ball, and above all, understanding the value of patience."

Charlton got his first taste of European action at the top of the game - against Di Stefano and Francisco Gento and Raymond Kopa in the second leg of the semi-final at Old Trafford. Three-one down, United were left reeling when they conceded two goals.

They fought back to 2-2, Charlton scoring one of the late goals which brought Old Trafford to a frenzy, which was no doubt more about the future than the present.

"We believed we had the time - and certainly the potential, " he says. "But then no-one could have anticipated Munich. After it happened, we had to piece ourselves together - and make a pledge to the lads who had died on that airfield. One day we had to win the European Cup."

As he looks down on the space-age stadium, his eyes settle on the immaculately upholstered Stretford End.

"It was a different place when I played my first European game against Real Madrid - except in one respect. Then it made a kind of magic, as it does today. You would find yourself moving on goal and think, 'how did we get here, how did we take it away from Real Madrid? Then you thought that maybe it was the Stretford End, sucking the ball down into the goal."

Fifty years on, some mysteries are as elusive as ever.