Duncan Edwards was once the great hope of English soccer, a strapping 6-foot, 180-pound lad from the Midlands who, in 1953, debuted for Manchester United … at age 16!

It wasn’t just his size, or his strength, or his precocious skills that made Edwards such a revered figure. He was seen as the very essence of everything that was best in the English game, a modest, working-class boy who played the game in the uncompromising, no-frills English way. Hard but fair, they said, and there was no higher praise than that.

His career ended in appalling tragedy. On February 6, 1958, a plane bringing Manchester United back from a game in Europe crashed at Munich airport. Six team members were killed. Edwards, severely injured, clung to life for another two weeks. But the hopes and prayers of what seemed to be the whole nation were not enough. Edwards died on February 15, at age 21.

The myth of Duncan Edwards was born that same day and it flourishes still. Edwards is now enshrined as the best halfback ever to play in England, hailed as a player who would have become the greatest in the worldwide history of the game.

Posthumous hyperbole is naturally resistant to reason, but it seems to me unlikely that Edwards would have become a world great; his skills were too straightforward, too essentially English to dominate the much more subtle game played on the world stage. But within England, the Edwards legend appears unassailable. In the 47 years since his death, no player has arisen to challenge his status as the epitome of the English game. The tragic Edwards myth has a beautiful, innocent purity to it, far too enshrined in sentiment to be even dented by the claims of the stars who have followed.

The modern player most similar to Edwards has been much in the news recently: Steven Gerrard, a strapping 6-foot-1-inch, modest, working-class lad who debuted for Liverpool at age 18 and plays soccer the English way – hard but fair. Gerrard, however, lives and plays in a world that offers temptations and demands decisions that never troubled Duncan Edwards.

Money problems, mostly. When Edwards died, Manchester United was paying this most promising of all players 750 pounds a year. That was close to the maximum permitted by the English pro league in those days. Last week, the 25-year-old Gerrard was agonizing over whether to accept a new contract offer from Liverpool – for over 100,000 pounds a week.

Liverpool has been Gerrard’s life. He was born there, he grew up there, he speaks with the thick, nasal scouser accent, and he is the captain of Liverpool, the only club he has ever played for. He has said, more than once, that he has “no intention of ever going to play for another club.”

Last Tuesday came the shattering thunderbolt. Gerrard announced he wanted to leave Liverpool. This was worse than shocking. This was a betrayal.

Everyone knew that Chelsea had been sniffing around for months, that it had offered a British record $56 million to Liverpool as a transfer fee for Gerrard; Real Madrid was also said to be interested. But none of that was supposed to matter, because Stevie would never leave Liverpool … he couldn’t, could he, not right after he had led the club to an extraordinary victory in the European Champions League? Had he not said, “How can I leave after a night like this?”

Now, Gerrard made it known that he was disappointed with the club’s attitude during contract negotiations, that he felt unwanted. The Liverpool fans, among the sport’s most devoted and rabid, reacted with all the anger and bitterness of the jilted. At the club’s training ground on Wednesday morning they hung a “Judas” banner and burned Gerrard’s no. 8 jersey.

While this hero-turned-traitor drama was being enacted, the ex-hero had shut himself away in his home, had turned off the television and the telephone, and was listening only to himself, to a heartbeat of a young man who was now a millionaire, but a heartbeat that, more insistently than anything else, pounded out the word Liverpool.

It took less than 24 hours for Gerrard to decide: He would stay. “I couldn’t go through with it,” he admitted, “This is my club. My heart is still with Liverpool.”

On Wednesday afternoon, Gerrard drove to training, where relieved fans greeted him with prolonged cheering. As far as those fans were concerned, Steven Gerrard had done the decent thing. The club announced that Gerrard would now be “one of English soccer’s highest paid players” with his new contract thought to be worth $175,000 a week. The four-year deal will enrich him by some $36 million, but there is little doubt that Chelsea would have paid him more – there was even a rumor that Real Madrid would pay him double the Liverpool amount.

But in the end, it was not about money for Gerrard. He had done what is rarely done in this age, turning his back on extra riches. This was an act of faith – proof that, for him, club loyalty was stronger than money. Suddenly, just for a moment, English soccer was imbued with a purity and innocence that is rare for the modern game. The money, the contracts, and the agents were pushed aside to make way for the emotional value of a club shirt and for the game itself.

“The speculation has affected me,” said Gerrard, “but next season you’ll see a Steven Gerrard who has got a clear mind and who is focused on his football. I’ll be a better player next season.”

It was a moment to recall the days of Duncan Edwards and to realize that despite the vast changes that have swept through the sport and the lifestyles of its players, the essential qualities of the English player – those that Edwards possessed in the 1950s, those that Gerrard has today – have remained largely unaltered.

Edwards was a halfback, Gerrard is midfielder, but that is merely a change in terminology. For the rest, there is limitless energy, a huge heart, a never-say-die attitude, bravery, team spirit, and sportsmanship. There is the ability to defend and tackle like a tiger, and the skill to dribble forward and score goals. A captain is, of course, a leader by example.

Still, missing from that formidable catalogue of English midfielder skills are the artistry, subtlety, and sophistication of true greats like Di Stefano, Cruyff, Maradona, Pele, and Platini. Duncan Edwards died before he faced comparison with such players. Gerrard’s instincts have told him that the place for his style of soccer is in England.

His instincts are correct. The canny Alex Ferguson confirmed it when he called Gerrard “the most influential player in England.” Not in the world, but in England. Certainly in England.