“ONE MAN F**KED IT”
It’s no wonder that Villa’s players still cherish
their club mementoes so much. The 12 who
played in the Rotterdam showpiece were only
awarded 34 caps between them: Withe (11),
Cowans (10), Morley (six), Rimmer and Spink
(both one-cap wonder keepers who earned
45-minute cameos) account for the majority
of them with England, while Evans (four) and
Des Bremner (one) got theirs for Scotland.
But captain Mortimer, golden boy Gary Shaw
and Kenny Swain were completely overlooked
for senior Three Lions honours, as were Gary
Williams and McNaught north of the border.
But that didn’t stop them doing their bit for
England. Extending the country’s European
Cup stranglehold into a sixth campaign was
a major motivator for Villa after Liverpool’s
trio of victories in 1977, 1978 and 1981, and
Nottingham Forest’s back-to-back double in
between. Not that fans on Merseyside were
particularly impressed when Morley showed
off the trophy at his local pub in Ormskirk.
“Typical Liverpool supporters – ‘We’ve already
seen that three times’, they went,” he recalls.
“Shut up will you, lads?”
Back then, Villa’s squad was more Scouse
than the cast of Brookside. Saunders’ troops
included a quintet who started the 1982 final:
Morley, Mortimer, Withe, Rimmer and Swain.
Morley’s allegiances lie in the blue half of
Liverpool, but the proud Toffee reckons Villa
should have challenged his boyhood team for
mid-80s dominance. Instead, Everton won
the First Division championship in 1986-87
while Villa finished bottom. By then, Howard
Kendall’s charges had already captured the
league title and European Cup Winners’ Cup
in 1985, plus the 1984 FA Cup.
“Everton went and won everything,” reflects
Morley. “But man for man I think we were far
better. Villa could have had a similar thing to
Manchester United when Gary Neville, Ryan
Giggs and David Beckham went in with greatASTOn
VILLAplayers like Steve Bruce and Bryan Robson –
we had the chance to become a superclub
and it was lost.
“I’m gutted because I’m a selfish footballer.
I wanted another couple of trophies in my
cabinet – an FA Cup or another league title.
We’ll never know now. We had a platform,
and a foundation... but one man f**ked it.”
Which man could he possibly mean?
“Doug Ellis destroyed it,” confirms Cowans.
‘Deadly Doug’ had been on a three-year
hiatus from chairing Villa during the finest
glory years the club has ever known. “That
really stuck in his craw,” ex-club secretary
Steve Stride would later tell the Birmingham
Mail. “He didn’t give that period in the club’s
history the attention it deserved and tried to
move on from it.”
By the time Villa humiliatingly tumbled out
of the top flight, just five years on from their
finest hour, only a handful of European Cup
winners remained. Instead, Ellis put his own
name on a stand at Villa Park in 1994.
Forty years on from the club’s halcyon days,
a paltry two League Cups in the mid-90s have
been added to an increasingly musty trophy
cabinet. As the anniversary arrives, by neat
coincidence Villa are now entrusting their
immediate future to a European Cup-winning
Scouser born in the early ’80s.
“When Steven Gerrard took over, people
were saying he’s using it as a stepping stone
to go to Liverpool,” says Withe. “I don’t look
at it that way. He’s been given an opportunity
to manage in the Premier League and it’s
not just any team. Aston Villa are a big club.
“Knowing Steven, he’ll want to win things.
He knows what’s happened here in the past
and he’ll be reminded of it more than ever
this year with all the celebrations. He’s used
to winning in his playing career at Liverpool
and as Rangers manager. It’s in his nature.
If you don’t dream about winning trophies,
then you shouldn’t be managing Aston Villa.”
House of Fun was at No.1 when Villa lifted
the European Cup in May 1982. No matter
how well Gerrard does, it’s Madness to think
there will ever be a cover version anywhere
near as good as the original.“VILLA COULD HAVE HAD
A SIMILAR THInG TO MAn
UnITED AnD GOnE On TO
BECOME A SUPERCLUB, BUT
THAT CHAnCE WAS LOST”
Top to bottom
“Hi there, this is
Captain Mortimer
speaking”; boss
Barton steadied
the Villans’ ship;
“Hey, will eight
bottles of bubbly
fit in this thing?”