Come on me babbies!!
The Sunday Times
May 8 1988, Sunday
Football Focus: Villa through as promotion rival tumbles
BYLINE: JASON TOMAS
ASTON VILLA, transformed by the arrival of Graham Taylor as manager 12 months ago, are back in the First Division. Few supporters who watched their 0-0 draw at Swindon yesterday will forget the dramatic manner in which they booked their place among the elite.
Middlesbrough had been favourites to clinch the remaining automatic promotion spot, but their surprise defeat by Leicester, and Villa's result, brought the two teams level on points and also goal difference. But it was Villa who opened the celebratory champagne bottles because they had scored five more.
Villa's keeper, Nigel Spink, said afterwards that although the spectators behind his goal had kept him infomred of how the other promotion-contenders were faring ('I would have needed to be deaf not to hear them') he didn't tell his team mates. 'They kept asking me what was happening but I just told them to get on with it.'
Boro will have another chance of reaching the First Division, in the play-offs. So will Bradford, who crumbled 3-2 at home to Ipswich, and Blackburn, who won 4-1 at Millwall. But will Boro's young team be able to overcome the tension? That was their major problem against Leicester, according to their manager, Bruce Rioch. 'We noticed before the match that some of the lads were uptight. That buns up energy.'
Blackburn's win at Millwall denied Crystal Palace a place in the play-offs. After Palace's 2-0 win over Manchester City, their manager, Steve Coppell, suggested that Blackburn might have been helped by the fact that Millwall had already clinched the Second Division championship. Against that, though, Wolves, the Fourth Division champions, ended Leyton Orient's promotion hopes by beating them 2-0 at Brisbane Road.
THE NATURE of yesterday's last full League programme of the season was summed up by the knowledge that no fewer than 27 of the 92 teams still had something to play for, other than pride. The teams who made sure of going up, apart from Aston Villa, were Brighton and Bolton; those who went down were Reading and Grimsby.