Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Heroes Discussion => Topic started by: mcgrath_85 on April 10, 2020, 07:46:18 PM
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Hi guys. I hope everyone is safe and well! During this strange period of no new Aston Villa stories or matches and having a way more down time than usual I've decided to revisit some Villa season reviews on the YouTube. The first one I've watched again after many years is the 1991-1992 season: Big Ron's first season in charge that largely served as a transitional year. I thought it would be nice and welcome to start a thread so folks can share their memories of that season.
What struck me first off, was the amount of new faces that came in and ones that left before and during the season. It was clear that Ron didn't rate the squad that did so poorly under Josef Venglos and rightly so. It's very reminiscent of what we've done this season, although we didn't sign a load of young foriegn players with no English football experience. ::)
Further thoughts on the not so great season but instrumental for the two to follow was Cyrille Regis playing a big role even though he looked forty. Also, I didn't realise that Dwight Yorke was a regular starter at that time and his class was apparent then. Overall, after watching the review, it made me pine even more for how football used to be and even Aston Villa for that matter.
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Watched Villa in Dublin that pre-season with all the new faces and Andy Gray was Big Ron's assistant. Remember Paul Mortimer having a great game and thinking hell be a good`un. I'll just get me coat...
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The worrying thing is how many of the new signings have since died.
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I think I was at our first pre season fixture and BFR's first game at Witney Town when half of the team were Villa debutants. Apparently BFR had done some part time coaching there whilst still playing for nearby Oxford. Very informal, no stands and basically a parks pitch style set up. We stood on the touchline and I had a chat with Kevin Richardson who had just been subbed and was standing on the touchline with the rest of us fans (there were very very few of us as I recall). I saw Ivo Stas play and score in what to the best of my recollection was a 6-0 win. He hit the side netting and it went through the netting and into the goal and the ref allowed it.
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May i be the first to say that Sheffield Wednesday away on the first day of the season was one of the best away days ever.
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May i be the first to say that Sheffield Wednesday away on the first day of the season was one of the best away days ever.
Fantastic day, bathed in sunshine, winning in the last few minutes. My first trip to Hillsborough with my mates from Holly Lane Football Club. Great days.
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The Hillsborough reprise last April was pretty sweet too.
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The week before Sheffield Wednesday, Villa took a team to Gl**cester City for a friendly.
We all went over expecting the youth team and were pretty shocked when the first XI played the first 45 mins. I knew the Gl**cester manager and Chairman at the time, they were really good people, and they got me and three mates some tickets to go into the supporters club and possibly meet the players after.
So, four of us are sat there just having a drink, when Tim, the manager, calls me over. He hands me this huge bottle of champagne and tells me to follow him. Before I know it, Big Ron and Andy Gray are sat in front of me. I get to present this champagne to them as a thank you for bringing such a strong side. He then invites my mates through and we get photos with the players.
It was a fantastic night and I was so grateful to Tim for what he did.
Then a week later, we had one of the best away days ever in Sheffield!!
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That Sheffield Wednesday away game is up their in my 5 top away experiences. It was absolutely bananas.
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Of course this was also the season of 1 goal in 11 games finished with a 5-2 win at Spurs!
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We really, really, really should have won the bloody cup.
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The new signings; Sealey, Kubicki, Ugo, Teale, Staunton, Richardon, Mortimer, Regis, Atkinson. What a class bunch of signings, the only fuck up being Mortimer. We then also signed Parker and Barrett during the season.
Somewhat better than our success rate with signings over the past 10 years.
Also, as Dave said, the sad thing is that 3 of those initial signings have died well before their time.
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Sealey, Ehiogu, Regis, Atkinson. Four have died, which really is hard to fathom.
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Unfortunately it's 4. Dear old Les departed a few years back.
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May i be the first to say that Sheffield Wednesday away on the first day of the season was one of the best away days ever.
Yes, a fantastic day. It’s hard to imagine now what a big story it was at the time, Big Ron leaving “the best job in the world” and then returning to Hillsborough for his first league game. He was getting real grief off them before the game as well. We tore them to pieces on the pitch. How many Villa debuts that day? That was when new players didn’t need a dozen games to settle in
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Didn't know about Sealey. RIP.
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I've just watched the season review online inspired by the OP. Some observations:
- Daley scored some crackers that year.
- Dwight looked close to the finished article already.
- The pitch looked horrendous.
- The graphics of the video might have seemed cutting edge at the time but they look comically bad now. Overall I thought the presentation was really amateurish. I had the 89/90 season review and played it to death when I was a kid and I think that was better. Football league production rather than in house maybe?
- A fleeting cameo from the editor in the montage before the end of season match v Coventry.
I'm going to watch the 96/97 season review now. Still my most attended season so should be some memories.
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May i be the first to say that Sheffield Wednesday away on the first day of the season was one of the best away days ever.
Yes, a fantastic day. It’s hard to imagine now what a big story it was at the time, Big Ron leaving “the best job in the world” and then returning to Hillsborough for his first league game. He was getting real grief off them before the game as well. We tore them to pieces on the pitch. How many Villa debuts that day? That was when new players didn’t need a dozen games to settle in
It would only be fair to point out that before we "tore them to pieces" they went into a two goal lead. It was however undoubtably one of the best ever away games. I have just read an old report on the game that has the quote "Ron Atkinson patrolled the touchline smiling like a perma-tanned Judas imune to the dog's abuse he was getting". A week before the game I was having a drink with Dwight Yorke in the Sheldon pub my mates and I drank in on a Sunday night. My female cousin had brought Dwight along as she lived next to to him in Shustoke. I brought up the subject of the upcoming game and all the Big Ron controversy and I kid you not he looked at me and asked "Who are we playing on the first day"?
After the game and the coach journey back our group of mates retired to the Olton Tavern and had a round of brandy and cigars to toast Big Ron and our victory.
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May i be the first to say that Sheffield Wednesday away on the first day of the season was one of the best away days ever.
Fantastic day, bathed in sunshine, winning in the last few minutes. My first trip to Hillsborough with my mates from Holly Lane Football Club. Great days.
I was in the under 15’s at Holly Lane that year.
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May i be the first to say that Sheffield Wednesday away on the first day of the season was one of the best away days ever.
Fantastic day, bathed in sunshine, winning in the last few minutes. My first trip to Hillsborough with my mates from Holly Lane Football Club. Great days.
I was in the under 15’s at Holly Lane that year.
I hope that refers to the football team and not your female classmates. ;)
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Tony Daley's volley vs Man City that season still be of the finest goals I have ever witnessed in front of the Holte.
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Funny I have no recollection of that game, though I must have been there, but still remember our five-one battering by them the previous season.
Even my memory is out to get me.
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Wasn't that game against Citeh a rearranged game after previously being postponed due to the weather?
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That summer, I was working for my Dad, driving his van around town dropping off print deliveries as I'd graduated the year before, had no idea what to do, travelled for a few months and come back to earn money to fuck off somewhere else again.
I remember hearing we were expecting to unveil Atkinson on the radio whilst i was that side of town so thought, fuck it, I'll go to the ground and see if anything is happening.
Get there and there's about 200 people stood outside the North Stand. After a bit they waved us through into the lower North and onto the edge of the pitch and Doug and Atkinson turn up, with a football, a scarf and a large bottle of champagne for photos with us. Ellis was Ellis, Ron was Ron, pretty much as you'd expect.
For ages I had a cutting from the Mail of a photo of it, in which i could spot myself. No idea what happened to that.
Fuck, it seems like 100 years ago.
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Unfortunately it's 4. Dear old Les departed a few years back.
I once went to watch the reserves in a game Sealey played in (at Villa Park). You had to see him in the reserves to be able to hear exactly how batshit mental he was. Pretty sure it was the Breitkreutz, Beinlich debut.
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That summer, I was working for my Dad, driving his van around town dropping off print deliveries as I'd graduated the year before, had no idea what to do, travelled for a few months and come back to earn money to fuck off somewhere else again.
I remember hearing we were expecting to unveil Atkinson on the radio whilst i was that side of town so thought, fuck it, I'll go to the ground and see if anything is happening.
Get there and there's about 200 people stood outside the North Stand. After a bit they waved us through into the lower North and onto the edge of the pitch and Doug and Atkinson turn up, with a football, a scarf and a large bottle of champagne for photos with us. Ellis was Ellis, Ron was Ron, pretty much as you'd expect.
For ages I had a cutting from the Mail of a photo of it, in which i could spot myself. No idea what happened to that.
Fuck, it seems like 100 years ago.
I remember the on/off saga of him leaving for Villa, staying at Wednesday, leaving for Villa as I think it was going on around the time Wednesday were having an open top bus celebration for their cup win/promotion campaign. Although saga is probably the wrong word as it suggests a long drawn out affair whereas I think it was all played out over a few days. It just appeared a saga at the time. I also have to admit to buying a rather cheesy 'Big Ron's Back In Town' T-shirt around that time.
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Paul Mortimer was a strange one. What happened there?
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May i be the first to say that Sheffield Wednesday away on the first day of the season was one of the best away days ever.
Still my best away day of all time. Completely unsurpassed and that includes SHA away wins. The Albion away one in SGT’s first season was also special as was the FA Cup game a season later.
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May i be the first to say that Sheffield Wednesday away on the first day of the season was one of the best away days ever.
Fantastic day, bathed in sunshine, winning in the last few minutes. My first trip to Hillsborough with my mates from Holly Lane Football Club. Great days.
I was in the under 15’s at Holly Lane that year.
The first team won the league and cup. Played at the St Andrews against Kynoch. We won 2-0. Won the league on the Sunday morning's as well. Great days, really enjoyed my time there.
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Paul Mortimer was a strange one. What happened there?
Poor attitude, crap, sold quickly to Palace.
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To link Sheffield Wednesday and Les Sealey, remember the home game at Villa Park that season when we lost 1-0 and the pitch was covered in green sand? I think this was because the pitch was knackered and it wasn’t helped by Sealey crawling though it commando style before the game.
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It was never a goal in a million years.
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It was never a goal in a million years.
I seem to recall a Sealey mistake at home to Sheffield Wednesday but I can't recall if back then I thought it should have been a goal or not.
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Nigel Jemson weak header that he made a complete meal of that I think the that generation anti Villa referee George Courtney gave despite it being impossible for him to see.
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I was middle first row of North Stand Upper, best view of the incident in the ground.
Goal, my arse.
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I was middle first row of North Stand Upper, best view of the incident in the ground.
Goal, my arse.
I remember it well. Les went absolutely bonkers.
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https://youtu.be/HbnwHUAmXvA
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I dunno, he arches his arse back quite a lot when saving it. We'd have been screaming for it up the other end.
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https://youtu.be/1t7KyGr-uBI
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I was middle first row of North Stand Upper, best view of the incident in the ground.
Goal, my arse.
I remember it well. Les went absolutely bonkers.
Les was absolutely bonkers. Mr Angry.
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It was a goal. No question.
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Sadly it did look like a goal to me too.
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As others have said, there opening day at Hillsborough was one of the best away days ever. The build-up, the animosity, going 0-2 down in the game - none of it looked good and yet it ended up being bloody brilliant.
Sadly, I don't remember much about the rest of the season, seemed a bit of a let down from what I remember. Obviously next season was fantastic - close to being perfect.
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The ridiculous thing was we finished 7th without looking overly spectacular. How on earth can you go 11 games scoring 1 goal and finish 7th!!
Of course this was the season before the Premier League and post Italia 90 which I’d argue was just about the best time for watching before the game became a lot of overblown hyped up nonsense.
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My main memory of it was fully understanding just how good Cyrille Regis was. It was also nice to be decent again as, 89/90 apart, we'd only had fleeting moments for a few years.
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May i be the first to say that Sheffield Wednesday away on the first day of the season was one of the best away days ever.
Lives long in my memory; fantastic day out.
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May i be the first to say that Sheffield Wednesday away on the first day of the season was one of the best away days ever.
Lives long in my memory; fantastic day out.
Agreed, absolutely tremendous day.
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I think we won 5 in a row and were going well, then got battered 4-1 at home to Leeds. From then on it was patchy with a good cup run that sould have been better.
Highlight aside from the opening day, going 2-0 down at Spurs to come back and win 5-2.
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I remember that quarter final against Liverpool being my first genuine heartache with the Villa. There’s been a few since!
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I remember that quarter final against Liverpool being my first genuine heartache with the Villa. There’s been a few since!
My first Villa heartache was losing the FA Cup quarter final to a late Ray Stewart penalty in 1980. I wasn't even there, I was watching the World Of Sport goal updates coming up whilst watching the wrestling.
I was at the Liverpool quarter final and we played well despite being given f*ck all by the aptly named P. Don. That is the year that could and should have been our year. We would have faced a semi final and final both against second division sides.
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Sadly, I don't remember much about the rest of the season, seemed a bit of a let down from what I remember. Obviously next season was fantastic - close to being perfect.
Hillsborough was standout. Tottingham away at the back end of the season was a great day out too.
The goal drought which occurred around Feb/ March (though not in the cup, weirdly enough)set us back, but any season where we beat Arsenal, Liverpool, Totttingham, Chelsea and Man Citeh in the near future will prob be viewed as a good one.
We were 3rd going into November (unless the memory is playing tricks) and were spoken about as outsiders for the title. We won three of our games around the Christmas period as well (Citeh, West Ham and Soton) which is unusual for us.
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Ron turned out to be a patchy manager as much as I loved him. Great periods in the first season the wonderful second season until Easter and then 42 points from 43 games was it until he got the tin tack.
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This was season we signed the two German lads as well, Matthaus Breitkreutz and Stefan Beinlich.
Don't think Beinlich appeared in the first team, but Breitktreutz came in against Norwich or Everton at home (maybe both). Looked like he had good delivery from set pieces, particularly right corner with the left peg. Had a little of the Sid Cowans about him in general play as well - maybe too little, based on his career after us.
Beinlich appeared a bit more at the back end of 93/94 IIRC. But if I had to guess which one out of the two of them would go on to be German international and have a good career in the Bundesliga, it wouldn't have been him.
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Both the Swindon and Liverpool cup games were beautiful Sunday afternoons. I'm still pretty gutted about that quarter final. Win it and win the cup. I used to have a tape Andy Grey did called 'An Insight to the Villa' where he talked about the season as a whole, and IIRC he was pretty adamant that if Ron had have started with Froggatt we would have won.
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I remember queing overnight on Witton Lane for the Liverpool QF tickets, it was a Sat night and we'd been away at Man City that day. Me and a mate were dispatched to the Aston Tavern to get a carry out and had about 6 pints before we ventured back. There was a game of football with about 30 a side and someone had the Cricket WC on the radio.
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I remember queing overnight on Witton Lane for the Liverpool QF tickets, it was a Sat night and we'd been away at Man City that day. Me and a mate were dispatched to the Aston Tavern to get a carry out and had about 6 pints before we ventured back. There was a game of football with about 30 a side and someone had the Cricket WC on the radio.
I remember it being a very dank morning, getting there very early and being amazed at the numbers already there, and obviously spending the next few hours trying to work out if there were going to have any left when we got to the office.
Our kid, bored of having his hot hatches stolen, had instead bought an old Astra van for £500 and I think 6 of us were piled into it. Made a great sound banging the panels in time to "BFR's claret and blue army"
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I remember queing overnight on Witton Lane for the Liverpool QF tickets, it was a Sat night and we'd been away at Man City that day. Me and a mate were dispatched to the Aston Tavern to get a carry out and had about 6 pints before we ventured back. There was a game of football with about 30 a side and someone had the Cricket WC on the radio.
I remember it being a very dank morning, getting there very early and being amazed at the numbers already there, and obviously spending the next few hours trying to work out if there were going to have any left when we got to the office.
Our kid, bored of having his hot hatches stolen, had instead bought an old Astra van for £500 and I think 6 of us were piled into it. Made a great sound banging the panels in time to "BFR's claret and blue army"
Yes, i think that remains to this day the longest i've stood and queued for tickets for anything. We turned up on the day but likewise i couldn't quite believe it and worried they'd be sold out by the time we got there. I remember on match day a lot of moaning about the fact that Liverpool had some empty seats in the home end as well.
I went to loads of away games that season but missed Sheff Wed as i was on holiday and Tottenham because i was in trouble with my dad about how little college work i'd been doing for the previous 6 months. The 2 best ones as well.
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I remember queing overnight on Witton Lane for the Liverpool QF tickets, it was a Sat night and we'd been away at Man City that day. Me and a mate were dispatched to the Aston Tavern to get a carry out and had about 6 pints before we ventured back. There was a game of football with about 30 a side and someone had the Cricket WC on the radio.
I remember it being a very dank morning, getting there very early and being amazed at the numbers already there, and obviously spending the next few hours trying to work out if there were going to have any left when we got to the office.
Our kid, bored of having his hot hatches stolen, had instead bought an old Astra van for £500 and I think 6 of us were piled into it. Made a great sound banging the panels in time to "BFR's claret and blue army"
Yes, i think that remains to this day the longest i've stood and queued for tickets for anything. We turned up on the day but likewise i couldn't quite believe it and worried they'd be sold out by the time we got there. I remember on match day a lot of moaning about the fact that Liverpool had some empty seats in the home end as well.
I went to loads of away games that season but missed Sheff Wed as i was on holiday and Tottenham because i was in trouble with my dad about how little college work i'd been doing for the previous 6 months. The 2 best ones as well.
We went everywhere around that time, but missed Spurs as my brother, who as a 15 year old I was reliant on for travel, was buying white goods that day for his new house.
Shameful.
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I remember that quarter final against Liverpool being my first genuine heartache with the Villa. There’s been a few since!
My first Villa heartache was losing the FA Cup quarter final to a late Ray Stewart penalty in 1980. I wasn't even there, I was watching the World Of Sport goal updates coming up whilst watching the wrestling.
I was at the Liverpool quarter final and we played well despite being given f*ck all by the aptly named P. Don. That is the year that could and should have been our year. We would have faced a semi final and final both against second division sides.
I think we must be around the same age. The West Ham quarter final was gut wrenching, I can still remember the goal being reported on the radio. McNaught needlessly handled the ball from a corner, which increased the hostility towards him from sections of the supporters who had never accepted him fully as Nicholl's replacement.
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Didn't Ken claim that David Cross -who he was jumping with- nudged Ken's elbow so his arm made contact with the ball?