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Author Topic: 50 years ago  (Read 13229 times)

Online Andy_Lochhead_in_the_air

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50 years ago
« on: August 25, 2020, 09:24:54 AM »
Should have started this the other week.

August 15th 1970. Aston Villa are in place they have never been before in their history. We travel to Saltergate Chesterfield to play our first ever game down in the depths of division three. It's bright and sunny on the opening day of the season, a packed ground with 16,760 in the town of the twisted spire. The locals have turned up to watch the famous old club come to town but it's mostly claret and blue everywhere. Villa run out 3-2 winners with two goals from Rioch and one from McMahon.
The team that day is Dunn, Wright, Aitken, Godfrey, Curtis, Chatterley, McMahon, Rioch, Lochhead, Hamilton, Anderson.





August 19th 1970. We have to start in the 1st round of the League Cup and win under the lights at Villa Park 4-0 against 4th division Notts County. Attendance 17,843.





August 22nd at home to Plymouth. 29,503 turn up but we can only draw 1-1 with McMahon scoring for us. Andy Lochhead signed back in February makes his 13th appearance for us at centre forward, he hasn't scored a single goal yet.






« Last Edit: August 25, 2020, 11:12:05 AM by Andy_Lochhead_in_the_air »

Online Andy_Lochhead_in_the_air

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Re: 50 years ago
« Reply #1 on: August 25, 2020, 11:27:12 AM »
Quote
THERE are some places in football that, as a club, you don’t want to visit. One of those, for Aston Villa, was Division Three but that’s where they found themselves in 1970, for the first time after 82 years as a league club.

Villa had started the 1969/70 season as promotion favourites. Strongly-fancied to leave Division Two by the happy route they ended up taking the rotten road out after a disunited dressing-room under Tommy Docherty saw the team floundering. After Docherty was sacked in mid-season, Vic Crowe was unable to bail out the sinking ship.

Down they went – and waiting for them first up in the third tier was Chesterfield. And, in the cramped confines of Saltergate, Villa were afforded a rough, rumbustious welcome to Division Three.

It was rough even before kick-off as fighting broke out behind a goal and Crowe went on to the pitch to plead for calm. Order was restored just before kick-off. Just after it, Villa scored.

With 90 seconds on the clock, Chico Hamilton’s corner reached Paddy McMahon who drilled the ball home. An explosion of noise hit the open terracing of the historic old ground.

Chesterfield equalised in the 18th minute through David Pugh’s header but as the match deepened Bruce Rioch exerted his influence.

The midfielder was signed for £100,000 from Luton the previous summer to power a promotion push only to find himself ever-present in a slide to relegation, finishing leading scorer with a paltry six goals. Now he showed his class.

On 28 minutes Rioch curled a 25-yard free-kick beautifully round the wall into the net. He pulled the strings from that point on and, in the 28th minute of the second half, netted again from long range.

The Spireites kept fighting and reduced the deficit eight minutes from time through Kevin Randall. That sparked more fighting on the terraces and it was amid a volatile atmosphere that Villa hung on for a win that said much about their desire to escape Division Three at the first attempt (it was to take them two goes).

“There is a terrific team spirit at Villa Park now,” observed Rioch. “And to start off with a win away from home was great.”

The Mail, meanwhile, had high praise for the Scot. “Rioch, who left Luton for the whimsies and predictions of Tommy Docherty, has found maturity and self-respect under the quiet guidance of Vic Crowe,” the paper reported. “He ruled Chesterfield’s ground with a lethal poise that promises to inject pride into Villa’s opening Division Three season.”

It was just a shame about the crowd trouble which also marred the opening-day programme elsewhere.

“Three coachloads of skinheads, on their way from Lincoln, were sent back home by police who intercepted them eight miles from Cambridge,” revealed the Mail.

Earlier in the week, Albion fans had been warned that if they attended The Hawthorns in “bovver boots” were they would be “ordered to take them off and watch the match in their stockinged feet”.


Offline steamer

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Re: 50 years ago
« Reply #2 on: August 25, 2020, 12:31:18 PM »
Those were the days

Offline Godfrey Brian

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Re: 50 years ago
« Reply #3 on: August 25, 2020, 04:51:36 PM »
The novelty of a 3:15 Saturday kick-off to start our Div 3 days. The midweek Notts County game was played in torrential rain-I was on the Witton End !

Offline dave shelley

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Re: 50 years ago
« Reply #4 on: August 25, 2020, 06:29:38 PM »
I was on holiday on the Norfolk Broads at the start of the first season in Division Three.  I had to find a phone box and ring home to find out the result of that League Cup game against Notts County as it was impossible to find out anywhere around where we were moored up.

Offline dcdavecollett

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Re: 50 years ago
« Reply #5 on: August 25, 2020, 10:56:54 PM »
Paddy McMahon? -fuck me!!

Oh, and the goal he scored didn't come from a corner, so that's only two mistakes in the opening paragraphs.

Who wrote this crap -Southgate?

Offline stubbsyandy

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Re: 50 years ago
« Reply #6 on: August 25, 2020, 11:25:17 PM »
Pat Pat Pat Pat McMahon...

Online Andy_Lochhead_in_the_air

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Re: 50 years ago
« Reply #7 on: August 26, 2020, 08:16:01 AM »
Paddy McMahon? -fuck me!!

Oh, and the goal he scored didn't come from a corner, so that's only two mistakes in the opening paragraphs.

Who wrote this crap -Southgate?

From the meaning evil site. So I didn't put the link as I normally would when quoting an article.

Offline Pat McMahon

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Re: 50 years ago
« Reply #8 on: August 26, 2020, 09:06:29 PM »
Paddy McMahon? -fuck me!!

Oh, and the goal he scored didn't come from a corner, so that's only two mistakes in the opening paragraphs.

Who wrote this crap -Southgate?

I wholeheartedly agree!

Offline dcdavecollett

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Re: 50 years ago
« Reply #9 on: August 27, 2020, 10:23:04 PM »
Yeah, but you have a conflict of interest! Is your real name Michael Vaughan?

Offline PeterWithe

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Re: 50 years ago
« Reply #10 on: August 27, 2020, 10:50:52 PM »
Three coachloads of skinheads were on route from Lincoln to Chesterfield via Cambridge?

Was Mark Thatcher driving?

Offline JD

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Re: 50 years ago
« Reply #11 on: August 28, 2020, 08:10:22 AM »
Three coachloads of skinheads were on route from Lincoln to Chesterfield via Cambridge?

Was Mark Thatcher driving?

They were that thick they were heading in  the wrong direction.

Offline Godfrey Brian

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Re: 50 years ago
« Reply #12 on: August 28, 2020, 10:20:43 AM »
The Plymouth game was our first appearence, that season, as the main match on Star Soccer. The other two main matches in which we featured were the League Cup Final and the 3-0 win v Swansea in April. I think that these were the days that the cameras were positioned on  a ramshackle gantry of scaffolding and planks on the lower Trinity. Two or three cameras only and Hugh Johns' voice providing an extensive introduction to the highlights over close ups of the players warming up. A brief match summary from Billy Wright  and that was it until the following Sunday.

Offline dave shelley

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Re: 50 years ago
« Reply #13 on: August 28, 2020, 12:53:00 PM »
I raced home from holiday on the Broads to get to that match.  As stated, it hammered rain and I got soaked down the Witton End.  On that holiday I purchased a khaki jungle hat and wore it to the game. I still have that hat and wear it when gardening.  I'm genuinely sad to say that it is now becoming a little frayed around the edges, a bit like myself.

Offline dcdavecollett

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Re: 50 years ago
« Reply #14 on: August 28, 2020, 11:33:58 PM »
We murdered Plymouth in the first half. Five or six goals would have been a fair reflection of our superiority. By one of those bitter ironies a fluky deflection meant that the first scorer at Villa Park in a third division match was Charlie Aitken -with an own goal!

 


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