Birthday greetings to Andy Lochhead

[Dave Clark Five]

I am reliably informed by Steve Gough that Andy Lochhead is 70 today.
Happy birthday Andy and thank you for some great memories.

[Dr Butler]

Happy Birthday Andy.
I once briefly met Andy when he played for Oldham,he was doing a fitness test at our local park the morning before they played vs Cambridge United, I was about 11/12 years old and when I told him that I'm a Villa fan like my Dad and that I had seen him play at Villa Park many times he just ruffled my hair and said good lad.

as a young lad that was the closest I got to a professional footballer.

UTV
The Doc

[VillaZogmariner]

According to Wiki it was yesterday.

[VillaZogmariner]

Can someone do a screen grab of his Wiki page and put on here please?

[darren woolley]

Happy Birthday Andy.

[supertommykN'iba]

Can someone do a screen grab of his Wiki page and put on here please?

Brilliant. I take it you had nothing to do with that?

[The Left Side]

Happy Birthday Andy!

[VillaZogmariner]

Can someone do a screen grab of his Wiki page and put on here please?

Brilliant. I take it you had nothing to do with that?

Not at all!

[VillaZogmariner]

[Dave Cooper please]

Very good.

[Andy_Lochhead_in_the_air]

My hero obviously.

It took quite while before he scored his first goal, in a home game against Doncaster. Once he was off the mark though, he got another in the same game. I can only imagine the threads if the internet had been around when he wasnt scoring. Think if we had to wait 16 games before Darren Bent scored!

His semi final header against Man U 1970 semi in front of the Holte.

I still see his shot rolling into the net in the final, and Steve Perryman chasing back to just scoop it off the line. I cried that day.

A hat trick at Oldham when we won 6-0.

He only missed one league game in the 1971-72 promotion season. Torquay United away, a night game. We were nearly up and the rumour was Andy didnt fancy the long trip. Well he got the goals to get us back out the 3rd division, so if there was any truth in that I think he had earned a break.

Then I remember the league cup game a few years back up at Burnley and most the Villa fans were giving Tony Morley a big cheer who was presented on the pitch before kick off.
No disrespect to the man who crossed the ball for us to win the European Cup but I was cheering the tall bald bloke in a long overcoat near the tunnel who helped out with the Turf Moor hospitality.

Happy Birthday big fella.

[willywombat]

I remember his first visit back to Villa Park as manager of Oldham, I think. He walked out of the players tunnel and down the track towards the dug-out and the whole ground rose to him with the Holte End singing his name. He was moved almost to tears according to my brother, who was in the Trinity Road stand. A true hero

[Pat McMahon]

I remember his first visit back to Villa Park as manager of Oldham, I think. He walked out of the players tunnel and down the track towards the dug-out and the whole ground rose to him with the Holte End singing his name. He was moved almost to tears according to my brother, who was in the Trinity Road stand. A true hero

Willywombat, it was towards the end of the 1974-5 season and he was on the coaching staff at Oldham and got a rousing reception as you correctly say. We stuffed them 5-0 that day and promotion really felt inevitable. If I remember correctly we had beaten Cardiff at home 2-0 a few nights earlier and Willie Anderson was playing for them, but I don't recall any great homage to him.

At the end of that season Doug mentioned in a matchday programme that his own proudest moment of the campaign was when Villa fans remembered somebody who had played his heart out for the club in their darkest days. Andy Lochhead had been genuinely moved by our supporters and so had Doug - not a bad achievement.

[pooligan]

Great to read these stories about Andy Lochhead. He took a lot of stick when he first arrived as he failed to score a single goal in our fight to avoid relegation to the 3rd.However i think most Villa fans grew to love the guy as he started to score goals and scare the living daylights out of most 3rd division centre halfs. I cannot think of a harder centre forward in all my years of watching the Villa. One of my memories of Andy is in a game against Port Vale at Villa Park, at one point in the Vale penalty area,there were two Vale players spark out on the floor with the rest  of their players surrounding Andy trying to get him sent off claiming he had done their players off the ball. They were right he had!

[SarkGrime]

and scare the living daylights out of most 3rd division centre halfs. I cannot think of a harder centre forward in all my years of watching the Villa.

His knees and elbows seemed to hurt them!