I cant remember which one of their bastards crocked John Woodward for the whole season within weeks of his signing to replace Tony Hateley. But it contributed to our relegation, so I will nominate the whole of their 1966/67 team.
I'm not sure we ever faced him but their has to be inclusion of Willie 'druggy' Johnson. To be so naive as to believe any performance enhancing substance could help Scotland have anything other than their usual complete and utter abject world cup failure was prickness of the first degree.
Peter Barnes. I'm not sure why, I always just hated how he looked with his stupid blond hair and baby face when he was at Man City. When you saw that blond mop and baby face in shitty west brom stripes the prickness was complete.
Jeff Astle was a complete and utter prick as well. I say him for no other reason than if some baggies fans come sniffing round the H & V site this week and see us slagging off Astle they will get all uppity.
Don't forget his miss in front of an open goal v Brazil in Mexico in 1970. He never bothered me though because when I was a nipper he basically never played against us.
Martyn Bennett for me was incredibly easy to dislike - maybe because a couple of my schoolmates in Aldridge knew him and he sounded really arrogant.
Easy one for my Grandad though - Ronnie Allen by a mile. His last minute goal to relegate us in 1959 (?) brought my grandad to tears. In the days when violence was unheard of my grandad took his coat off to confront gloating Albion fans. To be fair to Ronnie Allen he apparently was remorseful after his goal. My grandad would still have chinned him had he met him though.
Didn't he do a lap of honour to celebrate sending us down?
I have no access to all my old memorabilia here (I think the family have kept said stuff as lining in the rabbit hutch anyway) but I have a memory of a quote along the above lines (Ronnie Allen being immediately remorseful, that is) in Peter Morris’ excellent book Aston Villa, The First 100 Years.
Your info re attendances in the Bournemouth thread show that my memory ain’t foolproof though Andy….
