Happy 50th Gary Shaw (actually his 51st!)

[darren woolley]

A belated happy birthday Gary was one of my heroes too.

[The Laughing Policeman]

Belated greetings Gary. Once one of my heroes and now a good friend.
The only problem is, he has an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of our club and almost every time we meet he will have a question for me about some really obscure part of the clubs history. Needless to say I've never got an answer right!

[rutski]

Happy 51st gary, my boyhood hero, the one of two i always pretended to be in the playground(the other beind Zico) and the man i wrote to jim'll fix it to play football with! true legend in my eyes.

[john e]

I am also in the 'boyhood hero' club,
even had my hair cut in the same style as him, although obviously I was always better looking

[Big Dick Edwards]

I went out with a girl once, not because I particularly fancied her, but because she was a neighbour of gary Shaw and I wanted her to get me his autograph.

[TimTheVillain]

Belated Happy Birthday Gary, Villa legend

[dicedlam]

I think Mr Shaw can be genuinely filed under the title legend.

Happy Birthday Gary and thanks for some of the best memories of being a Villa fan over the past fifty years.

[AVGB1874]

Indeed Gary is a legend.  Unfortunately our great club seem to have forgotten this!  Gary has never been given a testimonial by the club!  Brian Little did, Sid Cowans did but not Gary.  That injury, against Forest virtually finished him.  The club have done nothing for him since.  He's one of our own....Villa through and through and unlike some of the Championship/European Cup team did not peddle his talent at Small Heath.

I personally feel deep sorrow that one of our greatest players has been treated this way.  Only hope H & V can put some pressure on the club to right this wrong!!!!!

[Percy McCarthy]

He was a boyhood hero of mine from when he was about 8 years old - even at that age people were predicting a bright future for him.

Steffo: I think I was at that game. Was it a final?

[Billy Walker]

Gary Shaw should be a Club Ambassador.

[ktvillan]

My generation, only 6 weeks younger than me.  A very good striker andI often think he would have gone on to great things, the genuine superstar that our youth system never quite produced (with all due respect to the likes of Little and Sid).  Possibly not with Villa though, we weren't fashionable enough even when we won the league and EC.

[john e]

my lad who never saw him play asked me what modern player could he be compared to, i said Dennis Bergkamp, but its not really right is it,
 so who would it be ?

[PeterWithesShin]

A more skillful version of Sheringham maybe? Thinking about it, it is quite hard to say who he was like, especially as I was young at the time so wasn't massively into the finer aspects of the game.

[Percy McCarthy]

Hernandez?

[Legion]

Messi?