25 years ago - Hodge

[Chico Hamilton III]

Bastard!

And why did we have a ref from Hertfordshire in charge of a game at Spurs?


Football: Hodge has last laugh 
By SUE MOTT
25 January 1987
The Sunday Times

Tottenham .......... 3 Aston Villa ........ 0

THOSE expecting the bloody dispatch and dismemberment of Steve Hodge at the hands and studs of his old club, Aston Villa, were cruelly disappointed at White Hart Lane. He kept his feet to score Spurs' first goal, his head to power the second, and retired victoriously from the field at the whistle in full working order.

But, likewise, those expecting a humdinging clash replete with good football were foiled on two counts. Villa entirely lived down to their dismal away form (one win and eight goals) and Spurs were insufficiently menaced to aspire to heights.

Their comfortable 3-0 victory was presentable enough, but the chief excitement prompting a quick hallelujah chorus from the 20,000 crowd was the word spreading like wildfire that Arsenal had lost 2-0 at Old Trafford. Hodge's goals were definitely second billing to that.

His first seemed to shell-shock Spink in the Villa goal, not least because he struck the ball with his normally impotent right foot. Paul Allen had sent him clear on the left, and Hodge wheedled and weaved his way into the area, bemusing Williams, the full back, before placing the ball inside the near-post.

A Villa supporting pack promptly stepped up their crude, vociferous efforts to distract their old boy, suggesting a policy of grievous bodily harm if pure defence wouldn't work against him.

Cooper, who missed the first four months this season with a groin strain after his transfer to Villa from Aberdeen, looked the muscle-man most likely to oblige. But he unleashed his ferocity on little Paul Allen instead and earned himself a talking-to from the referee.

Unencumbered as Villa are by any semblance of potent attack, they still managed one serious chance in the first half when a header by Thompson was cleared off the line by Gough. But Gray lives up to his name these days - being a dull shade of his former self. Even had he been brighter, Mabbutt and Gough were doing fine barndoor impressions in central defence.

Birds wheeled overhead as the second-half began. But if they were vultures, their blood-lust was thwarted. Hodge was unscathed and unchallenged as he raced into meet a Hoddle corner with his head in the 50th minute. And even though Claesen collapsed in an agonized heap after a high tackle from Cooper, the referee was indisposed to take names.

In the end, he booked Danny Thomas and Clive Allen of Spurs for less than criminal offences, and Gray for being impolite.

Claesen recovered sufficiently to score his fourth goal in four games from a Hoddle pass in the 71st minute. But Spurs are still missing a little something perhaps. Like Maradona.

Weather: overcast. Ground: damp.

Goals: Hodge (14min) 1-0; Hodge (50min) 2-0; Claesen (71min) 3-0.

Aston Villa (4-4-2): Spink: Williams, Evans, Keown, Dorigo: Birch, Cooper, (sub: Daley, 79min) Hunt, Walters; Thompson, Gray.

Tottenham Hotspur (4-4-2): Clemence: D Thomas, Gough, Mabbutt, M Thomas: P Allen, Hodge, Hoddle, Waddle: C Allen, Claesen (sub: Galvin. 77min).

Referee: R Wiseman (Herts).

[Richie]

For those of you who can stomach it, here he is having the last laugh.

My God, that season was grim.

[orkneyvilla]

What is also a bit intriguing is the Villa line up. On paper it looks a fairly decent . How on earth did we manage to get convincingly relegated that season ? Can't remember all the reasons - there must have been a few ? I remember being in first year at uni when all this was going on - but becoming very detached about our results - to save myself from more pain I guess. Thanks for the clip anyway. A reminder that things can get a lot worse. How we would of leapt with joy then at the thought of mid table obscurity 25 (?) years later.

(That last bit was meant as a joke....... I think)

[N'ZMAV]

I'm just too young to remember the Steve Hodge story. I've read up about it on here and other sites. Was he really that much of a wanker? if so, why? Cheers

[pauliewalnuts]

For those of you who can stomach it, here he is having the last laugh.

My God, that season was grim.

It certainly was. Just horrible from start to end.

[Damo70]

I look at that team on paper and can't believe how bad we played that season. It just got grimmer and grimmer until we ended up at Selhurst Park to play Charlton. That was the lowest of the low. At least Hodge and Spurs lost the cup final. Even if it did mean Coventry winning it.

[Pete3206]

For those of you who can stomach it, here he is having the last laugh.

My God, that season was grim.

Take his face off the screen, I don't want to see it.

A complete wanker.

[TopDeck113]

What a truly awful season that was. 

And yes, younger readers, that is right. An attendance of only 20,000 at The Lane.  Thing is, by that stage we'd have loved a crowd that big down Villa Park.

[Pat McMahon]

I was at that game and we were utter shite. One of those games that brought nothing positive at all, not even any success from the non-stop Hodge baiting.

This was an awful period in my life and matched by events on the pitch for the whole season, resulting in the nadir at Charlton away that Damo70 refers to above. There were some decent individuals there but it was a shit team.

[Damo70]

I've heard over the years that McNeill knew months before the end of the season that he was going back to Celtic and towards the end wasn't even turning up at Bodymoor Heath for training on several occasions.

[TonyD]

Went to the game.  Bad day.  Nearly got beaten up my troubles.  Hodge SPIT

[Warren Aspinall]

For those of you who can stomach it, here he is having the last laugh.

My God, that season was grim.

The comment under the video is apt.

[ez]

Dark days indeed especially as Rotterdam was still fresh in the memory. We just knew we were doomed.

[Oscar Arce]

Total Wanker

[curiousorange]

The shite thing about that is the finish. The last time I played in goal was for the Cubs when I was ten and I could have saved that.