Gregory on Talksport now

[not3bad]

Hard to believe we were getting much better attendances under GT II and O'Dreary than when JG was at the helm.

All I have to do is remember how the football was during the latter part of JG's reign and it isn't that hard.

[KevinGage]

We finished 5th in 1996/97, so -on the face of it- you couldn't say there was a huge decline in fortunes. 

But there was a suggestion that Cheeky Chappie JG was the perfect foil for the more introspective and thoughtful Little, and that when times eventually got tough and we went through a bad run JG wasn't there to lighten the mood having left for the Wycombe job towards the end of 1996.  The players missed having him around. That makes him sound more like a court jester than a coach, but you get what I mean. Different elements to a dressingroom et.c

Would help to explain our upturn in fortune in the second half of 1998, to an extent.   Just a shame that his ego ran riot and he started to think he was Lambert Big Bollocks when he was calling the shots.

I'm not one to excuse Herbert, but on that one I don't think that appointment was purely about the cheap option.  The money JG was allowed to spend/ fritter away seems at odds with that. 

[dave.woodhall]

I'm not one to excuse Herbert, but on that one I don't think that appointment was purely about the cheap option.  The money JG was allowed to spend/ fritter away seems at odds with that. 

It was the one time in all our lives when we had plenty of money.

[Risso]

I'm not one to excuse Herbert, but on that one I don't think that appointment was purely about the cheap option.  The money JG was allowed to spend/ fritter away seems at odds with that. 

It was the one time in all our lives when we had plenty of money.

.....and relative to nearly everybody else, which was the main thing.

[Irish villain]

Hard to believe we were getting much better attendances under GT II and O'Dreary than when JG was at the helm.

All I have to do is remember how the football was during the latter part of JG's reign and it isn't that hard.

Yes the football was dire but we were a bit more successful under Gregory than his two immediate successors (save that 6th place finish under DOL in '04).

[SoccerHQ]

I'm not one to excuse Herbert, but on that one I don't think that appointment was purely about the cheap option.  The money JG was allowed to spend/ fritter away seems at odds with that. 

It was the one time in all our lives when we had plenty of money.

Not all the time. The infamous pound signs protest happened under his management.

In hindsight losing the cup final should've been the end of the road as pretty much half the squad put in transfer requests (Joachim, Southgate, James, Merson, Ehiogu etc>) after that game but I believe JG was given a new contract just before that game.

Did lead to probably the most mind-numbing season I've watched Villa play. I usually have a computerised memory of Villa results but with 2000/01 season I'm really struggling given how non-descript it was. Apart from relegating Coventry at the end and a Merson wonder goal at Everton (maybe described by D.Woodhall on fanzone) I'm really struggling to remember anything else of that season!?

[eamonn]

No more non-descript than the following season or a couple of others over the past decade. That mad referee in the Celta Vigo Intertoto game at the Hawthorns as the Trinity Road stand had it's face uplifted and backside destroyed.
Nilis' glory goal in the Cup final rematch at Villa Park. If only we'd had him three months earlier or the following nine months...The pound signs in November when we beat Spurs 2-0 and sat pretty in the top five. Ginola hitting back at Gregory's assertion that he was too flabby with a late equaliser at home to Man City before Christmas. Before being hauled-off at half time the following month, 0-3 down to Liverpool. Angel finally arriving after red tape threatened to scupper the deal, then struggling with the pace of the game and the club not fully supporting him off it. Joachim, having been subjected to a fair bit of jeering throughout the season after handing in a transfer request the previous summer, showed some of his intermittent promise with two great goals in a win over flavour of the month Ipswich. I remember Southgate being great in that game as indeed he was for most of the season after his move to Chelsea had fallen through the previous summer. We then went on a nice scoring run in the spring. A decent win at Maine Road while Carlos Tevez was being raised by wolves in Patagonia. Finally beating bastard Leicester at Villa Park in April, Hendrie, in one of his rare goalscoring purple patches, with the winner. And then a last-gasp 3-3 at Charlton, the Coventry/JPA/Merson game and rounding it all off with an abject last day performance at Newcastle with Daveed being subbed and leaving in a strop at the place where he had once been a hero. A fair bit of frustration and dross in between but not uneventful on the whole.

[Steve R]

Hard to believe we were getting much better attendances under GT II and O'Dreary than when JG was at the helm.

All I have to do is remember how the football was during the latter part of JG's reign and it isn't that hard.

Yes the football was dire but we were a bit more successful under Gregory than his two immediate successors (save that 6th place finish under DOL in '04).

Gregory had all but sold the family silver. Each of his successors had a bit of a wedge to buy a striker but that was about it. Welcome to the club messrs Gudjohnson, Kinsella, Bakke and Leonhardsen and whoever else we found cheap.

We still hadn't recovered by 2006 when RL took over. At least we are showing a bit of life sooner this time around.

[Vancouver]

Leonhardsen was signed by GT after he read the match programme at spurs and remembered that he played there but hadn't seen him in a while.

[Irish villain]

Eamonn, that is a brilliant synopsis of that season....I'd love to read your thoughts on each season since then!!

[bob bobson]

dodged a bullet by not signing juninho tbh

[QBVILLA]

dodged a bullet by not signing juninho tbh

I thought he was brilliant for Boro

[N'ZMAV]

First time round he was.

[bob bobson]

when he

dodged a bullet by not signing juninho tbh

I thought he was brilliant for Boro

he was in his first spell - he went back on loan to boro about 6 months after we were in for him and he was a shadow of his former self

and then when he returned properly he still wasnt a patch on the player he was first ime

[eamonn]

Eamonn, that is a brilliant synopsis of that season....I'd love to read your thoughts on each season since then!!

Tá fáilte romhat. Had to double-check a couple of things on soccerbase but remembered most of the stuff fairly well. I'd struggle a bit with the following year and O'Leary's second season, '04/'05.

From the early 90's onwards, like yourself I imagine, my memory of where I was/what I was doing on a particular date is guided completely by recalling Villa's game on that particular day.