30-8-1975 (41 Years ago today)

[castlefields_villan]

Villa 1, Coventry 0 :

Anyone remember this ?  Our first win back in the big time after 8 years in the wilderness.

Probably my main reason for remembering the game is because as an 18 year old, I went to a game, for the first and probably only time, massively hungover after a night out with a mate who had come home on leave from the army and I hadn't seen him for around a year.

[Villafirst]

Yes, I was in Majorca on that day, but got the result from a newspaper at Palma Airport on the way back! I think Keith Leonard scored the winner? I'm sure the week before we lost 5-3 to Norwich at Carrow Road in a crazy game?

[Witton Warrior]

I was there but don't recall a damned thing! Was at the first game that season we lost 1-2 against Leeds then we seemed to draw all the time - no change there then ;-)

[castlefields_villan]

We lost 5-3 away at Norwich on the second Saturday of that season.  It was my first visit to Carrow Road and obviously having won their 4-1 to spoil their promotion celebrations at the end of the previous season, we went there full of confidence.

I remember a crazy 5 minutes before half time. at twenty to four it was still 1-1 and they scored three times before half time.  A spirited second half saw us get it back to 4-3 but they scored a 5th to claim the points.

I seem to remember Ray Graydon scoring the winner against Coventry the week after.

[ClarrieBlue]

I was at this game but I reckon we beat Man City just before this at home too. Keith Leonard scored the winner in one of the games - not sure which one though. A header. I was in the old Trinity Upper right in line with it.

[wittonwarrior]

Who scored was it Graydon?

If I remember Cov  had won their first 2 games of the season unlike us.  It was a great atmosphere and got to say for a local derby very poor turnout from our neighbours.

It was our home form (goes without saying) that kept us up that season, would put it down  to the tremendous home backing, because with the exception of Arsenal away we could not hold a blank sheet (Aitken's last game for Villa) away from home.

[MorrisNielson]

There appears to be very little to lookup for this game. The Argus & Sunday Mercury issues are missing from the Birmingham library’s collection of newspapers. Here’s a snippet from the mail.