B/W film of pre-season training 1969/70

[gregavfc69/70]

Can anyone provide a link to some old black and white film of the Villa players

in pre-season training in 1969/70 sprinting up and down the Witton End goal line.

Seem to remember Dave Simmons there and new boy Freddie Mwila from the States.

May have been vimeo or BFI.

[Andy_Lochhead_in_the_air]

https://m.facebook.com/Lelo-Media-628746710940126/videos/tbt_zambian_archives_1969watch-23-year-old-freddie-mwila-sr-training-with-aston-/360392334560814/?extid=SEO----

[dcdavecollett]

Great footage, if a bit blurred. I think I can recognise a few players there -Lynch, Neil Rioch and Pat McMahon for three.

[gregavfc69/70]

Top man Andy, thank you very much.
Freddie Mwila looked super fast there on those shuttle sprints.
I notice right at the end, he was wearing some very smart sky blue boots, almost like slippers.
I wonder if his mate, Emment Kapengwe was there at the same time?
Shame it didn't work out for them, only a brief stay.
Think I spotted Neil Rioch, Pat McMahon, Lew Chatterley, Chico Hamilton, Dave Simmons.
Dave scored five vital goals to keep us up previous season, 5 in 9 matches.
Early 69/70 season, he got sent off in a reserve game and struggled to get back in the first team,
same as Brian Godfrey.
Had they got more game time, I think we could have avoided relegation to the Third Division.

[Andy_Lochhead_in_the_air]

Both Mwila and Kapengwe were major names in Zambian football.

Mwila had a long coaching career and is now 75.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freddie_Mwila

Kapengwe died aged 45 following a stroke.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emment_Kapengwe

[dcdavecollett]

Kapengwe made a really good debut in a 1-0 win over Carlisle under the Doc. This isn't me being biased (as if) as many national papers mentioned how well he had done.

It looked like we had found ourselves a winner; he played two more games for the Villa -then left, unwanted!

Freddie made one appearance for us, against Blackpool, the game after Emment's bow.

[dave.woodhall]

So they never played together? Every day's a schoolday.

[gregavfc69/70]

Actually Dave, it looks like they did play together for just the one game v Blackpool at home, 15/11/69.
Result....0-0.   Crowd - 24,942.   Kapengwe took the No. 7 shirt and Mwila No.8.
There is a photo taken of them together taken from the Witton Lane Stand facing towards the Player's
Tunnel and the Witton goal probably waiting for a corner to come over from the right.
Both played the full game, with Rudge on as sub. for Lionel Martin.
And days before, a midweek match on 12/11/69, a 1-0 home win v Carlisle, crowd - 24,447,
Kapengwe wore No.7.  And coming on as sub. for Brian Tiler, Dave Rudge scored the winner.
But it was a grim old season, my first full year ever of following Villa.
We couldn't buy a goal let alone win, we were stuck fast in the bottom two for virtually the whole season.
It was a miracle that we took it to the very final game. But relegation to the Third always seemed inevitable.

[gregavfc69/70]

You're quite right dcdave, Emment made a third appearance several weeks later on 16/3/70
away at Millwall, lost 0-2, crowd - 13,817.
Between those two games Blackpool up until Millwall, Villa's playing record was abysmal,
W2 D3 L 9 F14 A30.
Maybe Emment and Freddie should have been given many more games?
Or maybe they just weren't up to the standard required?

[dcdavecollett]

Hard to say, Greg, but you'd have thought that a player making the impact that Kapengwe did in his first game would have been given more chances in a struggling side.

Perhaps it was just down to Docherty chopping and changing the team from week to week.