Agree with all the sentiments above, fantastic player who could do everything. I loved him.
From my book, Gangsters, Geezers & Mods:
In those pre-Sky Sports days, Saturdays were for watching football and Sundays were for playing it, and I would rise with the sun to don the replica Villa shirt that served me so well. The number 10 on the back was ironed on in praise of Chico Hamilton and remained contemporary throughout Alex Cropley’s reign as my favourite player. It was his identity I adopted during our impromptu kickabouts and, as my admiration grew, I aspired to pass as accurately and tackle as ferociously as the diminutive Scot. With my claret and blue caser at my feet, I’d set off for the rolling acres of Aston Park where about twenty playmates in Villa colours would be waiting, along with a couple of bluenoses. One of them was Jeremy, whose obsession with his hero Trevor Francis rivalled mine with Cropley. From the laughable cheap blue kit to the troubled complexion, he WAS Francis, his boils and pimples so numerous he looked more like the picture of his hero I kept on my dartboard than the not-so-great man himself. Half-time coincided with Sunday dinner and Star Soccer, then it was back out for the second half.
When the ball became invisible in the fading light, the match, by now a twenty-a-side affair, would reconvene under the brightness of street lights until bedtime.
All was well with the world. The Holte End was never louder, the Villa were never better, and Blues? Well let’s just say they never change. My happiness was unbounded until the fateful day when Ally Brown broke Cropley’s leg and my heart in an unspeakable act of thuggery, the mere memory of which has me reaching for my old shin pads. A 3-0 win over West Brom in no way compensated for the loss of such a player, and it was with a heavy heart that I trudged on to Aston Park the next morning. There before me was Jeremy and his Blues mate. As everybody knows, children can be cruel, and as I approached I could tell from their smirks and whispers that they were about to prove it.
“It’s Alex Cripple-y,” said one twat. “Alex, Alex Crop-er-ley,
“Can’t play football properly,” sang the other one.
Defiantly I sprinted towards them. That day, for once, I was not Alex. They were Alex. I was Ally Brown.
