For the second time ever, Aston Villa meet Bayern Munich on Wednesday night, and once more Villa are underdogs, as they were 42 years ago.
Back then, supporters started their journey at Birmingham New Street Station – to get the train then ferry across the English Channel – or at Villa Park, where a fleet of coaches made their way to East Midlands Airport.
Either way, the destination was the same: Rotterdam, where Villa fans gathered more in hope than expectation.
“I’m not sure many of us thought we’d win because Bayern were such favourites,” David Toney, 78, tells i.
“I think we were happy to be there. For those of us that followed Villa through their Third Division days, it was a dream really just being at the European Cup final.”
Villa had been a Third Division side just 10 years prior to this moment, which was not just their first European Cup final, but first season in this competition entirely.
Bayern, meanwhile, had won this cup three years straight in the 1970s, had never lost a final, and boasted the two-time reigning Ballon d’Or winner Karl-Heinz Rummenigge within their ranks.
For this and reasons beyond their plucky underdog tag, Villa had the local backing. “We then get a coach to the ground,” Toney adds. “I remember the driver announcing that the Dutch didn’t like the Germans, so the whole country was behind Villa, which got a big cheer.
“We arrived really early at the ground, and found the only pub that was open and it was heaving with Villa fans.”
Fellow Villa fan Nigel Watkins, who also witnessed the most famous night in their 150-year history, says they were in a “party mood”, with supporters abuzz about a mass football game that had broken out between rival fans.
Dave Smith, also in Rotterdam, estimates 30,000 supporters descended on the city, while those lucky enough to have a ticket had spent between 20 and 40 Dutch Guilders – roughly £5-10 – to be in attendance.
“We were not expecting to win,” Smith says, while Watkins adds: “I personally never expected us to beat the mighty Bayern, but deep down I think we all knew this team didn’t know the meaning of second place, they had the smallest squad in the league if I remember correctly.”
Villa were still the English champions, but they had suffered the major disruption of losing manager Ron Saunders in February 1982, when he resigned over a contract dispute.
Up stepped his assistant Tony Barton, who navigated Villa past Dynamo Kyiv 2-0 on aggregate in the quarters and 1-0 against Anderlecht in the semis, meaning they had made the final conceding just two goals all tournament.
For some Villa players, there was a belief their name was on the cup, and Rob Bishop’s Euros & Villans book recounts their laid-back approach leading up to the match. Winger Tony Morley only got changed 20 minutes before kick-off having visited friends outside De Kuip Stadium to give them their tickets.
Others were taking photographs on the pitch, and Brian Clough noted while commentating for ITV, with a punditry line Roy Keane would be proud of: “I can’t believe this team have come to a European Cup final. We’ve had players on the pitch, taking photographs of each other.”
Clough knew what was required to win this trophy, having led Nottingham Forest to back-to-back victories in 1979 and 1980, and though seemingly too relaxed for some, Villa’s captain Dennis Mortimer spoke of their confidence given English clubs’ recent domination in this competition – Liverpool had also triumphed in in 1977, 1978 and 1981.
“It occurred to me: ‘Why not us?’,” Mortimer said. “I’d seen Phil Thompson lift the trophy and he was in the year below me at school, Brookfield Secondary in Kirkby. I started to imagine what it would be like for that school to have two former pupils lifting the European Cup.”
That belief was shaken in the ninth minute when goalkeeper Jimmy Rimmer was forced off with a neck injury and replaced by Nigel Spink.
“He was the best keeper in the country for me,” Toney says of Rimmer, who had helped Villa win the 1981 First Division title and played every European Cup game leading up to the final.
“And while we gave Nigel Spink a great reception, I thought that was it.”
Spink would go on to make 460 appearances for Villa, but remarkably this was just the 23-year-old’s second, and first since making his debut in 1979.
“Of course, he played superbly and then became a club legend over many years,” Toney adds.
Villa’s goalkeeper thwarted Bayern time and again, and then in the 67th minute, a moment now immortalised with a banner across the North Stand at Villa Park thanks to Brian Moore’s commentary:
“Shaw, Williams, prepared to venture down the left. There’s a good ball. Player in for Tony Morley. Oh, it must be! And it is! It’s Peter Withe!”
The biggest goal in Villa’s history… came off the shin of their striker.
“My seat was behind the Bayern goal in the second half and I was lucky enough to get a great view of Peter Withe’s strike – brilliantly executed off his shin,” says Toney, with Smith adding: “When we scored it was mental, and to this day I get goosebumps watching it back.”
Withe himself said it was more half-shin, half-ankle, and had he connected with it properly goalkeeper Manfred Müller may have kept it out.
Instead, the “shank” – as Villa midfielder and keen golfer Gordon Cowans would describe it – would go in off the post. It really is worth watching the goal back to see how close Withe was to the goal, and how close he was to missing from inside the six-yard area.
“Those 20 or so minutes afterwards seemed to last forever,” Toney says. “I kept looking at the stadium clock and I swear it was going backwards.”
Watkins adds: “As the game went on, as the minutes ticked by, the belief grew between us, that it was possible, that it could really happen, and the last few minutes took forever. But we did it, what a night.”
The feeling was “wow” for Smith, in a word, when the full-time whistle sounded and Mortimer followed in the footsteps of Thompson in lifting the European Cup trophy.
“When we got back to Villa Park it was the middle of the night, I remember some local entrepreneur was selling these jumpers with the Villa crest and European Cup winners on them,” Toney says. “I bought this blue sweater that my son still wears to games four decades later.”
Memorabilia for a lifetime and beyond. The victory itself, though, would not lead to a dynasty for Villa, who finished 11th in the league that season.
There was still joy in winning the Super Cup, where they beat Barcelona 3-1 over two legs in January 1983, but a defeat in the European Cup quarter-finals to Juventus would prove their final match on this stage for 41 years.
Relegation to the Second Division followed just five years after their greatest night.
“To see the team being ripped apart over the next few seasons was terrible,” Smith says. “The plan in my head was to build on that success but that didn’t happen. Relegation was inevitable at the end.
“Some low points were really, really poor seasons and teams since those days. Awful football, with the main highs the League Cup wins in the ’90s.”
Now, the European Cup in its Champions League guise is back at Villa Park, and by chance it is Bayern who head there on Wednesday.
Once more up against it, time will stand still when the Champions League anthem plays out around the ground for the very first time, and then a sudden realisation will kick in that a victory over Bayern is once again possible, thanks largely to the man who has got this club believing again.
“What Unai Emery has done with Villa, it reminds me of Ron Saunders,” Toney says.
“Though Saunders didn’t coach that European Cup final winning team, it was his side. Villa Park can be a quite negative place at times, but Unai has got the fans united and excited just like Ron did.
“A few years ago, this didn’t even look a vague possibility, so it’s a great time to be a Villa fan again.”
from Football - inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/WVl7Ypn
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