There is more than a hint of regret in the words of Tony Morley as he reflects on what could have been, and should have been, for Aston Villa. “We could have been a powerhouse for the next seven or eight years, dominated English football,” the club legend told Sport360.
Just 35 years on from a First Division triumph built on belief and unity, they are trying desperately to stay in English football’s top tier. They could also be playing Championship football when, spanning the same number of turbulent years, they were once European kings, beating Bayern Munich in 1982.
After young keeper Nigel Spink, a ninth-minute replacement for the injured Jimmy Rimmer, had defied the German side, it was the 67th minute when left winger Morley twisted and turned and crossed low for Peter Withe to tap in the winner. It was the greatest night in the history of a club that was one of the originators and founding members of the Football League in 1888.
Strangely, that dream team, which subsequently beat Barcelona to lift the European Super Cup, was broken up within 18 months by returning chairman Doug Ellis. Many, including Morley, believe that is still central to the club’s present-day problems.
“It seems crazy to do that when you think about what we had done, and what we had,” he said. “That title season we used only 14 players. We were a bunch of lads put together, who played for each other, very similar to Leicester now.
Soccer Power Index's Premier League relegation projections. Look away, Aston Villa fans. pic.twitter.com/3hA2SCU2kg
— Paul Carr (@PCarrESPN) January 22, 2016“The season after being European champions, six players were not in the team. The club got rid of me. To be kicked out when you are 28 and there’s no one better than you, that leaves a bitter taste. It wasn’t just me that went – and only through one person, Doug Ellis. It was his ego. He didn’t want anyone to turn around and say, ‘it’s not your team’. Doug didn’t want to recognise it happened.”
Ellis, known as “Deadly Doug” for a penchant in sacking managers, became chairman of Villa for the first time in 1968 and, according to journalist John Wragg, did initially lift the club during troubled times. He said: “He was there in the ‘60s when the club was really on its knees and they had years and years of frustration and bad results. More so than now. They had dropped down into Division Three, and it was his vitality, his ideas and brashness that rebuilt the club.”
Rising up through the divisions, Villa also enjoyed League Cup triumphs in 1975 and 1977 under Ron Saunders. But having won six of their seven First Division championships and five of seven FA Cups before the First World War, they enjoyed their most successful spell in the modern era when Ellis was ousted from the board in 1979.
To Morley, Saunders was Villa’s equivalent to Sir Alex Ferguson, yet became another shock departure after a contract dispute with then-chairman Ron Bendall before the European Cup quarter-finals and assistant Tony Barton took the team to glory.
“The thing about Ron Saunders was that he never really liked football,” added Morley. “But he could manage a football club. Ron built three teams at Villa, the promotion team, the League Cup winners, and the league champions and European Cup winners. If he had been there another five years then there would have been at least three or four more trophies in the cabinet. Villa had a chance to be a super club back then, but missed the opportunity.”
Just five years after the euphoria of Europe, Villa were relegated to Division Two and Ellis was in the firing line.
“I remember one senior pro, a big-name player, saying ‘we are knackered now’ when Ellis came back,” recalled the 61-year-old Morley, who spent four years at Villa after his arrival in 1979. “It was a power thing with Doug. I remember we were about to play in the 1982 Intercontinental Cup and we had a meeting he had set up. We have all got to take a pay cut, he said, we can’t afford your bonuses.
“Ken McNaught, who was the voice of the players, said ‘ain’t the bonuses there because we are successful?’ Doug wanted us to take a pay cut, but that same week, he made himself the first paid director and chairman of a football club. At the time we weren’t on good wages. Blues (Birmingham City) were on more than us and West Brom were on more than us.
“Our basic salary stayed the same and we kept the bonuses, but that’s probably why he wanted to get rid of half of us. My biggest regret was Villa, unlike Liverpool under Bill Shankly, did not go on to dominate then.”
Being financially frugal ultimately meant more failure. Surprise managerial choices, such as Graham Turner and Billy McNeill, were other factors in the malaise that followed.
The appointment of Graham Taylor in 1987, though, proved inspired as he got them promoted and finished second in the First Division before England called in 1990. Ron Atkinson led Villa to a runners-up spot in 1993 and League Cup win a year later. But Brian Little’s triumph in that same competition in 1996 is their last major trophy.
“It’s been a graph that goes up and down,” said Wragg on covering Villa for 45 years, the latter 35 with the Daily Express. “Villa have had fits and starts, like under Graham Taylor and Ron Atkinson. Brian Little had a good spell and John Gregory had a good little spell, but they have never gone on.”
For Dave Woodhall, a fan since the late 60s, that’s a familiar story. He said: “In the ‘80s they had so many points of inner strength that they could go forward, but as Graham Taylor once said, Villa always seem to have a problem taking the final step. In 1982 you have to blame Ellis. He was so obsessed in the guise of cost-cutting he set about getting rid of every vestige of the success that happened when he wasn’t there. He reckoned there was debt, but it was manageable.
“The figures, he said, were a million-and-a-half, but that was nothing when you think what could have happened there.”
After more sackings and asset sales to make Villa attractive to buyers, the end of the Ellis era finally came in 2006 when he sold for £62.6 million (Dh328m) to Randy Lerner, a US millionaire whose love for the club came while studying at Cambridge University.
With Martin O’Neill at the helm, the start was promising with three successive sixth-placed Premier League finishes as they chased the Champions League dream.
“For the first few years Lerner was great and, if anything, he gave the supporters and the club too much,” says Woodhall, founder of the Heroes and Villains fanzine. “Almost like the club was a spoiled child and he was a tolerant parent. Everything O’Neill wanted he was given – and everything the fans wanted he gave and more.”
Lerner wanted to build Villa into a super club, but his relationship with O’Neill ended acrimoniously amid a tribunal – and Villa spiralled into decline with more questionable bosses, particularly Alex McLeish, and key player sales.
“It’s awful seeing how things have turned out, but that’s come from Lerner,” says Wragg. “There’s a parallel with Villa and (NFL franchise) Cleveland Browns, who he owned. A lack of investment and interest and then he sold it in the end.”
With Remi Garde their fifth manager since O’Neill departed in 2010, Lerner put Villa up for sale last year, citing how “week-in, week-out battles” had taken their toll. It has been the same on the field with relegation struggles.
Despite spending £52.5m (Dh275.6m) on 13 summer transfers after losing Christian Benteke, Fabian Delph and Ron Vlaar, they are currently bottom and will have to fight to beat the drop and win over supporters who have been ashamed by pitiful and passionless displays.
Captain Micah Richards confronted fans, angry after this month’s 1-1 FA Cup third-round draw at League Two Wycombe.
“There’s a time and place for things like that, but that Wycombe game has become a watershed and brought things to a head,” added Woodhall. “Hopefully they can go on from that and salvage some self-respect. There’s always hope, but you have to be realistic and say Villa are down and now it’s damage limitation.”
That is why the US-based Lerner has brought in Steve Hollis as chairman and tasked him with stabilising the club during its “crisis”. There is also the fear they could drop further down the divisions if they do not get things right. But Woodhall said: “I don’t think they will follow Leeds or Portsmouth. The one thing Lerner has done is that the club is pretty much self-sustaining.”
And he, like others, hopes the Villans will be heroes again.
