The Road to Rotterdam: Aston Villa's 1982 European Cup triumph

The late 1970s and early 1980s were a time of unprecedented success for English clubs in Europe.

In 1976, Liverpool won the UEFA Cup, winning the European Cup in 1977, 1978, 1981 and 1984. Nottingham Forest went back-to-back in 1979 and 1980, while Ipswich Town and Tottenham won the 1981 and 1984 UEFA Cups respectively.

In 1982, however, on a balmy Rotterdam evening, it was Aston Villa who took centre stage.

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Of course, the greatest triumphs in football don’t just happen on one magical night but are the result of years of hard work. For Aston Villa, their journey to Rotterdam didn’t begin in 1981, but arguably in the summer of 1974.

Villa, a longstanding First Division club, playing in the top flight for every year bar one since the war, were relegated in 1967. The departure of Tony Hateley, who’d fired 81 goals across his previous three seasons to help stave off relegation, culminated in the Villans’ fall into the second tier, and three years later, they’d be relegated again following years of mismanagement off the pitch.

Though Villa failed to bounce back immediately, they would win the Third Division at the second time of asking under Vic Crowe. Crowe however was sacked after a second failed attempt to reach the top flight, finishing 14th.

He would be replaced by Ron Saunders in the summer of 1974, where everything began to change at Villa Park.

Saunders’ first season was a remarkable success. While champions Manchester United were the second highest scorers in the division with 66, Saunders’ Villa finished as runners-up, plundering 79 goals. Villa wouldn’t only finish second to return to the top flight, but would become the fourth side from outside the top flight to win the League Cup.

It would be the start of Aston Villa’s re-building process that would see them crowned English champions in 1981, and Kings of Europe in 1982. The teenage Andy Gray signed for a six-figure fee, while Gordon Cowans and Dennis Mortimer made their debuts.

In his first full season south of the border, Gray would notch 25 goals to share the Golden Boot with Arsenal’s Malcolm Macdonald. Villa would go on to finish fourth in the league, winning the League Cup once more, this time after a two replays with Everton.

The League Cup win of 1977 would give Villa second taste of European football, venturing into the UEFA Cup. Saunders’ side would beat Fenerbahce, Gornik Zabrze and Athletic Bilbao to set up a quarter-final tie with the Barcelona side led by Rinus Michels, boasting the legendary Johan Cruyff and Johan Neeskens. Despite leading 3-2 on aggregate with 25 minutes of the tie to go, Villa would be dumped out of the UEFA Cup, losing 4-3.

It’s well known that Trevor Francis was England’s first £1,000,000 player, but two lesser known facts are that Francis’s transfer actually doubled the previous record, and that Andy Gray then broke the record himself months later, moving from Villa to Wolverhampton Wanderers for £1,500,000. The same year David Mills broke the record with a £500,000 move to West Brom, Gray tripled the fee with his move to Molineux, but not four years after his move to Villa Park, the centre-forward departed.

Despite the loss of Gray, the 1979/80 season would see the title-winning side take shape. The teenage Gary Shaw would graduate from the academy to top-score for the club, with Cowans, Mortimer and Bremner regular fixtures in midfield. Scottish duo Allan Evans and Ken McNaught would enter their third season as centre-half pairing playing in front of Jimmy Rimmer in goal.

Villa finished a respectable seventh in 1980, but with 51 goals in 42 games, only 10 of the 22 teams in the league scored fewer, and seven of them finished in the bottom seven of the First Division. Villa needed a goalscorer.

Enter: Peter Withe.

Incredibly, Villa won the title with just 14 players. Nearly every week, the same team: Rimmer in goal, Swain, McNaught and Evans in defence with either Williams or Gibson at left-back; Mortimer, Cowans and Bremner in midfield with Morley, Shaw and Withe in attack.

Villa scored 21 more goals that season, with new signing Withe scoring 20, as Saunders’ side won a first title in more than 70 years and booked their place in the European Cup.

Aston Villa’s first European Cup tie saw them thrash Icelandic minnows Valur, whose other recent European efforts saw them lose 9-0 on aggregate to Celtic, as well as being knocked out of the UEFA Cup and European Cup by Northern Ireland’s Portadown and Glentoran respectively.

But the second round posed a much stiffer test, against East German champions BFC Dynamo. Crossing the Iron Curtain, Villa pulled off a considerable upset, winning 2-1 against a side Morley described as ‘the best side we played against in the competition’. Morley would volley home an early opener before Villa were pegged back after the break. Dynamo were awarded a late penalty that hit the post before Rimmer saved the rebound as Morley burst up the other end to seal a memorable win.

The second leg saw the visitors win 1-0, with Villa progressing on away goals to set up a tie with Dynamo Kyiv.

The club would be rocked, however, by the departure of Saunders, who left his position following a contract dispute, leaving assistant manager Tony Barton in charge for the rest of the campaign.

After a resolute 0-0 draw in the USSR, Villa’s task was straightforward for the second leg: win. The away goals rule meant that a score draw would dump Barton’s men out of Europe, but after taking an early lead through Shaw from an impossibly tight angle, McNaught headed home the crucial second goal to see Villa through.

The critics who’d written Villa off as incapable of repeating the heroics of Liverpool and Nottingham Forest were beginning to eat their words. The Lions were a two-legged tie with Anderlecht away from the final.

Anderlecht had beaten a Juventus side boasting the likes of Dino Zoff and Marco Tardelli in the last-16 – Juventus would concede just 14 goals en route to the Serie A title that season – and Red Star Belgrade in the quarter-finals.

The two sides were evenly matched, and Anderlecht’s ultra-defensive approach in the first leg left them with a one-goal deficit – but a home leg to come – with the tie perfectly balanced.

Despite the 1-0 win at home, it was a frustrating evening for Villa, but Anderlecht were unable to break the Lions down in the second leg and the 0-0 draw booked a place in the final, against German giants Bayern Munich.

The Lions had come a long way. Not just from the doldrums of the third tier only a decade ago, but even from Christmas that season. Their title defence was over before it began, finding themselves two points outside the relegation zone having played more games than the sides around them. The champions had become relegation candidates and the manager who’d rebuilt the club had departed. But their second half of the season was much improved under Barton, and they were heading to Rotterdam.

Skippered by the great Paul Breitner with Karl-Heinz Rummenigge up front, Bayern were expected to win in Rotterdam. If Villa were to win, they’d need every quality they’d shown throughout their run to the final: organised defending at the back, clinical finishing up front, and resilience throughout the whole team.

But less than 10 minutes into the tie, Rimmer, who’d pulled off a number of key saves en route to the final, conceding just one goal, was forced off through injury. His replacement, Nigel Spink, had one senior appearance to his name since signing from Chelmsford City, and the 23-year-old would be tasked with keeping Rummenigge – Ballon d’Or winner the past two years – at bay.

Villa played their part in the first half but Bayern began to show their dominance as the game wore on. Spink was forced into a number of excellent saves with the Germans having an effort cleared off the line. Villa were dropping deeper and deeper with Bayern looking the more likely. And then…

“Shaw… Williams prepared to venture down left. There's a great ball played in for Tony Morley. It must be! It is! Peter Withe!”

Brian Moore’s words, immortalised on banners around Villa Park as the man whose goals took them to the league title and Europe would score the winner in the European Cup final. Morley, who’d been instrumental to Villa’s cup run with a goal in the first round, scoring Villa’s only goals in the second round and semi-final, would turn Bayern defenders inside out to provide Withe with a tap-in.

Bayern pushed for an equaliser, having a goal ruled out for offside in the dying stages, but the Villa resistance held firm.

Ten years after reaching their nadir in England’s third tier, Villa reached their zenith. The greatest night in their history. Aston Villa, champions of Europe.

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Liam Williams

• Aston Villa F.C.
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