The 1982 European Cup Final
Dennis Mortimer lifts the European Cup. I was about 30 yards away, to Dennis’s left
Credit: Popperfoto via Getty Images
During the late 70s and early 80s I was a member at North Birmingham Squash Rackets, which was sort of on the corner of Chester Road and Gravelly Lane/Boldmere Road. I also used to occasionally play at Sutton Hard Courts which is on Highbridge Road in Sutton Coldfield.
Both clubs were frequented by Aston Villa players, some would play squash, others would come along just for a drink in the bar and some banter with their team mates.
Chris Nicholl
Chris Nicholl was one of my regular squash opponents and we got along very well, he had a great sense of humour and was always good company. I remember three incidents in particular – one Saturday evening he turned up at the club covered in cuts and bruises around the face after a game against Manchester United. We had a brief chat:
“Christ Chris! What happened to you, mate?”
“Stuart fucking Pearson, that’s what happened to me. Elbows everywhere, built like a brick shithouse. A proper hard case. It’s just the way things are at Old Trafford – you’ll get punched when the referee’s not looking, your shirt will be pulled, you’ll get your ankles tapped. Unless someone actually pulls a knife on you, you’ve got no chance of getting a free kick”
Another time, he’d recently played for Northern Ireland against Scotland at Hampden Park:
“It’s a nuthouse. You’ve got one end of the ground singing Catholic Hymns, the other end singing Protestant Hymns and you can smell the whisky on the breath of the fans even when your 30 yards away on the pitch”
He once scored a thunderbolt goal from 40 yards out against Everton in a League Cup Final replay. I asked him if he knew it was going in as soon as he’d hit it:
“Of course not. I had my eyes shut at the time, I had no idea where it was going”
All this would have been in the late 1970s when Liverpool were in all their pomp. He once told me what a hightmare it was captaining Villa at Anfield when Liverpool would inevitably be pouring the pressure on at the Kop end in the last 15 minutes, they always liked to finish the game on a high. Chris said the noise coming from behind the goal would be absolutely deafening and it was well-nigh impossible for him to organise his defence – nobody could hear what he was shouting out.
Apart from Chris, other regulars at the squash club would include Peter Withe (who was quite a good squash player), Dennis Mortimer, Allan Evans, Des Bremner, Tony Morley and Colin Gibson. Andy Gray used to come along as well, but I wlways got the feeling that the other players didn’t like him much; he would sometimes cut a bit of a lonely figure, on the fringe of things, although nevertheless he still used to come to the club with them, even after he’d left Villa and joined Wolves.
Long after Andy Gray and Chris Nicholl had left the club, Villa won the league title. By now, I was living in London, but would still visit the squash club when I was back in Birmingham and mix with the Villa players of the time. They were an incredibly tight-knit bunch, assembled by Ron Saunders, who they idolised. They told me a story about winning the league:
Saunders the Hard Man
Liverpool were having a very rare poor league season by their standards, although they still won the European Cup(!) but had left the door open for Ipswich and Villa to sneak in and battle it out for the title. There was a crunch match at Villa Park between the two sides four or five games before the end of the season. Ipswich won. The Villa players were devastated, it looked as if their chances of winning the League had gone. As they sat slumped in the dressing room, they could hear the Ipswich players singing and celebrating in their own dressing room down the corridor. Saunders came in, propped the dressing room door open and said:
“Right. Nobody speaks. Get changed and showered in total silence. Listen to the noise coming down that corridor. That’s the sound of a team losing the league. They think they’ve won it, but there’s still plenty of tough games to go. They’ll switch off now and think they can cruise it, but you’ve got something they’ll never have – you’ve got mental toughness. Just keep doing what you’ve been doing all season and you’ll get past them, They’re good players, but mentally soft”.
He was right. Ipswich ran into serious fixture congestion issues with a small squad and Villa passed them, winning the title despite losing the final game of the season.
Ron Saunders (c) Media Storehouse.
The Villa players used to joke about him taking any excuse to show off his physique.
