Thoughts and issues regarding the past and present of a great football club by "The Chronicler".

Thursday 30 April 2020

Best Uncapped Players

None of my preceding 'best' team posts talked much about Villa's outstanding players of 9 or more years service who were never capped while with the Villa. This is the list of what is now a dying breed:

Those highlighted were particularly great servants to Villa.
Teddy Lee (1874-1884)
Archie Hunter (1878-1890)
Albert Brown (1884-1894)
Albert Evans (1896-1907)
Freddie Miles (1902-1913)
Tommy Lyons (1907-1919)
Clem Stephenson (1910-1921)
Joe Harrop (1912-1921)
Tommy Weston (1912-1922)
Len Capewell (1921-1930)
Teddy Bowen (1924-1934)
Alec Talbot (1924-1936)
Billy Kingdon (1926-1936)
Fred Biddlestone (gk, 1930-1939)
Ernie Callaghan (1932-1947)
Bob Iverson (1936-1948)
Jackie Martin (1936-1949)
George Edwards (1938-1951)
Joe Rutherford (gk, 1939-1951)
Frank Moss jnr (1939-1955)
Harry Parkes (1939-1955)
Billy Goffin (1945-1954)
Dickie Dorsett (1946-1955)
Johnny Dixon (1946-1961)
Peter Aldis (1950-1959)
Stan Lynn (1951-1961)
Alan Deakin (1960-1969)
Charlie Aitken (1961-1976)
Michael Wright (1962-1972)
Gary Shaw (1979-1988)
Ian Taylor (1994-2003)

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A Villa 'Best Team' Since World War 2

Well, now for my favourite players since World War 2 - which is the time since I was born (1944). This is just a personal view. What's yours?

4-3-3:
Nigel Sims
John Gidman
Paul McGrath
Gareth Southgate
George Cummings
Danny Blanchflower
Brian Little
Gordon Cowans
Johnny Dixon
Gerry Hitchens
Dwight Yorke

Subs: The list of possible subs is almost endless, but I would choose the following 12 as my next most favourite...
Jimmy Rimmer
Harry Parkes
Olof Mellberg
Charlie Aitken
Allan Evans
Gareth Barry
Denis Mortimer
Gary Shaw
Andy Gray
Peter Withe
Peter McParland
Tony Morley

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Wednesday 29 April 2020

Aston Villa's Best-ever Team - Version 2

I have created a version 2 as I decided a true "best all-time" Villa team should be based on their playing contribution to the club and to football - not whether one was necessarily a better player than another.

I have applied these criteria (in this order):
  1. A minimum of 9 years' first-team service with Villa.
  2.  More than 300 first-team Villa appearances in competitive matches, unless the player was a captain for more than 3 years. 
  3.  Must have played for their country while playing for the Villa. 
  4. Preference to an individual that has played in a trophy-winning Villa team.
So, here we are with sadly, Archie Hunter, Charlie Aitken and Johnny Dixon totally omitted as they were not capped!

Sam Hardy (gk, 1912-1921)
Howard Spencer (1894-1907)
Jimmy Crabtree (1895-1904)
Allan Evans (1977-1989)
James Cowan (1889-1902)
Frank Moss, snr. (1914-1927)
Charlie Wallace (1907-1921)
John Devey (1891-1902)
Harry Hampton (1904-1920)
Billy Walker (1920-1933)
Joe Bache (1901-1915)

Subs (from);
Billy George (gk, 1897-1912)
Nigel Spink (gk, 1977-1996)
Tommy Smart (1920-1934)
Tommy Mort (1922-1935)
George Cummings (1935-1949)
Steve Staunton (1991-2003, 2 periods)
Jimmy Gibson (1927-1936)
Alex Massie (1935-1945)
Vic Crowe (1954-1964)
Gareth Barry (1998-2009)
Charlie Athersmith (1891-1901)
Dicky York (1919-1930)
Frank Broome (1934-1946)
Billy Garratty (1897-1908)
Ronnie Starling (1937-1948)
Gordon Cowans (1976-1994, 3 periods)
Dennis Hodgetts (1886-1896)
Eric Houghton (1929-1946)
Arthur Dorrell (1919-1930)
Tony Daley (1985-1994)
Gabby Agbonlahor (2006-2018)

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Tuesday 28 April 2020

Aston Villa's Best-ever Team

I was asked, a day or two ago, to submit my best "All-time Aston Villa Team". However, I find it near impossible to decide on a genuine all-time 'best team'. The styles of football, and even the nature of football, has changed a great deal, particularly in the last 50 years, so it makes comparison so very, very difficult - nigh impossible in fact, as I said before. Let alone that the earliest Villa match I saw was 70 years ago, so how could I know much about football before about 60 years ago?

As it happened, at the time of the stated invitation I had just completed my 'best team' selections for my website, but selected by 'era' - see here. This link also lists all the main players and their stats (etc) in the Villa's history, and is sortable.

However, having been asked the question about one team that represents the best of all-time, I decided, reluctantly, to have a try. My judgment was based on this information I had found during my research into the club:

  •  Jimmy Crabtree (1894-1902) - full-back, wing-half and sometimes forward, was commonly considered the greatest all-round England player before WW2.
  • That Billy Walker played at a time (the 1920s) when the standard of football had gone down - the effect of the huge losses of young men in WW1- and hence it would seem he gained a greater reputation than his Villa predecessors because he stood out more in that situation. 
  • It would seem that Vaughton, Bache, Clem Stephenson and Wheldon were regarded by a fair number of old-time supporters as being better inside-lefts than Walker. But Walker - apart from being a goal maker, still holds the club's goalscoring record. Hampton comes a close second.
  • Joe Bache (1900-1915) - because of his playing longevity, international standing, his overall ball-skills and playmaking and scoring ability - shades selection into the team ahead of John Devey. Unlikely as it may seem to recent supporters, both players must rank ahead of Johnny Dixon, the 1957 cup-winning captain. Dixon was never picked for England.
  • It should be remembered also that the pre-1930s centre-half was not a defensive player! Nevertheless, Jimmy Cowan was an outstanding player of his time (1889-1902). Jimmy Gibson (1927-1935) could also play in that role, but he was usually a wing-half. Only the fact that Mortimer was such a superb captain (as well as a fine player) do I select Mortimer ahead of Gibson.
 So (somewhat reluctantly) my one 'best' team (4-4-2 format) would be (see my webpage for years when they played etc):
 
Rimmer, 
Spencer, McGrath, James Cowan, Crabtree, 
Mortimer, Cowans, Bache, McParland, 
Walker and Hampton. 

But it hurts me to leave out the likes of Andy and Archie Hunter, Howard Vaughton, Dennis Hodgetts, John Devey, Fred Wheldon, Jimmy Gibson, Johnny Dixon, Danny Blanchflower and Brian Little, let alone Gerry Hitchens. Therefore, I invite these 11 players to sit on the 'bench', as subs!

UTV!

Tuesday 21 April 2020

More Notes On The Villa's Origin

I have recently been sent some images of a notebook that was written by A. G. Taylor who also kept other notebooks that are in the possession of AVFC.

Taylor was a leading and respected Midlands sportswriter since the 1880s, for Sport and Play and (after it started in 1897) the Sports Argus.

In the pages I've received, Taylor states that the Villa were formed in October, 1874. He infers that the Villa first played knockabouts that first month on their first ground - at Westminster Road - so these rough (practise?) games would not have been reported by the press. But he also infers that the first proper match was played vs St. Mary's in November, in which (Taylor states) Will Such scored Villa's winning goal, not Jack Hughes. So whether this is another match than the one Jack Hughes referred to I have no idea. And, of course, Taylor may not have the facts right about that.

I am not sure he (Taylor) was around when Villa first started playing so perhaps would not know at first hand whether this was so. Taylor first wrote for the Sport and Play journal, but that did not get off the ground until the late 1870s, and there was only a small amount of press coverage before that.

Though I remain very unsure that Jack Hughes was correct in his 'March, 1874' as the big date (and he is first recorded as having said this in 1899, the 25th anniversary of Villa's foundation), the trouble is that he was better qualified than many to state a date since he (Hughes) was a member of the original team - and no other player of that period seems to have argued with him! 


However, Billy Mason had died before 1899 and several others had migrated overseas. Perhaps Hughes was virtually the only one of the original team left at home and had no-one else around to argue with him - and there were no androids to hand in those days!

Be that as it may, I feel that October is the correct month of the Villa's foundation, but there's still no total proof of that as far as I can see. It may be that total proof will never be found.


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