Foreign invasions

John Russell looks back at friendlies of the seventies.

Having now absented myself from Villa Park for over twelve months I have been lacking that suggestion of a spark of an idea which used to lead me to say to myself, “I must write about that tomorrow”.

But to fill this vacuum our esteemed leader has suggested I might like to write about friendlies in the nineteen seventies. Considering that the start of the decade saw us relegated to the third division this is not a happy time to begin with and is likely to be an instance of opening up old wounds, but who am I to ignore such a polite request.

However, writing about such friendlies in such a limited time scale causes me to miss out on all those games versus Walsall and fourteen decades of joy mingled with frustration. But here goes.

Given the date I should strictly I should with SSC Napoli but this was the last match of that dismal relegation season and it is only the faithful or a masochist who could possibly have considered it worth boarding an outer circle bus. 1-1.

So I will begin on the 1st December 1971 when Gornik Zabrze came to B6 all the way from Poland. We were only in third place in division three at the time and so a purposeless friendly against such unknown opponents was seen as threatening our chances of promotion but Doug Ellis felt we needed money such a game would generate to help pay for our new training headquarters at Bodymoor Heath. So Vic Crowe had to like it or lump it.

In the event an attendance of a mere 14,662 was hardly likely to please the manager of the Midland Bank, or our international standing for that matter. Perhaps to the annoyance of Rangers it was reported that Gornik were to Polish football as Celtic were to Scottish. They were eleventh in an unofficial league table of regular European cup participants.

The game saw the home debut of Jimmy Cumbes, who, having been stolen from the Albion, had made his debut in a 6-0 win at Oldham four days earlier. John Dunn had moved on to Charlton at the end of the previous season and his replacement, Tommy Hughes, exhibited a sense of nervousness amongst the supporters when the opposition got into our penalty area. The match was otherwise more noteworthy for the fact that Bovril break changes meant the Villa team in the second half bore little relationship to that in the first. Chico rescued our reputation after Szoltysik (who?) had hinted the match was probably not such a good idea after all.

Next we come to what is still perhaps the most amazing non-competitive night in the history of Villa Park. The night that Pele came to town for ‘Special match number 2.’ The fact that special match number one had been a FA Youth Cup 4th round replay against Birmingham City (won 2-1) should not be allowed to detract from this famous evening.

Santos was undoubtedly Ellis’s greatest hour. It was only thanks to his vision and determination that the game took place at all. The nation was in the midst of a Miners Strike and restrictions on the use of electricity. So Doug hired some generators to enable the game to go ahead at all. Nevertheless, though the generators were not quite up to the task and we had to make do with light from only three floodlight pylons. Not for the first time the police panicked and the gates were closed with ‘only’ 55,000 inside. Even so things nearly did not go ahead because Santos had not anticipated such an attendance and belatedly tried to negotiate a bigger match fee.

It is hard to emphasise the coup Doug had pulled in inviting Pele, who was and still is undoubtedly the most famous footballer ever (more famous than Stanley Matthews!) to turn out at the hallowed halls. Pat McMahon headed our opener in the seventh minute. During the interval someone cunningly threw a switch and the Holte End became the darker end, only for Pele to go on strike and it took a while to restore the status quo.

Santos resorted to what were then known as ‘Continental tactics’ and even would-be World Cup final referee Jack Taylor had to award a penalty. Ray Graydon netted. But the game was not over, certainly not before Edu netted one of the finest free kicks ever to ruffle a net at B6. The ball took on the trajectory of a whirling firework.

Inspired by the victory over Santos we went on to win the third division title, to make up for the previous season when we lost to Tottenham Hotspur in the League Cup final and could only finish fourth, below Halifax. But one blemish on the season is good for a quiz question. In what year did we not get to play in the FA Cup? 1972, having been ignominiously knocked out at SouthendvUnited in the first round in November 1971.

Participation in the FA Cup in 1973 was a non-event, losing 2-3 at Goodison. But third in the second division when only two went up I am now obliged to tell you about Bayern Munich. Beckebnauer, Muller, Maier et al. Names which alone should have guaranteed an attendance to rival that against Santos but only 22,699 thought Bayern sufficiently attractive enough to give up Coronation Street. Just after the hour John Robson was an unlikely scorer and a win was on the cards until Hoffman restored equality as I was getting ready to leave early to catch the train home.

My longer report about this game can be found in Heroes & Villains edition 144, May 2008 so while you go searching for it I will continue. This brings me next to another end of season game, 30th April 1974. Feyenoord, 7-1. I would tell you about this one-sided game were it not for the fact that the page in my diary is blank. I have never claimed to have a one hundred percent attendance record during the seventies and I quite simply was not there. I was probably the victim of Horace Rumpole syndrome and She Who Must Be Obeyed.

Truth to tell it was probasbly her guitar night and the regular baby sitter for our three year-old was going to be at the game himself. I cannot grumble too much because the guitar activities led to my once being able to hear Segovia (the Pele of the guitar) for the princely sum of one pound, when they were still paper notes and ditto in incomparable John Williams (the Robert Daniel Blanchflower of the instrument – as always respect where due).

Next, another game absent from your short list which I must include although the full story of is to be found in Heroes & Villains edition 148 in December 2008. Unsurprisingly, memory allows me to put my hand on anything wot I wrote almost in an instant. SK Brann, 11-0.

Eintracht Frankfurt next flew across the low countries and the Channel. The programme lists a team choice of any eleven from nineteen but the only really stand out player was their captain Jurgen Grabowski, a World Cup winner in 1974. Jack Taylor from Wolverhampton would not normally have got to referee a match at Villa Park, so once again it was no surprise when he was again called upon to adjudicate. The game was actually sponsored by Dunlop so it mattered not one iota to Doug that only 26,615 saw us win 3-1.

But what they also got to enjoy was a brace from an upcoming hero of the Aston End, Brian Little. It was a friendly in every sense of the word, especially after our previous friendly six weeks earlier when a riot broke out against Rangers after thousands got to tread the sacrosanct Villa Park turf resulting in an abandonment. Were there really only 17,000 there?

For the remainder of the decade foreign friendlies came under the guise of pre-season practice matches mostly away from Villa Park on foreign soil. In the words of the indefatigable Bugs Bunny, “That’s all folks”. Have a nice day.