Jeremy Smith recalls a couple of legends.
The death of Gary Shaw, one of the brightest stars in the Villa side that won the European Cup, has triggered a tumult of emotions among Villa fans: sadness at the loss of a man central to the team’s greatest achievement competing with joy at the club’s return, in the same week, to the same stage. The story of Gary Shaw is that of a local boy and Villa fan made good but also one of the ephemerality of a career that was essentially over at 23, and a life cut short at 63.
Without extensive YouTube footage of his peak years, it is difficult to convey how good Gary Shaw was. His peers knew though, voting him Young Player of the Year for the 1980-81 season, as did the journalists of the Italian magazine Guerin Sportivo, who counted him the best young player in Europe in 1982 – the Bravo Award later won by, among others, Maldini, Van Basten, Messi and both Ronaldos. Among those not to rate Shaw was Ron Greenwood, the England manager who declined to include him in the squad for the 1982 World Cup. Without Shaw, England exited in the second group stage, goalless in games against West Germany and Spain.
The 1982-83 season was the most personally successful of Shaw’s career: 24 goals in 52 games, including one in the second leg of the European Super Cup victory over Barcelona. What was a career-limiting – and in terms of football at the highest level, career-ending – knee injury came in September 1983. On 14 November 1986, he started for Villa against Chelsea, lasted 45 minutes and never played for the club again.
Still only 27, he took to the road in pursuit of a level of football that his body could cope with. The highlight of spells in Denmark, Austria, Scotland and the old English third division was a hat-trick in under five minutes for Shrewsbury in December 1990 and the winning goal in the fourth round of the FA Cup against then-first division Wimbledon in early 1991. His passing leaves unanswered the question as to whether he would have traded the three seasons in which Villa won league, European Cup and Super Cup for a longer career of more moderate success.
Kindred spirits
Of the Villa side of 1980-83, Tony Morley was perhaps Shaw’s closest soulmate. Twelve goals – including a thrilling goal of the season away to Everton, set up by Shaw – and ten assists demonstrated his importance to the title-winning side. And with a goal in the first leg against the Icelandic champions Valur, the crucial brace in the away leg of the second-round tie against Dynamo Berlin – Villa progressed on away goals – the only goal of the semi-final against Anderlecht and the assist for the winning goal in the final itself, Morley played, more than any other individual, the leading role in the European Cup campaign.
Yet, like Shaw, Morley was omitted from the 1982 World Cup squad and his career soon went into decline: only one more season at Villa before two years at West Bromwich Albion, a season in Hong Kong and another in the Netherlands with ADO Den Haag where the highlight was a goal in a losing cup final in 1987. The sense is of a player who knew that nothing could match the heights of 1980-83 and who struggled for motivation once even these achievements did not earn him a place in the England team. If injury shortened Shaw’s career, in Morley’s case, it seems to have been apathy.
From Rotterdam to Bern
Shaw’s abortive attempts to regain fitness over five seasons were mirrored in the decline of the team itself, relegated in the 1986-87 season. Villa had famously won the league with 14 players. While Gary Williams and Colin Gibson shared the left-back slot, the other ten places would have been filled with the same players but for short-term injuries or suspensions to Peter Withe and Ken McNaught; as it was, eight players were ever-present. It was a beautifully balanced side. The maverick wing play of Morley was offset by a more defensively minded full back in Williams or Gibson and balanced on the other side of the pitch by the industry of a more conventional right midfielder in Des Bremner, himself complemented by the natural attacking flair of Ken Swain, a converted midfielder at right-back.
All too briefly, Villa operated like a well-oiled machine. If league form was patchy during the 1981-82 season, the machine still ran smoothly in Europe, surviving Ron Saunders’ departure in February 1982 following a contract dispute. Tony Barton, Saunders’ replacement, was astute enough to recognise that there was nothing broken in the team that needed fixing and had the courage and humility not to rush to impose his own personality on the team. In the final in Rotterdam, Villa’s opponents, Bayern Munich, had much of the play and more of the chances, but this was no smash-and-grab. Villa’s defending was never panicked and their attacks were well-constructed and, in the 67th minute, decisive.
If the reliance on so few players suggests a certain fragility to Villa’s success, the club’s demise, in contrast to that of Shaw himself, was self-inflicted. Players were moved on precipitately and inadequately replaced. Doug Ellis, ousted in 1979 and only re-installed in 1982 after the European Cup final, seemed to take the team’s achievements during his absence as a personal affront, and encouraged the premature dismantling of the team. The lack of acknowledgement by Ellis of Tony Barton, before his death and since, raises hackles to this day.
Promoted after one season in 1988, Villa’s fortunes have ebbed and flowed in the years since: second in the league twice and two-times League Cup winners in the 1990s, this century has seen four losing finals and another relegation. As in the late 80s, their current revival has hinged on the recruitment of a brilliant manager. Unlike that earlier period, players with serious knee injuries can now expect to make a full recovery.
A side note to Villa’s 3-0 win over Young Boys of Bern on their return to what used to be called the European Cup was the substitute appearance of Emi Buendia, a player similar in style and stature to Gary Shaw, after a year out with ACL damage. Those who regret the early curtailment of Shaw’s career will hope that Buendia knows how lucky he is. Shaw himself was not bitter. The world is a darker place without him.