Saunders appreciated that he was lucky to inherit a squad that was full of quality but had lost its way over the previous twelve months, although in view of his later persona it was ironic that when landing the job he said that, “My priorities are to entertain the public and to win matches – in that order”.

Saunders had already enjoyed a successful football career before becoming Villa manager. He began with Everton spent three years with Southern League Tonbridge and first came to note when netting twenty goals in 49 games for Gillingham. Moving to first division Portsmouth he scored 157 goals in 258 games before winding down his playing career with Watford and Charlton Athletic.

His first managerial job was with Yeovil, and when moving to Oxford United Saunders became the first manager to go from non-league to division two. He then had four seasons with Norwich, winning promotion to division one and taking the side to the 1973 League Cup final before his first fall out with a chairman, in this case Arthur South, saw him moving to Manchester City. Saunders spent barely five months at Maine Road, getting to another League Cup final but also alienating much of the playing staff before being dismissed a few weeks before the Villa job became available. The timing was either coincidence, or fate.

Supporters may have been underwhelmed by the appointment, but the players soon realised that Saunders was going to have an immediate impression on the club. As Neil Rioch later said, “He was hard and fast immediately on how he wanted the game played. He was extremely organised.” His first season began well, and Saunders was named Manager of the Month for October, but results tailed off and at the halfway point in the season Villa were seventh in the table.

But the team progressed inexorably to Saunders’ third consecutive League Cup final appearance and this time a Ray Graydon penalty (of sorts) gave Saunders the elusive win and Villa their first trophy for fourteen years. By the time Ian Ross lifted the trophy Villa were in the midst of a run that saw 32 points taken from eighteen games and promotion achieved on a memorable night at Hillsborough. An even more memorable afternoon saw 57,266 packed into Villa Park on the final Saturday of the season, see Villa beat Sunderland 2-0 and acclaim Saunders as a Messiah on what he described as “The greatest moment of my footballing life”. Until the day he left Villa Park, that bond between manager and supporters remained unbroken.

Saunders’ first season at Villa Park also saw him winning the Manager of the Year award. 1975-76 was quieter results-wise with Villa finishing sixteenth in division one, but saw significant developments in what the future would bring. Saunders gave the players who had won promotion the chance to prove themselves at the top level but a few poor performances, including a 5-1 aggregate defeat to Royal Antwerp in Villa’s first-ever European tie showed that changes had to be made. John Burridge replaced Jim Cumbes, Andy Gray was a club record signing and Dennis Mortimer arrived in time for Christmas. Saunders had found his right-hand man and there was none better, nor more loyal.

If the first season back had been one of consolidation, 1976-77 was a case of achievement beyond the wildest dreams of every supporter. Andy Gray linked up with Brian Little and John Deehan to run riot through the defences of the first division, opponents weren’t so much beaten as destroyed. The 5-1 win over Liverpool is often regarded as Villa’s best performance since the war, the League Cup was won after a three-game rollercoaster of a final. Villa eventually finished fourth, the highest finish since the thirties, although they could have finished much higher, perhaps even winning the title, had they not suffered a fixture backlog as a result of the League Cup marathon.

Other Villa sides may have had more success but the Class of ’77 is regarded as the most attractive in living memory. Chris Nicholl, though, said that believing this to be a result of free-flowing total football would be mistaken, “We knew our jobs, knew what the team was about and what we had to do. We may have looked an attacking team but everything was built on winning the ball and countering.”

Saunders had stamped his authority in terms of both personnel and style. Dennis Mortimer said of his manager, “He was just very straight, pragmatic. Everything was done for a purpose. Get on with it and perform to your best.”

He spent three seasons putting together his final team, getting rid of players he either considered to be past their useful best, or incapable of fitting in with his plans. League finishes of eighth, eighth and seventh might have appeared to show that Saunders had gone as far as he could, but they were achieved against a backdrop of injury and illness to key players, as well as regular re-occurrences of the boardroom unrest that bedevilled the club during the seventies.

In August 1977 Everton approached Saunders, offering to make him the best-paid manager in the league. He turned them down, saying “I’ve worked hard to achieve what I have and I will have to work harder in the future.” Over the next couple of years he was to find that some of his hardest battles were to come off the pitch.

A year after the Everton approach, Saunders had further offers to manage Leeds and the Saudi Arabian national side. The wrangles this caused were part of the reason why several directors including chairman Sir William Dugdale resigned. Saunders signed a new contract, Ron Bendall’s son Donald joined the board but anyone who thought that peace would descend on Villa Park was in for a rude awakening.

Villa had finished eighth in 1978-79 and a Sports Argus story as the new season began asking “What is going on at Villa Park?” hinted at problems that soon became public. As Dennis Mortimer later said of the time, “Andy Gray and John Gidman wanted to get away. Ron wanted them out because they wanted to get away. Money was a factor and some players thought they could get more somewhere else. Ron also brought in some players who didn’t fit in with his system and we lost our way a bit.”

Gray and Gidman eventually left in autumn 1979. The departures of two such popular players – albeit ones against whom supporters firmly backed the manager – gave the excuse for Doug Ellis to call an EGM. The battle may officially have been between rival directors, but there was no doubt where the real enmity lay. In the end, Ellis’s bid for power failed by the narrowest of margins. He was unable to overcome the large holding of the Bendalls while the rank and file supporters were solidly behind the manager. With Ellis gone and team rebuilding almost complete, Saunders was now the controlling figure at Villa Park. He had a board he could work with, players who owed him total loyalty and fans who continued to worship.

Villa finished seventh in 1979-80 and Saunders moved to make his greatest signing. Peter Withe had won the league with Nottingham Forest in 1978 but a move to second division Newcastle seemed to indicate that his best days were behind him. It was a strange move for Saunders to think such a player was the final piece in the jigsaw and incredulity at the news increased when it became known that Withe would cost a club record £500,000. The rest is history.

Inside the club there was a quiet confidence as 1980-81 kicked off. Saunders later said that he knew the team would win the league from the start of the season and Dennis Mortimer shared the belief; “I knew it when we kicked off at Leeds, I knew we would win the league.”

42 games and many twists and turn later, both men’s prediction came true. As the season went on, challenges were met and overcome. The team may not have been as attacking as their 1977 predecessors, but there was a resilience about them that meant they had the knack of grinding out results on an off-day. There were some great performances, such as the 2-0 win against Liverpool that proved Villa were genuine title contenders, but there were just as many late winners that proved equally vital.

It’s a matter of record that Villa went through the season using just fourteen players – testimony to their fitness and also to the manager’s ability to get the best from his charges. None of them were picked for international duty, an omission as scandalous as it was inexplicable. Or perhaps not. Tony Morley, whose fall-outs with his manager are still legendary, has a theory, “We’d just lost at Spurs and Gary Shaw and I were due to play for England B the week after. We’re coming off the pitch and Saunders asked us if we were injured – told us, almost. Then he announced that we’d both been injured during the match so that was it for the England team.”

Players being conveniently injured for international call-ups was one way in which Saunders ensured that the team remained focused on the big prize. He was also less concerned than he might have been about Villa’s early eliminations from the knockout competitions. Years before it became accepted practice by top managers, Saunders was letting nothing stand in the way of his top priority.

He certainly didn’t go out of his way to cultivate the press. Saunders had always had an uneasy relationship with the media. As other challengers fell by the wayside, the national press made it clear that their preferred champions would be Ipswich, where they were always welcomed by Bobby Robson and the club’s owners. Saunders let his rivals become the media’s darlings, keeping the pressure off his young side.

There’s only one match that will be remembered for all time because of the answer to a question after the final whistle. Ipswich came to Villa Park and for the second time that season were outplayed yet managed to win. Saunders faced the press afterwards and uttered the immortal words, “Do you want to bet against us?”

As a psychological masterstroke it was unparalleled. Ipswich lost four of their final five games, Saunders had achieved his great ambition. His methods, his fall-outs with players and directors, his icy relationship with the press, were all vindicated. As he stood on the balcony of the Council House, holding up the league championship trophy to his adoring fans, his entire career had led up to this moment.

During the following season Villa’s form suffered due to a series of injuries and, as it transpired, yet more wrangling behind the scenes. The team were mid-table in the league and making good progress in Europe when stories emerged that Saunders’ roll-over contact was being scrapped. Ron Bendall, by now club chairman, explained that this was in the interests of economy while Saunders made ominous noises about leaving.

Three days later Saunders collapsed at Bodymoor Heath suffering from flu and that evening came the news he had resigned. There was predictable outrage when the story emerged but the anger that was building up swiftly dissipated when Blues manager Jim Smith was sacked and the identity of his replacement revealed.

The true reason why Saunders left Villa, and why he crossed the city, will probably never be known. It’s likely that only two men ever knew the real reason; Bendall barely said a word on this or any other subject and while Saunders claimed that his power base was being eroded (“I am paid to be the manager, not the office boy” he said at the time), other factors such as the contract issue and claims that he would be forced to sell senior players may also have had an influence. It was also reckoned that both Saunders and Don Bendall had an eye on becoming Villa’s managing director, league regulations having been relaxed to enable clubs to employ a paid board member.

Saunders was unable to work the same re-building magic at St Andrews that he had achieved at Villa and Blues were relegated from the first division in 1984. They came back up the following season with a team as combative off the field as on it, but in January 1986, with Blues bottom of the league, Saunders resigned after a humiliating FA Cup defeat at home to non-league Altrincham. He took over at Albion and was unable to avoid the then-unique achievement of relegating two clubs in the same season. Saunders left the Hawthorns in September 1987 and a great managerial career was over.

From then on Saunders became an increasingly reclusive figure. His only public appearance came at the Tony Barton memorial match in 1994, when he made his way down the Villa Park touchline for the last time. For years there was little recognition of the man and his achievements at Villa Park, and Saunders appeared unbothered with this state of affairs. It was a source of great pity, and in some quarters great anger, that the club and its greatest manager didn’t seem to desire each other’s company.

This, of course, was to change with the departure of Doug Ellis. In December 2006 Ron Saunders returned to Villa Park. He received a standing ovation from the crowd, enjoyed the occasion and made several further visits to the place he never really left.

Saunders was a deeply complex character. He gave off the image of a bluff, no-nonsense hard man who suffered fools badly, yet he was also capable of tremendous kindness. He made sure players’ families were looked after and his work with the Soccer-Care charity and unemployed youngsters were pioneering examples of football in the community. He fell out with players and seemed to value the work ethic above natural ability, yet got the best out of such talents as Tony Morley and Gary Shaw. He stated repeatedly that he was a Villa supporter himself and that everything he did was for their benefit, yet he was happy to join their biggest rivals.