what price loyalty?

WHAT PRICE LOYALTY? Over the last few weeks I, as a Villa fan, have been considering the concept of loyalty. Not mine to the club, you understand (that, unfortunately, lives with me like an affliction; a wonderful, frustrating, occasionally feverish illness that can never be cured), no: more to do with other people’s to the club.

You may well ask: why is this of any significance to the Villa? Or to football, for that matter. The most important thing is that we have made it, finally, to the FA Cup final after 43 years and the 17,000 season ticket holders at Villa Park and another lucky 8,500 fans are going to have a right royal time up in the Capital on May 20th; and rightly so. However, the reason for my interest in “loyalty” is the news (a few weeks ago now) that Ugo has decided to play it fast and loose as far a new contract is concerned. As I heard the carefully-constructed announcement in the media to the effect that he was keeping his options wide open, my mind went back to some of the previous ‘defectors’ that we have witnessed leaving Villa Park over the last few years.

My first sense of ‘betrayal’ regarding the club was the shenanigans surrounding the boardroom upheavals of 1968 but I was too young to appreciate the full impact (and the fact that football here was merely imitating the rest of society during that great year of change and people-power). The first real player-related feeling that an old and trusted friend had walked out on us was over Bruce Rioch’s sale to Derby in early 1974; greeted with some considerable angst amongst the Chosen Few (the man feted as the “king of Villa Park” had deigned to seek fame and fortune - and a few Scotland caps - at Derby!!). The fact that he’d only played for the Villa 176 times was a small detail that passed me by at the time.

And Andy Gray, the Scottish hero whom Ron Saunders had plucked from the ‘promising’ environment of the old Scottish First Division to become (along with the incomparable Little and John Deehan) the scourge of English defences for the Villa. His departure to Wolves was very painful and took a little more of my innocence away (in respect of believing blindly that everyone who played for the Villa did so from the heart). But it has only been in the last 3 months that I have bothered to check a few details about the commitment given to Villa by some of its past and present heroes, in terms of the time spent with the club and the number of appearances made. And it makes interesting reading.

We are all aware of the disappointment and irritation created by the departure of Dwight Yorke to Newton Heath. And we have all heard the grief given to Stevie Staunton (you know: “one greedy bastard”, and all that). But they both paid their dues in the form of a respectable number of games for the Villa. The question is: were they – and is Ugo today- more or less ‘loyal’ than should be expected of today’s players and than would have been expected of Villa players in the past? To answer this question requires a quick review of the club’s playing staff over its history.

Allow me to summarise this for you. Firstly, how do you measure loyalty? Well, for the purposes of this article, anyone who has played at least 200 times (100 in the case of the club’s first decade) for the club is regarded as ‘loyal’ (on the basis that if they were good enough to be selected that many times they were presumably also good enough to attract the attention of other clubs’ scouts).

The ‘loyal’ players of the last ten years have been no less active for the club than their predecessors, averaging 305 games for the club (the average over the club’s history for ‘loyal’ players is 307 games). That’s pretty encouraging, even if they are probably playing more games per season than their counterparts of the 1930’s and 1940’s. Another measure of the relative loyalty of players today compared to previous decades is to look at the number of ‘loyal’ players who played through a decade as a proportion of the total number of players representing the club in first-team appearances over the same period (let’s call this the loyalty factor). Doing this analysis shows that the 1990’s was a poor decade for playing ‘loyal’ players, relative to the club’s total playing history (the average loyalty factor throughout the club’s history being 16.6% of the playing staff having recorded at least 200 games for the club), whereas throughout the 1990’s the loyalty factor was only 12%.

Interestingly, the highest loyalty factor came in the 1980’s – not the time you’d necessarily expect to find the greatest stability amongst the playing staff – because the beginning and end of that particular decade saw the wind-down of the Saunders era and the flowering of the Taylor period. Both these managers were able to engender a high level of player-loyalty. The 1970’s and 1980’s were the decades that saw the highest absolute number of ‘loyal’ players: 18 in each decade achieved more than 200 appearances. This is explained, I guess, by the high level of turmoil that preceded them - in the late 1960’s - and by the success of the reconstructive periods that followed. It also reflects a focus on youth policy – Little, Gidman, Cowans, Shaw, Spink, Gibson, Walters, Birch, Daley – which bore fruit during that time. Now this analysis is not particularly scientific – it double counts those players who played in more than one decade, for instance – but illustrates at least that some measure can be applied when dealing with the emotion of players’ movements to and from the club.

So, what does all this mean? Well, with the extra pressure being placed on today’s players by rapacious agents, desperate to do their next big deal and to continue to ‘turn’ their assets every 2 years or so; with the thirst for success so evident amongst Chairmen, Managers and Fans; with the tension created by money coming into the game from every conceivable media organisation – it is not surprising to see players putting themselves ‘into play’. There is, to illustrate this point, a timebomb ticking away up at Newton Heath following the highly-publicised resolution of Keane’s contractual differences.

Ehiogu (like Yorke and Staunton before him) has given Villa over 250 appearances with nothing more to show (to date) than one League Cup winners medal apiece and a few memorable European performances. Additionally, they all gave it 110% for the sacred colours and Yorke and Staunton were only exercising their rights within the standards of today’s game.  I, for one, do not begrudge them the chance to better themselves in other pastures – they make the move, they take the risk of success-failure (for Staunton, a miss-calculation; for Yorke, a success). And if Ugo reluctantly decides to do the same (and he has not yet confirmed his intention to move on, only his current decision not to sign a new contract at this time) – so be it, after nearly 10 years.

The challenge for the club, and all associated with it, is this: how does Aston Villa create an environment where players only leave when the club decides it?

By winning things, above all else! By treating its staff with respect and equanimity (loyalty?) at all times. By always being seen as straight, honest and objective in its personnel negotiations. By bringing in honest, effective and ambitious players to the club. By having a supportive, passionate and vocal home crowd. By having a successful (cash-generating) commercial department …. But you know all this!

And so to Ehiogu, Carbone and anyone else currently negotiating their contract with HDE: can we honestly say as a club that we have created and delivered all these conditions? Loyalty is a two-way thing that is highly rewarding to both parties if managed effectively; in fact, it is priceless! If the club delivers, the players will deliver!! The 2000 FA Cup is maybe the beginning of an era when the club can start delivering on at least some of these expectations.

David Evans