Villa 1 Juventus 2,

European Cup quarter-final First leg, 2nd March 1983.

To anyone brought up on watching Villa in the sixties the scenario to this match would have seemed an impossible fantasy. Juventus, the richest and most successful club in Italy, one of the most famous names in world football, financed by the massive wealth of the Fiat motor corporation, a club who had won every major honour except the one they so desperately craved; the European Cup, then residing in the Villa Park boardroom.

45,531 attended the match, including some eight thousand Italians - far and away the biggest following a foreign club has ever brought to Villa Park. The atmosphere was awesome - as the match approached it seemed as though everyone in the ground was screaming at the top of their voices, knowing that Villa would have to be at peak form in order to contain the Italians. At kick-off the noise reached a crescendo, a tumult which lasted for all of forty seconds until European Footballer of the Year Paolo Rossi opened the scoring.

It was undoubtedly a body-blow, but to their credit Villa never gave up. Cowans equalised and we were the victims of a couple of highly dubious refereeing decisions. Ken MacNaught had a goal disallowed for no apparent reason and a strong claim for a penalty was also turned down.

Villa in fact played well, and they needed to, because Juventus were on another planet. Reports from Italy had indicated that they were suffering from poor form and a lack of confidence. This theory was ridiculed as they put on a display of football which would have been a pleasure to watch in other circumstances.

Platini scored Juve's winner in the second half, the return leg a fortnight later was a formality. No-one had ever beaten Juventus by two goals in a European game at the Stadio Communale and Villa were no exception as Peter Withe scored a consolation in a 3-1 defeat that saw us go out of the competition 5-2 on aggregate.

But it is a tribute to the Villa's resilience that they were able to meet Juventus on level terms in the first place. The Italians fielded Zoff, Gentile, Cabrini, Scirea, Tardelli, Bettega and Rossi who all played for Italy in the previous year's World Cup Final, plus the Polish international Boniek and Michel Platini, at Lie time arguably the best footballer in the world. Looked at objectively, they were probably the best team the Villa have played for many years and it says something for the team that Juventus were given so many problems in the first leg. For a club who a few seasons before were in the same league as the likes of Halifax and Wrexham it was an awesome achievement.