Bayern’s first away match in the new Champions League will be played in Birmingham. 42 years ago the teams faced each other, but at a much higher stage of the tournament. Then they arrived in Rotterdam, where the next European Cup final was played.
How Aston Villa reached the final
The Birmingham club started in the Champions Cup under manager Ron Saunders. It was he who turned Aston Villa into the best team in England in 1981. In the first round of the KEC (there was no group stage then) he went to the modest Icelandic club Valur. So modest that it included a professor, an economist and a radio commentator. It is not surprising that Saunders required his players to score four or five goals against their rivals. The players outscored it 5-0. The Times described Valura’s game as fragile, which was probably an act of kindness.
The second leg took place in Iceland. The conditions could not be considered elegant: a biting wind and the smell of rotting fish in the air. But this did not prevent Aston Villa from calmly beating their rival (2-0) thanks to Gary Shaw’s double. By the way, the 20-year-old footballer returned to action after a leg injury he suffered before the start of the season. And in the first game, Peter Wheat and Terry Donovan scored two goals each. Another goal was scored by Tony Morley.
Tony Morley (left) and Peter Wheat
Photo: Allsport/Getty Images
There are many big clubs from that era left in the tournament (Liverpool, Bayern, Juventus, Benfica), so Villa was happy when they drew against Dinamo Berlin in the second round. British journalists called a possible draw in the first leg a good result before the second leg. But Aston Villa exceeded the plan and won away from home (2-1), Morley scored a goal at the beginning and at the end of the match. The English club lost at home (0-1), but advanced to the quarterfinals thanks to the away goals rule.
The next rival is Dynamo kyiv. But it was necessary to play with him already in 1982. In February, Aston Villa was in 17th place in the English championship standings, just three points from the relegation zone. A few days later, Saunders left his position as head coach after a dispute with the club’s main shareholder, Ron Bendall. It is believed that it was about the contract. The coach wanted a new contract that stipulated a significant penalty in the event of dismissal. Bendall refused and Saunders resigned.
The shareholder invited Villa’s chief scout, Tony Barton, to manage the team on an interim basis. Almost no one knew him in England, but Barton was talented, because he gathered half of the team, which later won the English championship. Saunders, in turn, took charge of Birmingham City, Aston Villa’s arch-rivals. And he immediately lost to his former club. Villa fans chanted: “Saunders, you must be crazy” and “We don’t need you anymore.”
Ron Saunders with the trophy for winning the League Cup in 1975
Photo: Don Morley/Allsport/Getty Images
Barton corrected the situation in the Championship: the team won 7 out of 12 matches. The first match against Dynamo in the USSR ended without goals. Before the second leg, the press talked about two things. Firstly, will Barton be given the head coach job permanently if he reaches the Champions League semi-finals? Secondly, we discussed the state of the pitch at the Villa Park stadium. Birmingham’s wettest March on record turned grass into a waterlogged mud bath. The Club spent a lot of money buying a huge tarp to cover the field, but strong winds prevented this. At one point it seemed that the game was in danger, but the field was made playable with the help of 150 volunteers who covered the grass with plenty of sand.
Shaw and Ken McNaught scored in the first half to give Villa a 2-0 lead. A couple of weeks later, Barton received a three-year contract and then flew to Belgium to watch Anderlecht in the semi-finals. What did the coach see there? Very good defensive play and extremely dangerous counterattacks. Barton understood how important it was to not concede goals in the first home game. Villa coped with the task. Morley scored the only goal midway through the first half and the rivals left the field goalless: 1-0.
Aston Villa before the 1982 European Cup final
Photo: avfc.co.uk
The second leg was remembered for the fight in the stands before and during the game. When one of the fans jumped onto the field, the referee took the teams to the locker room for seven minutes. Around 600 Aston Villa fans traveled to Belgium without tickets, causing riots. Result: 27 people were arrested and 20 were injured. “You are the scum of Birmingham,” chanted the Villa fans who did not participate in the riots. The police worked tirelessly with their batons, so it looked creepy from the outside.
All this misfortune overshadowed the English club’s advance to the European Cup final. Anderlecht appealed to UEFA requesting to repeat the match or disqualify the rival. On the last day of April, a committee of eight people met. The appeal of the Belgian club was rejected, although Aston Villa was fined 14.5 thousand pounds sterling. In addition, the English team was prohibited from playing the next home match in the European competition with fans in the stands. Barton and his players breathed a sigh of relief.
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How Bayern reached the final
The Munich Club’s first rival was the Swedish Esther. Nobody doubted that Bayern would safely advance to the second round of the KEC. The first match in Sweden turned out to be quite tense: the guests scored the only goal in the 75th minute (Karl-Heinz Rummenigge scored). Two weeks later, in Munich, Bayern’s attack was in full swing. Three goals in the 31st minute, five at the end. Rummenigge scored two goals, as did Dieter Hoenes. The opponent did not score a single goal after two games.
Next, the tie pitted Bayern against Benfica. A very powerful couple for the round of 16 of the Champions Cup. The Munich team again repeated the approximate scenario of the first round. This time in Lisbon they scored zero and then destroyed their rival at home 4-1. Hoenes scored three goals for the rival and the final score was scored by Paul Breitner.
Bayern before the 1982 KEC final
Photo: Peter Robinson/Getty Images
In March 1982, Bayern beat the Romanian club Universitata. This time the German team solved all the problems in the first match. In Romania, the visitors scored two goals before half-time (Breitner and Rummenigge scored) and kept the score 2:0 until the final whistle. The second leg ended with the score 1:1 and Bayern scored a goal from Hoenes.
Next, the Munich club met with CSKA Sofia. The Bulgarian club should not be underestimated, since in the previous phase of the tournament they beat Liverpool (0-1, 2-0). It seems that Bayern slept from the beginning of the first match in Bulgaria: 0:3 in the 18th minute! Nobody expected this. However, the Munich team quickly came to their senses and pulled two goals back before the break: Bernd Dürnberger and Hoenes scored. The start of the second half is a new disappointment for Bayern. The team missed the fourth goal, but still achieved an acceptable result thanks to Breitner’s goal at the end – 3:4.
In Munich, the visitors held out until the 43rd minute, but a goal just before half-time seemed to completely demoralize them. Furthermore, they conceded immediately at the beginning of the second half. Breitner scored a double, Rummenigge also scored a double (4:0). There was no sensation here.
Team captains exchange pennants before 1982 KEC final
Photo: avfc.co.uk
End
“Villa” did everything possible to ensure that the history of fan unrest, as in Belgium, was not repeated in the final. The club distributed 13,000 tickets through its official travel club. Plus called on the government to ban unofficial tour operators from selling tickets purchased on the mainland.
The English faced the game as clear losers. Bayern had a much more experienced squad, featuring Klaus Augenthaler, Breitner, Hoenes and two-time European Footballer of the Year Rummenigge. Aston Villa could not boast of such a selection of players. “Both teams are in good shape. If Morley shines in the final, then Villa can lift the trophy over their heads,” wrote British journalist Dave Horridge before the match.
Nigel Spink prepares to come on as a substitute
Photo: avfc.co.uk
But the main hero of the match was someone else: the little-known goalkeeper Nigel Spink. Until that time, the 23-year-old goalkeeper had played only one match for Villa – it was at the end of 1979. The main goalkeeper of the English club Jimmy Rimmer injured his neck during training. He still appeared in the starting lineup (painkillers helped), but he only spent nine minutes on the field. Before the break, the substitute goalkeeper saved the team from trouble on a couple of occasions. It is true that he too would have been left helpless after Rummenigge’s cold header, but the ball went wide of the goal. Incidentally, Spink would later become a true Villa legend and would play over 300 games for the club.
The second half followed the same scenario: Bayern attacked, but again and again seemed to hit the wall. Spink played well on the line, sometimes protected by defenders. But Aston Villa took their chance midway through the second half. Morley turned around Hans Weiner and crossed into the center of the goalkeeper’s area, from where Peter Whit beat the goalkeeper with a touch. This goal is immortalized on a banner in the north stand of Villa Park.
Peter Wheat scores the only goal of the final
Photo: avfc.co.uk
Bayern created some more disturbing moments for Aston Villa fans (Hoenes’ goal was disallowed for offside), but the English club maintained the winning result. Barton led the team to European Cup victory after being in charge for just 56 days. “This is the most important moment in Aston Villa’s history,” said a jubilant Tony after the final.
“It was the longest 23 minutes of my career, but we held on. The celebrations lasted all night. People keep asking about the goal in the final, but I never get tired of these constant conversations,” Whit recalled a few years later.
“Not even the most evil director could have written a worse script for us,” Bayern coach Pal Csernai said sadly.
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This is what Tony Morley said after the game: “A lot of people don’t know that Villa had a deal with Nike for the players to wear their boots for the final. At that time they were like concrete. I didn’t use them: Gary Shaw and I had our own sponsors. But three or four boys rubbed their feet so hard that they got blisters the size of eggs. After the game I thought: “We could have lost the European Cup final because of this.” Is there any other team that has won a tournament where four or five guys put on new boots and played three quarters of the game with blisters? This wouldn’t happen now.
After the game we had to wait a long time for Peter With and Ken McNaught. They went to get a drug test, but were so dehydrated they couldn’t go to the bathroom. I was lucky there was a guy walking around with cases of beer. The guys had a few bottles and then came to the locker room drunker than us. This is the pinnacle of Villa’s history.
Later, the English club won the UEFA Super Cup, defeating Barcelona on aggregate (0:1, 3:0). Then began a long decline that led Aston Villa to be relegated from the English first division in 1987. That year Bayern again reached the European Cup final and lost again, this time against Porto (1-2). .
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