20 YEARS AGO TODAY: LEAGUE CUP FINAL- VILLA 3 MANCHESTER UNITED 1...

'BCFC'

Surprise winners...

It was a Sunday morning, March 27th, 1994 and my parents’ 51st wedding anniversary, by chance. My daughter and I were to drive down to Wembley for Aston Villa’s League Cup Final match against Manchester United, a game which really, United ought to have won. They didn’t. Lucy had managed to purchase a mini Villa kit, which she felt would fit my childhood teddy bear well, so that it could travel to London with us as a mascot, on the rear shelf of my red, used Austin Montego. The bear had never been anywhere, ever. We set out for the game, waving to my younger daughter Wendy and young son Jamie on the street corner, both uniformed in Villa shirts, Wendy’s having ‘ATKINSON’ (after Damien) emblazoned on the back of hers. Lucy was a Dean Saunders fan and so my daughters were Villa’s strike-force, effectively. And Villa’s strikers were to win the cup for their team.

Wendy and Jamie wave us off... 

20 years ago... Wow...

We were due to collect my dad then drive to a friend’s house on the outskirts of London, eat a sandwich there and Mike would then drive us to the ‘twin towers’, thus avoiding parking problems and other fuss.

This ran smoothly, Villa beat the Reds by 3-1, with Atkinson and Saunders scoring the goals, although United would always point to the fact that keeping goal for them that day was Mr Angry himself, the late Les Sealey, who would feature for Villa later in his career. Atkinson deftly beat Sealey from Saunders’ flick over the grumbling Steve Bruce, to afford Villa a 1-0 lead at the interval, which was added to by Saunders, who deflected a low Kevin Richardson free-kick past the uncertain ‘keeper with 15 minutes remaining. Mark Hughes poked Roy Keane’s delivery past Mark Bosnich to set up a nervy final 6 minutes for the Midlanders but then, to ease Villa’s fears, Andrei Kanchelskis handled Atkinson’s 90th minute goal-bound effort, the Russian was dismissed and Saunders buried the resulting added-time penalty. Villa had stifled a below par United and had scored from three of four attempts on target and Manager Ron Atkinson’s surprise choice of Graham Fenton in midfield had worked a treat. The view from our ‘seats’ was horrific however, for we were low down and everybody was standing up in front of us anyway, leaving dad, Lucy and me struggling to see; we stood on our seats, but so did others, so we climbed onto the backs of our seats, holding each other for balance and it was tough. We saw OK though, but when I glanced across at dad, he was resting both hands on the balding head of the bloke in front of him… Dad did things like that and he had obviously joked with the poor chap, who simply allowed dad to do it! I shook my head. Following the conclusion of the pitch celebrations, Lucy, my dad and I made our way to the appointed meeting place with Mike and he was there, obviously pleased for us and he drove us back to his house, where we relaxed for a while before I drove back to Birmingham. Lucy was happy but exhausted, I dropped dad home and packed her off to bed when we reached our house, before eating a large bowl of Weetabix, dozing on the sofa then trudging to bed.

I walked to the front door in the morning, ready to drive to the local newsagency to buy the newspapers and read the match reports, in those ancient days before the internet, plus to see and enjoy the images emblazoned across the back pages and basically bask in the memories. However, when I opened the door, there was no Montego on my drive. It was gone. Vanished. Stolen. Horrified, I realised that my 44 year old teddy bear and the accompanying 44 year old soft toy duck had been left on the rear shelf of the car overnight, so they had gone too. I was in shock. The police were informed, I suffered several days of anxiety and then, on Thursday 31st March, I received a phonecall from the Tamworth police; my car had been found in Arden Road, Wilnecote, not far from where I had lived from 1976 to 1978. A neighbour kindly drove me there and my dark red vehicle was splattered with mud, as if it had been competing in a race around the trenches at the Somme. My trainers and goalkeeping gloves had been taken, an audio-cassette tape was jammed in the player, but the thieves had ignored the Observers’ Book of Birds, inside which was an emergency £10 note. A Villa sticker had been ripped from the rear windscreen however and sadly, my bear and duck had gone too, no doubt slung from the vehicle. The thieves, I guessed, were Birmingham City fans, which was confirmed when I looked at the hood of the car, which was horribly and deeply scratched by four large letters: ‘BCFC’. Too stupid to find the £10 note, the fools had instead thrown a child’s bear and an infant’s duck away, as well as making it clear that their likely jealousy was too much for their mindlessness, resulting in their scrawl. 

The ignition was destroyed, the door-lock had been holed, 120 miles had been driven, my son’s booster seat had been taken and so had the hub caps. I tried to start the car with a screwdriver and it turned over but wouldn’t quite go. We pushed it but I had to call out the A.A. eventually. It rained. The patrolman realised that a ‘high tension lead’ was missing but was able to replace it, I started the car and he then found the missing lead, tucked beneath the hood, as if the thieves had intended returning to the car at some point. At least I was spared more harassment. I drove home.

The car was written off, not because of the damage to the ignition and the driver’s door-lock but because of the scratches on the bonnet, which would apparently have cost too much to repair, compared with the value of my Montego. So, Villa won the Coca-Cola League Cup twenty years ago, I never found my teddy bear, nor the little, dog-eared duck and people wonder why I have never favoured Birmingham City. Perhaps they would have been averse to the Small Heathens too, had they suffered at the hands of such braggards…

Saunders scores past Bruce and Sealey...

I wouldn’t mind, but I was following Plymouth Argyle in those days...