LEAGUE CUP ROUND 5, 17TH NOVEMBER 1970: BRISTOL ROVERS 1-1 ASTON VILLA...

An Eastville Drenching…

It was November 17th 1970 and Aston Villa were due to travel to Eastville for a League Cup 5th Round tie against Bristol Rovers. Both teams were in the top four of the old 3rd Division and the Pirates had previously beaten Small Heath (Birmingham for the uninitiated) 3-0 in the previous round. Ex-Blues striker Robin Stubbs had scored in that match and City’s Roger Hynd, an agricultural defender at times, had netted an own-goal. All good stuff... The only team to win at Eastville up to that evening was Bury, surprisingly and Rovers were above Villa in the league. Stubbs, Harold Jarman and Ray Graydon, who would go on to play for Villa of course and score the winner in the 1975 Final against Norwich, had amassed 28 goals between them. Goalkeeper Dick Sheppard had appeared in the 1967 League Cup Final for West Brom’s Baggies.

TWO OF ROVERS' GOALS AGAINST BIRMINGHAM...

Despite studying PE at Bulmershe College in Reading, by mid-November I hadn’t missed a Villa game home or away. I had also met a Villa supporter who attended Bristol University and so when Villa were drawn to play at Eastville, it was arranged that I could stay at his digs in Bristol overnight and return to Reading the following day. I had obtained my ticket for the away-end terrace from Villa Park and my plan was to hitch-hike along the A4 from Reading towards Bristol, in the days before the M4 improved such travelling. 

BACK PAGE OF THE MATCH PROGRAMME...

It rained. And it rained some more. I guess I didn’t resemble the usual hitch-hiker however, for I carried an umbrella and I wore my bilious college scarf: purple, green and dark yellow (you should have seen the rugby jerseys…) Usually I picked up lifts fairly easily, often from women drivers with dogs. I had warily stroked many breeds in my hitch-hiking days, simply to appease the growling mutts and I suppose they were the 1970s equivalents of today’s personal alarms… Typically but mercifully, I was offered regular lifts on this day of miserable weather and I rarely had to wait long for a ride with my trusty umbrella keeping me dry.

I reached the outskirts of Bristol during the early afternoon and I knew I would have to walk the final three miles or so to the city’s bus station, where I had been instructed to catch a double-decker to my mate’s lodgings. And it had stopped raining. I began to feel more cheery as I approached a bridge with a fairly wide span, noting the deep mud below the steep banks of the river below at low tide. After all the rain, I hoped that the Eastville pitch would be more playable than the mire visible under the bridge… 

I was just beginning to appreciate how fortunate I had been to have stayed so dry after such a long and difficult journey, when I noticed a truck heading my way, rumbling along on my side of the road, as I faced the oncoming traffic, safely on a pavement. I then made a sudden and evasive movement for the inside of the pathway for there were considerable puddles in the gutter which stretched several feet into the road and I assessed them as threatening. Unfortunately however, the driver of the truck must have assessed them as a means of firing a water cannon at a gullible pedestrian, for I am convinced even now that the evil bastard swerved inwards into the water in a vicious attempt to soak me. It worked too, as a tidal wave of rainwater rose above me, as I, startled, threw my hands upwards like a shepherd warding off an angel near Bethlehem but it was all in total vain, as the shower engulfed me and drenched my coat with cold and muddy water. My scowl was in direct contrast to the truck driver’s mirth. I began to shiver as I attempted to wipe my face and hair with dry parts of a sleeve and the walk was no longer a pleasure, for I couldn’t get to the bus station quickly enough and my hopes for the game had been severely dampened too. 

I felt a good deal more comfortable at my mate’s lodgings, for his landlady dried my coat and scarf, as well as feeding me well but the rain had begun again and obviously there was doubt about the fitness of the Eastville pitch. The landlord was going to drive us to the game but he was rather laid back about setting out and seemed quite unfazed about getting started at all, as the time began to ease towards kick-off. He was to be standing with the Rovers fans but my ticket was for the Stapleton Road/Muller Road entrances. Still the rain fell and the terrace was crowded with noisy Villa fans, already settled in their places and I knew that my 5 feet 7 inches would prove a handicap for a decent view of the game, which was clearly going ahead. I threaded my way to the top of the terrace and decided to scramble up onto the surrounding wall, where I was suddenly in a prime position to see the match, sitting with quite a drop behind me, one hand resting on a guy’s shoulder in case I should overbalance.

This advantageous viewing place would be a health and safety assessor’s dream today but then it was totally ignored by any stewards daft enough to want to make it an issue. The view of the oval stadium was excellent from there but the pitch itself was a puddled pudding and the surrounding dog-track was like the River Nile running red. Substitutes Neil Rioch for Villa, brother of Bruce, who was recovering from a cartilage operation, and Bobby Jones for Rovers could have warmed up with umbrellas in true Gene Kelly ‘Singin’ In the Rain’ style, for the water was perfect for the splashing dance from the film. 

28,780 spectators conjured up an exciting atmosphere and the conditions would worsen to become a bath of mud, but what a start for Villa… A Willie Anderson run on the left, which surprisingly didn’t end with the ex-Manchester United winger falling over as usual, despite the slippery surface, ended with a cross which was flicked on by ex-Chelsea youngster Chico Hamilton’s long fair hair towards the far upright, where ex-Glasgow Celtic gazelle Pat McMahon leapt to head back across Sheppard and into the home net. Villa looked comfortable at 0-1 with Andy Lochhead, surely looking like a fifty year-old with those wisps of hair revealing a balding pate, pulling the Rovers defenders about and with Hamilton, McMahon and Anderson skipping across the slick pudding too easily. Lochhead then dribbled a shot into goal for Villa but McMahon was adjudged to be just offside.

LOCHHEAD SALUTES MCMAHON'S GOAL...

Hamilton’s nodded feed allowed Anderson a headed chance but the ball flew too high and McMahon saw an effort hacked clear by Don Megson, yet Rovers battled back into contention and forced an equaliser on the half-hour. Centre-half Stuart Taylor received Stubbs’ head-on of Megson’s free-kick and Villa’s right-back Mick Wright had a brilliant view of Taylor’s superb 7 yard volley rasping into the roof of the net. Wright cleared a Stubbs header away before the break and Jarman rounded the Villa ‘keeper but looked forlorn as he became stuck in the mud, yet the excitement was palpable. The conditions worsened and Rovers fought hard after the interval, causing Villa some difficulties, although visiting ‘keeper John Dunn excelled himself, not really as a shot-stopper but as if he was a council worker pouncing on wind-blown litter in a crowded shopping mall. 

TAYLOR SCORES FOR ROVERS...

I had once seen Dunn appear on Halifax Town’s Shay pitch after the team had arrived there and he was smoking a cigarette, whilst lamenting the ash on the pitch. Not his own of course but that which had presumably been thrown up by speedway bikes at a meeting a few days before. I had never really taken to Dunn as a goalie however and he had never impressed me, until this second period at Eastville. He would never impress me again… He was excellent on the day though, scrambling, slithering and sprawling in his goalmouth, often diving in his inimitable fashion: forwards, like a shoebill stork flopping into a pool onto an unsuspecting lungfish. He did his job. There was a late flurry by Rovers and a scramble in Villa’s goalmouth of epic proportions in the dying moments of the game, until after shots had smacked against Villa defenders, Dunn dropped onto the muddy ball in the mire. Only Chico Hamilton jauntily kept his balance in the conditions and Villa earned a replay, which they won 1-0 with an 88th minute winner from, er, Pat McMahon again. They then went on to beat 1st Division Manchester United 3-2 over two legs in the semi-final, before bowing out to two Martin Chivers goals for fortunate Spurs in the Wembley Final.

I slept in a spacious bed that night, warmed by an electric blanket, something new to me and I was dry… I hitch-hiked back to Reading on the Wednesday and went home for the weekend so I could travel to Torquay for Villa’s FA Cup tie, which they lost badly, 3-1 at Plainmoor, with ex-Villa defender and guitar player Dick Edwards netting one of the goals. I would thus not see Villa battle either Crawley or Chelmsford in the thirst-quenching next round. 

I was sad about that...