1962: Dougan double ends 24 years of hurt

It's 20th August 1962 and a Monday night.

Tensions are running high in the divided city of Berlin, Princess Margaret is on the verge of giving birth for the second time and nearly fifty-six thousand people have forgone the delights of watching Bonanza on ATV to head for Villa Park.

Just two days before Villa have started the season in good form with a 3-1 victory over West Ham at Villa Park. With another home game it's a chance to get the season off to a belting start. There's a snag though, we are playing Spurs.

Spurs have just been installed as favourites by the bookies for both the League and the FA Cup, the nucleus of Bill Nicholson's double winning side is there and Spurs never lose to Villa. You have to go back to 1938 to find Villa's last success against the Lilywhites. It's an embarrassment but a record that Joe Mercer's men are keen to put to bed.

In the twenty five post war clashes, we've managed just six draws and since our last win, television has taken off, we've defeated Hitler, had a new Queen and the movies have gone into colour. 1938 seems a lifetime ago.

Mercer's Minors fly out of the traps and batter Spurs for the first twenty minutes. Nicholson's men maybe taken aback with the furiosity with which Villa go about their work but they have the no-nonsense Dave Mackay and the solid Maurice Norman at the back and if we can manage to get past them we face the wall that is Bill Brown in goal.

For all our youthful energy and endeavour we can't find a way through.

Suddenly our failure to capitalise costs us. Jimmy Greaves has been subdued by his standards but suddenly finds himself with an opportunity, Nigel Sims saves but manages to spill the ball into the path of Terry Medwin. The winger accepts the gift with glee and puts Spurs one ahead.

As the game continues it's the Villa defence that looks more secure, manacling Spurs creativity while the Londoners' own back line seems to be having more and more difficulty dealing with the robust nature of wave upon wave of Villa attacks.

Then two minutes that turned the score line on its head.

Firstly, Harry Burrows puts a cross into the box with such force that the up until now seemingly unbeatable Bill Brown can only parry. Derek Dougan manages to leave Maurice Norman standing in the race for the ball and his header snakes in the back of the net.

With Spurs still scratching their heads as to what's just happened, Villa strike again in what will be the move of the match. Jimmy MacEwan goes on a powerful run through the middle, picks out Harry Burrows on the right wing. The speed of the move has left the Spurs defence struggling to get back as Burrows centres for Dougan who unleashes what can only be described as an unstoppable shot.

They call Dougan “Cheyenne” due to his cowboy walk. He's certainly proving to be a sharp-shooter tonight.

Spurs seem deflated after and never really manage to get back into the game. Villa's years of hurt are over. They've beaten Spurs.

Villa's cracking start to the season will continue with an away win at Manchester City the following Saturday but our lording it over Spurs lasts just nine days. In the return game at the White Hart Lane, despite goals from Dougan and Alan Deakin, a brace from Jimmy Greaves helps his team to a 4-2 victory.

At least the Spurs hoodoo has been broken though. Little do we know it'll be over three years before we manage to beat them again.

Aston Villa 2 Tottenham Hotspur 1
Competition: League Division One
Venue: Villa Park
Attendance: 55,630

Villa: Nigel Sims, Gordon Lee, Charlie Aitken, John Sleeuwenhoek, Vic Crowe, Alan Deakin, Harry Burrows, Bobby Thomson, Jimmy MacEwan, Derek Dougan, Alan Baker

Spurs: Bill Brown, Peter Baker, Ron Henry, Maurice Norman, Danny Blanchflower, Dave Mackay, Bobby Smith, Cliff Jones, Terry Medwin, John White, Jimmy Greaves

1995: Bozzie takes out Klinsmann

It's the 25th January 1995. It's also very wintry.

Almost too wintry for my Australian relatives. Quite why Australians choose to come to Arctic Birmingham in the middle of their summer is a puzzler. It turns out that the teenage lad is a decent soccer player and is over here for trials with a few clubs. Sadly, his asthma – only mild and not much of an encumbrance in his native Oz – is flaring up quite badly in the much more polluted and dirty English air. His dreams look like being scuppered.

However they are keen to take in a top flight match while they are here and apparently it's my duty to take them. The midweek match against Spurs suits their timetable so I organise them tickets. It's all season tickets around my seat in the Holte End so I sort them seats in the Witton Lane. This is probably a good idea as I'm unlikely to be on my best “relatives visiting” behaviour while in the emotional throes of a Villa match. I also take the canny step of ensuring that the Aussies are doing the driving.

It's not been that long since Brian Little has taken over the helm at Villa Park and Gerry Francis hasn't had his feet under the table at The Lane for that long either. Gerry's only defeat in the job so far has come against the Villa in a 4-3 thriller, made all the more remarkable by the fact that Villa were between managers at the time.

Personally, I'm still miffed at Big Ron's sacking but Deadly Doug has been canny in getting Villa folk hero Little in to replace him, so I suppose I'm placated. Little's appointment has not been without controversy though it's only been a couple of months since we were welcomed by the regulars of Filbert Street with a mixture of fists and CS gas, pretty much as a consequence of Our Brian's defection from the Foxes.

We arrive at the Aston Social for pre-match drinks and my Aussie uncle makes the novice error of parking at the back of the car park. This will add a good half hour to the journey home, but hey sitting in a freezing cold car listening to the football phone in on the radio is all part of the English match experience.

The Aussies are somewhat taken aback by the Aston Social-on-a-matchday experience, likening it to the Cantina scene in Star Wars. I'm mildly insulted. With a forty thousand crowd expected, the place is packed to the rafters and it takes about three pints before they relax and feel a bit more at home. Then it's time to walk to the ground and they wrap themselves up like Nanook of the North. To be fair to them, it is a bit on the nippy side. They decline the offer of a dirty burger from "Sam and Ella's", which is hardly getting into the spirit of things.

We ponder whether Super Tommy Johnson has been availing himself of the street food on offer outside as he promptly throws up just prior to kick off.

The match gets underway and to be honest it's not a classic, hardly the advert for Premiership football that you want when you've brought along visitors from a foreign land.

All the action considered newsworthy happens within a few first half minutes:

Spurs have the clearest early chance. Barmby's short pass leaves Klinsmann with a clear run on Bozzie but the German uncharacteristically hesitates with his shot and the Australian keeper's legs come to Villa's rescue.

Steve Staunton is revelling in the midfield role handed to him by Little and it is his sweet left footed pass that puts Dean Saunders through, Saunders cuts inside, runs across an oddly tentative Austin, and powers his shot diagonally across the despairing Ian Walker. Saunders is in a rich vein of form, this is his fourth goal in six games.

Villa fans are still celebrating the goal when the match's key talking point occurs

Jurgen Klinsmann, chasing a long ball from Popescu, is clattered outside the penalty area by Bosnich. Properly clattered. It really does look horrendous and now the German is lying motionless on the turf. Jurgen is well known for making the most of situations where he may or not have been fouled, but this is usually accompanied by bouts of histrionics. He's still not moving.

Mark Bosnich surveys his handiwork

As Bosnich would explain “It was unfortunate and a pure accident”

"I was going to head the ball until Paul McGrath got in the way. Otherwise it would have been mine.

"I'm very sorry. and I told Jurgen so when I saw him at half time.”

It looks hideous at the time and concerns for the striker's welfare aren't eased as he has to be stretchered off and will take no further part in the game. We later learn, from the people with transistor radios, that he is suffering from a swollen nose, leading to a string of unsympathetic remarks about how big his hooter was in the first place.

Remarkably, and much to the chagrin of both Gerry Francis and the travelling Spurs contingent, Bozzie doesn't even get booked. He's booed throughout the rest of the match.

In the German's absence, Spurs push the lively Nick Barmby forward and they have a real go at us but it's our Ian Taylor who goes closest to troubling the scoresheet, heading just wide as Holte Enders begin trailing down for a half time pint.

It's a bit to and fro in the second half but we probably deserve our victory on the balance of play.

Paul McGrath forces Ian Walker into a spectacular save at one end while Popescu heads point blank straight at Bosnich at the other.

Somewhat ironically, Bozzie is booked for time wasting towards the end, and it's fairly obvious from the Spurs fans reaction that are in no mood to forgive.

A one-nil Villa victory then but all the talk is of the Bosnich/Klinsmann incident.

We meet back up with Aussies who ask if the atmosphere is always that acrimonious. It would be ungracious of me to point out to them that it was, in fact, an Australian that caused all the bother.

I point it out anyway.

Aston Villa 1 Tottenham Hotspur 0
Goal: Dean Saunders 18 mins
Referee: Robbie Hart
Competition: Premier League
Venue: Villa Park
Attendance: 40,017

Aston Villa: Bosnich; Barrett, McGrath, Ehiogu, Teale, Yorke (Charles, 89min), Taylor, Townsend, Staunton, Saunders, Johnson (Houghton,78).

Tottenham Hotspur: Walker; Austin, Calderwood, Mabbutt, Edinburgh, Popescu, Barmby, Campbell, Anderton, Klinsmann (Caskey, 26), Sheringham.

Postscript:
We fully expect the media to crucify Bozzie for the challenge on Klinsmann but something remarkable is happening at Selhurst Park which take the media spotlight off our keeper.

Eric Cantona, reacting to taunts from a pillock in the crowd, has launched himself two-footed at the miscreant and all hell has broken loose. The unpredictable Frenchman will fill the front and as well as the back pages, which will spare the young Australian for the full glare of the venomous press.

Gerry Francis is no mood to let the matter drop and bleeds all over the papers for the next few days.

The incident will, however, come back to haunt Bosnich in October 1996 in a match at White Hart Lane. The keeper reacts to Spurs chants of “Klinsmann, Klinsmann” with what he will claim is a Basil Fawlty homage, but what sadly looks far more like a Nazi Salute.

White Hart Lane is not the place to be doing that...

FA Charity Shield 1981: Aston Villa 2 Spurs 2

It's the summer of 1981.

My beloved Aston Villa are League Champions. It's wonderful, fantastic!

But...

Being a dour Brummie, I can, of course, find a downside. Everyone says winning the league is more important and more of an achievement than winning the FA Cup, but with the cup you get the day out at Wembley and the moment of exhilaration when the winning goal goes in and when the captain holds the cup aloft.

It would have been fantastic if we'd won the League in our last home game versus Middlesbrough, but sadly it wasn't to be. For a while, the rumour had gone around the ground that we actually had clinched it that day, a rumour which even reached as far as Jimmy Rimmer but soon, word got out that we hadn't, leading to a terrible feeling of anti-climax, so when we were eventually crowned Champions, it was on the back of an away defeat at Highbury.

The Victoria Square civic reception is a great occasion and no mistake but my boyhood dreams are of lifting a cup aloft at Wembley, not on the Council House steps.

What I'm forgetting about of course is the FA Charity Shield.

I'll be honest, it's not really an event that I've paid much attention to in the past. The only one I can actually remember with anything approaching clarity is the clash between Leeds and Liverpool which saw Billy Bremner and Kevin Keegan sent off and walking shirtless and snarling towards the Tunnel End.

It's a trip to Wembley though, a chance for all Villa fans to celebrate on mass from the terraces, and a chance to best the cocky Londoners, Chas 'n Dave 'n all.

Gotta be done.

We decide to go with the official Aston Travellers Club and we're by no means the only ones. The scale of the operation becomes clear as we descend on the Aston Villa Sports and Leisure Centre/Serpentine Car Park which has disappeared under a sea of charabancs. We eventually find ours, coach number 22, towards the Asda. My dad is way back on coach fifty something and I ponder whether coaches with that high a number will even make it out of the car park by kick off time, let alone London.

The journey down the M1 is fairly uneventful, though the road is a sea of claret and blue with scarves seemingly flailing from every other car window. No on-board toilet facilities to speak off so the coach convoy pulls into Toddington services and judging by the length of the queue, it must be the entire convoy. As one wag puts it “Two million on the dole and they all wanna go for a piss at the same time”.

Eventually the convoy snakes its way through the North London Saturday traffic and our coach parks almost in the shadow of the Twin Towers. It becomes clear that with the vast volume of traffic parking up behind us, there will be no tearing hurry to get back on board the coach post match. We'll be going nowhere fast.

As we sit on the steep stairway leading to our allotted turnstiles waiting for them to open (to ensure getting a prime spot on terraces), a group of around a hundred Spurs fans decide to mount an assault on our position. I can only think they are expecting the Villa contingent to run away, but the opposite happens and their faces turn as white as their shirts as hordes of angry Brummies hurtle towards them. They run away at an even faster pace than they had been charging forward and the angry Villa mob erupts into expletive filled song

Soon the gates are open and we position ourselves with the best view we can find. Wembley isn't an ideal place to watch football though. We're at the tunnel end, in the upper section section of terrace and even the goal at our end seems to be an entire football pitch away, thanks to the dog track and provision for Speedway (for which they dig up the wings of the pitch, wrecking it). It's not really about the view here though, it's about the atmosphere. I don't of course know at this stage that this will be my last ever time on Wembley terraces, but I'm savouring every moment anyway.

Tickets are divided between an upper and lower enclosure and it soon becomes clear that quite a lot of the lower people would much rather be with us in upper and the precious process of dragging people up by their arms gets into full swing.

As the players emerge from the tunnel, it's clear there's no Gary Shaw, which is disappointing, though Spurs are missing Garth Crooks with cartilage issues which sort of evens things up. The Crooks-Archibald partnership had rivalled that of Withe-Shaw in effectiveness so it's sad that neither is on display.

Despite Spurs goal scoring prowess and flair filled midfield, they hadn't challenged us for the title due to shakiness at the back and have signed up Liverpool's Ray Clemence to attempt to rectify the situation.

We kick off then and Ozzie “Tottingham” Ardiles and Glenn Hoddle are showing no signs of pre-season rust. We are certainly on the back foot as Tony Galvin and Ricky Villa provide outlets for Ardiles and Hoddle's industry, while Steve Archibald looks dangerous, put through twice by delightful (unless you're a Villa fan) Hoddle flicks.

Villa's answer to Ozzie's artistry is to flatten him with increasing regularity. No one is getting involved in the physicality of the game more than Peter Withe, seemingly at war with Roberts and Miller. A particularly graphic clash between him and Chris Hughton leads to both men going into referee A.W. Grey's book and this seems to calm things down slightly.

David Geddis is doing well in Shaw's absence, denied once by a characteristic charge to the edge of the area by Ray Clemence and then again thwarted, this time by the offside flag after putting a deft pass from Dennis Mortimer into the back of the net. Villa are getting closer though and by the time the Spurs keeper saves an Allan Evans shot from a Kenny Swain free kick, it's clear the

shot-stopper isn't getting the sort of protection he was afforded in his Anfield days.

On the half-hour, joy for Villa but complete embarrassment for keeper Ray. He comes out to claim a Tony Morley cross but the ball goes through his gloves like they are coated with Country Life. The ball lands at Peter Withe's feet and is dispatched into the roof of the net. One nil Villa.

The goal spurs Tottenham on and they regain their Mojo of the earlier exchanges. As half time approaches, neat work between Archibald and Ardiles ends with the ball at Mark Falco's feet, twenty yards out. He tries his luck and despite an athletic dive from Rimmer and it's in. One-one.

Falco, only playing as understudy to the stricken Crooks, is now brimming with confidence and keen to show he can do with his left foot what he can do with his right, he runs on the pass from Tony Galvin and shoots so powerfully that even though Rimmer gets a hand on it, it still goes in. Two-one Spurs.

Mark Falco and David Geddis

With Villa still reeling Falco has another rocket of an effort, rapidly becoming the player of the day, but this time he can't beat our Jimmy.

Things start to look grim for us as captain Dennis Mortimer is forced to limp off and it's down to our sole summer signing, Andy Blair, to fill the breech. Blair's hardly got his second wind when we are back on terms and again Ray Clemence is at the centre of things. Both David Geddis and Peter with have their eyes firmly fixed on a Tony Morley cross, David Geddis takes out Clemence with all the grace of Giant Haystacks and Peter Withe puts the ball into the back of net while the England keeper is still seeing stars and tweeting birds.

From that point, Villa look the team most likely to win, Clemence recovering enough to make saves from Cowans and Des Bremner and we go closest when he can only tip a Bremner drive onto the cross bar.

Gleen Hoddle eventually wakes from his second half slumber late on to set Archibald free but Rimmer is more than capable of dealing with his shot.

Suddenly, it's all over. Honours even. No penalty shoot-outs. The Shield will be shared, which is very nice and all that but not quite the victorious, glory filled end I'd been hoping for.

Still the European adventure is about to start, but before we get to that, there's that long coach journey home. Where are those sarnies me Mom made me?

1966 and all that...Spurs 5 Aston Villa 5

Dek Hogan looks back at a match where despite ten goals being scored, it's a Villa miss that makes the headlines...

England. March 1966. World Cup Willie is everywhere.

No, it's not some sort of hideous STD you pick up from sleeping with footballers, we've not got as far as the Summer of Love yet. Willie is official mascot of the World Cup. The cup in question, the Jules Rimet Trophy, is being used to promote a exhibition for stamp collectors – people have simpler tastes here in 1966 – although just a few short hours after Villa have visited Spurs in a League Division One match, the World will be stunned when the cup is stolen.

If this is the Swinging Sixties, you'd never guess it from the night's television. The highlight of the BBC schedule is The Black and White Minstrel Show while Pearl Carr and Teddy Johnson are the star guests on ATV's Morecambe and Wise Show.

Sadly, the goal feast that is about to occur won't be captured for television or posterity. The Match of the Day cameras are at Old Trafford, while ATV London has decided to show Rugby Union instead of Star Soccer. ABC Television, the ITV company providing weekend telly to the Midlands and the North has plumped for Sheffield Wednesday versus Northampton.

For Villa, the trip to London is an opportunity to complete a rare double over Spurs, having won 3-2 at Villa Park back in September. To achieve this, they have to find a way past shovel handed Northern Irish goalkeeper Pat Jennings, while attempting to keep one Jimmy Greaves quiet at the other end. Jimmy is virtually a fixture in Sir Alf's England team and hopes are high that his goals can win the biggest prize of all.

Jimmy has also formed a deadly partnership with Scotland's Alan Gilzean. Villa's star striker is Tony Hateley, but despite a very impressive goals to games ratio, a section of the Villa crowd have taken against him (the boo-boys prove to be a contributory factor in Hateley leaving Villa for Chelsea in October 1966 and without his goals, Villa will be relegated).

Four goals for Tony Hateley

Any hope of keeping Jimmy quiet disappears from the off. He is in imperious form and Villa players are left trailing in his wake. Almost immediately, he creates Spurs first goal, a short corner to Dave Mackay whose less than convincing shot manges to deflect in off Alan Gilzean. Soon Greaves is on the scoresheet in his own right, a neat one-two with Eddie Clayton and he's away to beat Colin Withers in the Villa goal. Colin will have a very busy afternoon.

Greaves's dummy than sets Jimmy Robertson free of the Villa defence, his cross is nodded down by Gilzean and a grateful Frank Saul steers the ball past the stranded Withers. Fifteen minutes on the clock, three nil Spurs. Oh dear!

Villa are still fighting though and Spurs are helping with some Keystone Cops defending. Pat Jennings makes a terrible error, throwing a ball straight to Alan Deakin, who sadly fails to capitalise; Alan Mullery's lack of control allows Villa's Alan Baker to fire in a low centre which conveniently finds Tony Hateley's knee and Villa have their first goal of the afternoon.

Spurs soon reassert their authority, a string of unchallenged passes leaving Spurs fans wondering if anyone actually fancies having an actual shot. Eventually, centre half Laurie Brown tries his luck and its 4-1 Spurs.

Early in the second half Robertson puts in what looks to be final nail in the Villa's coffin, getting on the end of centre-come-shot from the brilliant Greaves.

We're not dead yet.

Will Hamilton has been working tirelessly all game and starts to see the rewards. As the Spurs defence tire, he's able to create space for Deakin and Hateley to torture the fragile Spurs back line. Deakin soon takes advantage to get Villa's second, while Hateley is grateful for Spurs defensive lethargy as his nets Villa third.

Suddenly Spurs are leaking like a colander at the back and Hateley is dominating the aerial play. With the Londoners on the back foot, Charlie Aitken is free to forage and twice his crosses find the head of Hateley and end up in the back of net.

5-5 then, but can anyone grab a winner? We really, really should do...

Best to let Alan Deakin describe what happens, “I took this pass from Willie Hamilton and took off for goal.

“I went around the goalkeeper and thought-' I've done the hard bit, now I've got the winner' I took the ball a bit too far on, but still thought I must score.

“I sidefooted the ball all right, but it started to bobble on its way in. Next thing, there was Mullery racing across to clear. I couldn't believe it—it was terrible. . . .”

Despite the ten goal thriller, many of the headlines are focused on Deakin's miss. It's a game Villa could and some would say should have won. From a claret and blue perspective, that's a fair point of few, though it's hard to say that Jimmy Greaves' magical first half display wasn't worthy of at least something.

With the World Cup weeks away, England fans will be heartened to see him in such vibrant form...

Tottenham Hotspur 5 Aston Villa 5
Competition: League Division One
Venue: White Hart Lane
Attendance : 28,371

Spurs: Pat Jennings, Cyril Knowles, Laurie Brown, Alan Mullery, Dave Mackay, Frank Saul, Alan Gilzean, Derek Possee, Jimmy Robertson, Eddie Clayton, Jimmy Greaves

Villa: Colin Withers, Mick Wright, Charlie Aitken, John Sleeuwenhoek, Mike Tindall, Alan Deakin, Dave Pountney, Jimmy MacEwan, Tony Hateley, Alan Baker, Willie Hamilton

We won't be mastered...Spurs 2 Aston Villa 5

It's Saturday 4th April 1992 and we're off to London on a away trip. Tottenham here we come.

We're not exactly expecting anything special. Villa are very much a team in transition under the command of Big Ron Atkinson and it's proving a difficult task.

An away win seems quite unlikely, especially as we've not even managed an away league goal since New Year's Day and though we did manage to put Spurs out of the cup in January, this is one of those away jaunts where we're determined to have a good time despite the inconvenience of having to watch the actual match.

North London pubs prove to be very welcoming, so much so that our coach driver eventually resorts to driving off without the majority of us in an attempt to prise us out of the pub. Thanks to the density of London traffic, it doesn't prove that difficult to catch up to him when we finally come out blinking into the daylight. Catching the kick-off maybe more of a challenge.

It seems we're too close to Barnet for comfort and they are at home too, the coach is soon being pelted with coins, which some of the lads gratefully pocket as they ping in through the skylight.

We finally arrive at White Hart Lane with seconds to spare, having livened up the crawl to the stadium by raucously singing local radio jingles. "Stechford Tiles" and "Regency Windows" prove to be incredibly popular. I think we're gonna make the kick-off but I've reckoned without Spurs overzealous stewarding. At the other grounds we just get frisked, this feels more like a full blown medical.

I'm not sure whether the guy searching me is looking for weapons or trying to ascertain whether I'm circumcised. This is almost certainly the wrong ground to make that comment out loud but luckily he lets me in anyway.

We emerge into the busy terrace behind the goal to discover that Spinksy has already had to make three saves. This could be a long afternoon.

Suddenly Gordon Durie hits a powerful shot which is definitely going to beat Spink. It looks as if Shaun Teale can tidy up but Gary Lineker sticks a toe on it, the jug-earred goal hanger. One-nil Spurs.

Jug-earred goal hanger

If Spurs taking the lead so early has dampened the enthusiasm of much of the Villa support, it hasn't stopped our little mob from continuing with the radio jingles from the journey in and many seem perplexed that we keep shouting about “free grout and spreader”. Some attempt to join in with the spirit of the madness, others think the best course of action is to drown it out with proper Villa songs. The point is, the away section is making a lot of noise.

“The black Andy Gray” is playing for Spurs, he was a bit a fan favourite in the Taylor era but quickly loses our sympathy when he puts a tantalising cross in the box. Our sympathies are with one Shaun Teale who somehow contrives to beat Spink and stick the ball in his own net. We're two down now, it's still really early in the first half, but we're still singing.

The team are not being overawed though and Kevin Richardson is orchestrating the midfield beautifully so it's quite fitting that he should get us back into the game. A Dwight Yorke cross leaves him with a just a tap in, and he slots home with the sort of composure tap-in expert Lineker would have been proud of.

It's clear our Kev is having one of his better days a few minutes later when his free kick finds Ian Olney and the Spurs defence unexpectedly turn into statues leaving him with a simple finish and we're level.

We're now having a proper party in the away end and even a gilt-edged chance for Lineker to put Spurs ahead can't dampen our mood. He misses it, but then it wasn't a tap-in, so no surprise there.

God is playing My Lord, Number Five

Spurs have a proper go in the second half but we are defending in numbers and defending well. Them, not so much. On the hour, their entire defence decide to surround Big Cyrille but still can't stop him passing to Dwight Yorke, whose blistering shot cannons off the post and rebounds in.

We're winning away and Dwight's beaming smile is warmer than Trinidad and Tobago.

It gets funnier. Paul McGrath, not having one of his better days,manages to haul down Paul Walsh and Gary Lineker takes the resultant penalty. He goes to Spink's right. So does Nigel.

Saved!

We're not done either. Tony Daley comes on for Matthias Breitkreutz and beats two Spurs defenders with a trademark run before slotting past Ian Walker, so we're already in dreamland by the time Big Cyrille sees off the challenge of Jason Cundy to score Villa's fifth.

It's a truly glorious afternoon. Big Ron's Villa has truly made a statement.

Let the good times roll...

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