Ron Atkinson Return

As we prepare for our 10th new Villa arrival of the summer it's certainly interesting times down the Villa. It reminds me of the start of the 1991/92 season and the return of Ron Atkinson to Villa Park. Ron had played in the Youth Team and had now left Sheffield Wednesday to take to the job he had always wanted, manager of our great club.

Now Ron had a major rebuild on his hands. Firstly he had to take on the running of a team that under Josef Venglos had very narrowly avoided relegation.

To make matters worse towards the end of July the star Villa player David Platt had been sold for a record £5.5m to Bari. Platt had scored 19 league goals and was probably the reason we weren't relegated in the Venglos
season. All sound  familiar?

Ron Atkinson spent all the Platty money and the £1.1m from the sale of record signing Tony Cascarino (a player whose heading was as good as Rudy Gestede) on buying a brand new side. By the first game of the 1991/92 season (an amazing, never to be forgotten 3-2 win at Sheff Wed) the team contained 6 debutantes (the same as last Saturday).

Before the end of August 'Big Ron' had purchased the following;

Date	Pos	Name	From	Fee
2 July 1991	FW	Cyrille Regis	Coventry City	Free transfer
11 July 1991	FW	Dalian Atkinson	Real Sociedad	£1,600,000
12 July 1991	DF	Ugo Ehiogu	West Bromwich Albion	£40,000
19 July 1991	GK	Les Sealey	Manchester United	Free transfer
24 July 1991	MF	Paul Mortimer	Charlton Athletic	£350,000
25 July 1991	MF	Shaun Teale	Bournemouth	£300,000
6 August 1991	MF	Kevin Richardson	Real Sociedad	£450,000
7 August 1991	DF	Steve Staunton	Liverpool	£1,100,000
28 August 1991	DF	Dariusz Kubicki	Legia Warsaw	£200,000

  
Another similarity was that on that first away win of the season the winner was scored by a player who had only signed the week before.

The new players in 1991 were mostly British the only difficult new name to master was probably Ugo Ehiogu. Although at least on Friday we can just shout 'Jordan' if in doubt.

The brand new Ron Atkinson team finished 7th that season and even qualified for Europe. Proving that there was life after David Platt. An improvement of 10 places. The same again would do very nicely, thank you.

One last similarity/co-incidence was that the first home game (second game of the season) saw Manchester United arrive at Villa Park. Hopefully the similarities end there and that we don't lose 1-0 this time.

This is my 35th consecutive season ticket season and I really can't wait. Come on you Lions!!!

My Villa book 'Just 14' celebrating the 1980/81 season is selling well and can be ordered direct for just £9.95 at https://andy-dale-writes.myshopify.com/products/just-14 are at Amazon for £10.95.