My time at Villa: Dennis Mortimer

“There was a bit of a tear at the end of it when the fans came on the pitch, lifted me up and threw me in the air. I just realised then and there that this was me finished at Aston Villa. It was a very emotional moment to realise that what you’ve achieved with the football club is confined to the history books. Your opportunity to build on that again is finished.” Dennis Mortimer was thankful to the rain for disguising his tears on the night of Tuesday, May 14, 1985. The captain who had taken Aston Villa to their greatest heights had just played his final game in claret and blue, a testimonial against an England XI at Villa Park. It was the final chapter of Mortimer’s story at the club. He walked out of the stadium for the final time as a Villa player that night having racked up 406 appearances, scored 36 goals and lifted five major trophies. The immense highs of triumphing in a marathon League Cup final, capturing the First Division title and reaching the summit of European football on a magical night in Rotterdam ensured his legacy would last forever. But on the night of his testimonial, Mortimer was left to plan for life after Villa, having been informed that his contract would not be renewed. It was not the way the marauding central midfielder wanted it to end. And while he couldn’t control the decisions of those above him, he’d achieved what he set out to do when he first broke on to the scene at Coventry City.   “When I got into the first team, I always said to myself, ‘I’ve got to make sure that when I leave this game, I’ve made an impression and I’ve won something'. That was my big mantra,” said Mortimer. Initially, the Liverpool native didn’t believe his chances of winning the game’s biggest prizes would be well served by a move across the midlands in 1975. Having amassed over 200 appearances for City, a 23-year-old Mortimer was focussed on helping them thrive in Division One. Villa, on the other hand, were enjoying their first season back in the top flight after escaping the doldrums of Division Three a few years previous. Manager Ron Saunders was looking to bolster his ranks, and on Christmas Eve, a fee of £175,000 was agreed with Coventry. “I was asked to go to the ground (Highfield Road), so I got there about 9am and was taken into the secretary’s office,” he recalled.   "You’ve set out many years before to try and win trophies, and now you’ve taken that chance and you’ve won them. They’re the opportunities and the chances that you look for all the time. You only wish that you could have had a couple more." - Dennis Mortimer “I was just told that there’d been an offer and I was driven to Stonebridge Island on the A45, where we met up with Ron Saunders at the Malt Shovel. I jumped out of the secretary’s car and into Ron’s Jaguar and he drove me to Villa Park. “You think to yourself, ‘Did I have a choice?’ Well, the answer would be no because they wanted to let me go.” Any reluctance surrounding the move quickly disappeared two days later when over 51,000 fans packed into Villa Park for Mortimer’s debut against West Ham United on Boxing Day. Starting in central midfield alongside Chico Hamilton, he immediately endeared himself to the home crowd and registered a pair of assists as the hosts ran out 4-1 winners. “Debut day was against West Ham, and this is when the magnitude of what a club Aston Villa were hit me,” said Mortimer. “I’ve come out on to the pitch in the corner and looked round and you’ve got the Holte End that goes right back with loads of people. Then you’ve got the old Witton End and that goes right back. You look around and there’s 52,000 in the ground, and you think, ‘Blooming heck, this is some club.’” A late challenge from Newcastle United’s Malcolm Macdonald ended Mortimer’s fourth game for the club prematurely and inflicted the fourth knee ligament injury of his career. A spell on the sidelines ensued before he returned to help Villa to a 16th-placed finish – one point below Coventry – on their return to Division One. With Mortimer patrolling the middle of the park, Saunders’ side won seven of their first 11 league games in the 1976/77 season before underlining their title credentials in December when they dismantled reigning champions Liverpool 5-1 at Villa Park.  Once again, Mortimer laid on two assists that day as Villa’s fearsome strike partnership of Andy Gray and Brian Little feasted. The duo ended that season with 55 goals between them, with Gray winning the Division One Golden Boot. After sweeping West Ham aside 3-0 in the FA Cup fourth round at the end of January, Villa were flying on all fronts. Positioned fourth in the league table, the team readied themselves for a two-leg League Cup semi-final against Queens Park Rangers, and it proved to be the competition that would define their season in more ways than one. A 0-0 draw at Loftus Road was followed by a 2-2 draw at Villa Park, meaning the tie would be decided in a replay at Highbury. A hat-trick from Little in a 3-0 win punched Villa’s ticket to Wembley. “Some of the lads had been to Wembley before, Chris Nicholl and Ray Graydon. For me, you’re thinking to yourself, ‘This is what I want'. You’re smiling to yourself because you’re in the final and going to play at Wembley,” recalled Mortimer. However, Villa’s dreams of lifting the trophy at the national stadium were quashed with a dour 0-0 draw against Everton. It was the first instalment of a final that was dubbed, ‘The game that refuses to lay down and die’ by commentator John Motson. “That was probably the biggest let-down for us that season when we went to play Everton. We played that game and it was 0-0 with no extra-time and no trophy. We went back to Birmingham after and we had a reception. I remember just sitting there and thinking to myself, ‘Did we have a game of football today?’” Mortimer recounted. “It was as if the event had never taken place because I couldn’t remember anything about what I might have done in the game. It was all summed up by a newspaper cutting that I found not long ago, and the headline says, ‘The game of 82 back passes'. “We were stopped from playing by Everton. We never got into the game, and it was a waste of time really. We didn’t get the chance to go up into the Royal Box and parade the trophy round, which is what it’s all about at Wembley. To go up and shake hands with Princess Anne and then come down with no trophy seemed a waste of time. We all just wanted to get on the coach and go home.” The teams did battle again four days later, this time at Hillsborough. An 89th-minute equaliser from the Toffees’ Bob Latchford snatched a 1-1 draw and sent the final to a second replay. Four weeks elapsed before Old Trafford hosted the third act of an epic final, which totalled an attendance of over 200,000 across the three games. Those present in Manchester witnessed Everton put up another staunch defensive effort before a thunderbolt from Nicholl and a fine finish from Little put Villa 2-1 up with nine minutes left. The lead would last just over a minute. Penalties loomed large before Little stole in at the back post with 90 seconds left to secure Villa’s third League Cup. It was the first trophy of Mortimer’s career. And while he was pleased to have got his hands on some silverware, the winner inside him felt unfulfilled at the end of that season. The League Cup run had caused a fixture pile-up that saw the team play 16 games in the final two months of the campaign, with Villa consequently bowing out of the FA Cup and finishing fourth in Division One. “We could have been collecting three trophies that season – that’s how my mind imagined things when we were playing. It was a season of lost opportunity,” Mortimer said. “Although we won the League Cup, the other two were lost. From our point of view, it would have been amazing and fitting to win all three because I thought we had an amazing team. “Having won it (the League Cup) and played in all the games, we were well pleased with the outcome. It’s not until you finish the season until you reflect on how much better it might have been. “You’ve done something which you’ve always wanted to do, and you’ve won a trophy, that’s the first part of it. The next part, now that you’ve had a taste for it, is you’ve got to go out and win more because you realise how great it is. Winning a trophy, first and foremost, was what we wanted to do.” Mortimer’s remorse at not having more to show from their fine season was only exasperated further by the ensuing three campaigns. Following the thrills of 1976/77, Villa finished eighth, eighth and seventh in Division One, failed to progress beyond the quarter-finals of any cup competitions and saw the end of their deadly strike duo Gray and Little. “The next three seasons became a bit traumatic from the point of view of players coming and going, Ron trying to get the balance right, players being injured and unsettled,” recalled Mortimer. “Those next three seasons became a bit of a let-down – not only for us but the fans. The next three seasons were a bit of a washout. A lot of things were going on with Ron, the club and the chairman. It was difficult to get a settled team. We had to wait until 1980/81 for that team to come together again.” While things had been steady if unspectacular on the pitch during that time, Saunders had slowly been building a team that would send shockwaves through both English and European football. The squad was now a blend of players in their prime who’d been prised away from other clubs, the likes of Des Bremner, Ken McNaught and Kenny Swain, and homegrown starlets, such as Gordon Cowans, Gary Shaw, Gary Williams and Colin Gibson. The last piece of the puzzle arrived on the eve of the 1980/81 season when Peter Withe was signed for £500,000, a club-record fee at the time. A team that had been built so patiently proved to be worth the wait. Saunders used just 14 players, with seven members of the side playing every league match, as Villa ended a 71-year wait for a First Division title. “It’s my greatest achievement,” said Mortimer. “I think most of the players would say the same because to get a chance to win the European Cup, we had to win the league. That feeling of winning the league championship was my best feeling ever. To be consistent over 42 games and to come out on top is no easy feat.” Villa pipped Bobby Robson’s Ipswich Town to the title by four points after a dramatic end to the season that came to a head with a nervy 2-0 defeat at Highbury on the final day. It was justification for Mortimer, who 10 months earlier after an opening-day win against Leeds United had been quoted saying that his side would win the league. “As soon as the final whistle went (at Highbury), we had to leg it off the pitch. We got into the tunnel and there were loads of smiling faces saying, ‘It’s yours' and ‘you’ve won it', he recalled. “We got into the dressing room and we were just waiting for confirmation. We’ve got the trophy we set out for 10 months earlier and now it’s ours. It was the greatest day ever from a footballing point of view, winning the league.” Villa weren’t handed the trophy in north London and instead had to wait until it was presented to them at Aston Leisure Centre the next day. Being the first player to get his hands on the trophy was an appealing perk of the captaincy for Mortimer, who’d been given the armband in low-key fashion in the dressing room by Saunders ahead of the first game of the 1978/79 season. “Ron just came up and said, ‘take them out'. That was it. I always used to walk out last, so now I’ve been given the captaincy I’ve got to go out first,” recounted Mortimer. “There hadn’t been anything during the week, so I’ve not had to worry about being captain. I didn’t think I was going to remain captain, but Leighton Phillips never came back, so I kept the captaincy. “I wasn’t the kind of captain that went round giving people advice. It didn’t make me feel as if I had any extra responsibility. The biggest achievement would be being captain and winning something, that was the thing that enamoured me to the job. I’ve got a chance now to be the captain of a great team and win something.” Three months after parading the First Division trophy around Birmingham on an open-bus tour, Villa were brought down to an earth with a bump. A 1-0 defeat at home to Notts County set the tone for an underwhelming title defence in 1981/82 that would see the club finish 11th in the table. Struggles on the domestic front were at odds with a side who were relishing Villa’s first-ever European Cup campaign. Icelandic part-timers Valur and Germany’s Dynamo Berlin were seen off before Christmas. But just under a month before their quarter-final date with Dynamo Kyiv, the man who brought Mortimer to the club tendered his resignation after a dispute with the board. The sudden loss of a manager who’d assembled the best team in England could have destabilised the squad, instead they got on with the job in hand under the watch of Tony Barton, who was promoted to manager. “Ron had been with me since I joined in ‘75. From my point of view and the rest of the lads, we had a job to do. Managers come and go, players come and go and you can’t think to yourself, ‘this isn’t right', because we get paid to play football,” reflected Mortimer. “The manager’s gone and it’s got nothing to do with us. We had a job to do and we just had to get on with it. The important thing there was the continuity of Tony. If that hadn’t have happened and they’d have brought in a different manager, that new manager might have seen things differently and been more concerned with getting up the league instead of thinking we can qualify for Europe again by winning the European Cup.” Saunders may have gone but the hallmarks of the team he built lived on as they completed a fairytale run to the final by dispatching Kyiv and Belgian champions Anderlecht. The mighty Bayern Munich, whose attacking stars Uli Hoeneß, Paul Breitner and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge had ripped through the competition, lay in wait at Rotterdam’s De Kuip Stadium. “Thinking about how Bayern Munich were going to play – again, this was one of Ron’s great beliefs – you don’t worry about them, you just think about yourself,” said Mortimer. “We had to make sure we put a performance in. That performance was one of resilience, one of bravery, one of having confidence when you’ve not got the ball and sticking with it. We didn’t give up, we kept going and the perseverance paid off when we got the goal. Those were the traits that were with us all the time.” From the colossal cameo by rookie goalkeeper Nigel Spink to Withe’s shot sliding in off the post, the stars shined on the Villa players as they etched their names into the history books by capturing the club’s first and only European Cup. “The celebration goes on forever; it never stops. When you reflect on it, we’re a massive part of the history of Aston Villa, that side of 1981/82,” Mortimer said. “You bump into someone in the street and they talk about Rotterdam and you’re celebrating it with them again. The celebration goes on – not in the way that you’re thinking about it every day because you’re not. I don’t want to talk about or reflect on winning the European Cup every day because then you get too sentimental about it. “You’ve got to remember that what you did was a great achievement, and it was through your hard work with all your other mates that you got there.” Villa’s team in Rotterdam had an average age of 27, and the club seemed primed to keep the good times coming in the years that followed. Mortimer admits he was always eyeing bigger prizes as his thirst for trophies proved insatiable. “The big one I was really interested in, obviously the European Cup was big, but it would have been nice to be the first English team to win the World Club Championship. Having won that one, it would have put Aston Villa on the world stage,” Mortimer says. “We could have kicked on, I’m sure we could have done. The next season is a real anti-climax because we were in everything, but we didn’t win anything.” The most famous night in the club’s history proved to be the beginning of the end for that team. Swain, Pat Heard and Jimmy Rimmer were the first to depart before Ken McNaught, Tony Morley, David Geddis and Pat Heard followed. A change in the boardroom saw chairman Doug Ellis shift the focus towards financial stability, with results on the pitch reverting back to the those of the late 70s as Villa settled for a spot in mid-table. Mortimer continued to be an ever-present, making 50 appearances in both the 1982/83 and 1983/84 seasons. The Villa captain had become synonymous with the club after all he’d achieved, but the course of his career would soon be diverted away from B6 after Barton was removed as manager. Shrewsbury Town’s Graham Turner was installed as boss ahead of the 1984/85 season and it soon became apparent that the new man wanted to take the team in a different direction, dispensing of more of Villa’s European Cup winners along the way. Mortimer would play just six times that season, with his last appearance for the club coming as a second-half substitute in a 2-2 draw against Norwich City at Villa Park on Saturday, October 20, 1984. “Des Bremner and I played in the first few games and then after the Nottingham Forest game, which we lost 5-0, Graham decided he wanted to change the team round,” Mortimer recalled. “Des and I were made the scapegoats for that game and two weeks later Des went over to Birmingham. He played another three seasons for Birmingham. “I was put on the transfer list and I had a couple of offers, one was from Preston in the Third Division and another from Derby County. Nothing came of them, so I hung around until I got an opportunity to go and play for Sheffield United on loan.” After returning from his short stint with the Blades, Mortimer was playing in Villa’s reserves. And it was a game with the club’s second-string that provided Mortimer with his final goal and medal as a Villan. Wednesfield Social were the opposition at Villa Park as the club ended a 61-year wait to win the Birmingham Senior Cup with a 3-1 victory. And while it might not have been as glamorous as lifting the European Cup, it meant a lot to Mortimer. “What a great medal that was. I was really chuffed playing with the lads in the reserves. The nice thing about that was it was my last game for Villa before I had my testimonial,” he said. “Dean Glover was the captain and we got presented with the trophy on the pitch by Jack Wiseman. When we were ready to go up and get the trophy, Dean said to me, 'You go and get it'. It was a nice gesture and it made me feel good that these guys respect you for what you’ve done.” The curtain came down on Mortimer’s time as a Villa player following his testimonial when he was allowed to leave on a free transfer. It was the end of a 10-year spell that had fulfilled the ambitions he harboured as a young man walking into Villa Park for the first time. “It was a dream come true,” he reflected. “That’s all I can say because my time at Villa gave me what I wanted out of football, which was winning trophies. It gave me that opportunity to play on a great stage. “The dream of winning trophies at a great football club, what more can you ask for? You’ve just become part of the legacy and history of a great football club. You’ll never be forgotten, and we won’t.” Dennis spoke to the club's official website ahead of the launch of his book 'The Full Morty'. The ex-Villa captain felt the time was right to put his memoirs from a long and successful playing career down on paper.  Supporters can meet Dennis in the Holte Suite before and after Friday night's game against Southampton, where he'll be signing copies of his new book. Alternatively, you can purchase a signed copy via the link below.  The Full MortyShop now!