Aston Villa make it six in a row

The domestic season ended with Aston Villa bringing the European Cup back to England for the 6 th year running. Ron Saunders had departed and it was coach Tony Barton who found himself in the hot seat as Villa batded through to play Bayern Munich in the Final. Villa, with just two modest UEFA Cup campaigns in the 1970s behind them,

Had put out Dynamo Berlin, Dynamo Kiev and Anderlecht along the way. Bayern was the last club to hold the trophy before English sides took over and they were favourites to end that period of domination. It looked even more likely when Villa lost keeper Jimmy Rimmer 10 minutes into the game. 19-year-old rookie Nigel Spink took over and proceeded to have a storming match. A mishit shot by Peter Withe from a Tony Morley cross won the game. It meant that Rimmer - on United’s bench for their 1968 triumph - now had two European Cup winners’ medals having played a total of 10 minutes in the two finals.

Ron Greenwood’s England

30-year-old Peter Withe was the new European champions’ only representative in Ron Greenwood’s squad that went to Spain for the World Cup. The team’s qualification had not been the smoothest. Defeats in Basel,

Oslo and Bucharest left England needing Switzerland to win in Romania. They did, and Greenwood showed his appreciation by donning a Swiss FA tie at the World Cup draw.

England were seeded, somewhat surprisingly, and got off to a dream start. Bryan Robson made World Cup history by scoring after just 27 seconds against France. That set up a 3-1 win over a team that would go on to reach the semi-final. But while France got stronger, England fell away. Victories over Czechoslovakia and Kuwait had put England into the second phase with maximum points, a record matched only by Brazil. In the second round mini-league England found themselves up against West Germany and hosts Spain. They created the better chances against the Germans but also survived a scare when Rummenigge hit the bar from 25 yards. After Germany beat Spain 2-1, England took on the hosts needing to win by two goals to go through. Once again they failed to take their chances, against a team that had nothing to play for. The performance was summed up by a glaring miss from substitute Kevin Keegan. The game ended goalless and England were out.

Robson becomes new England boss

It marked the end of Greenwood’s reign as national team boss. It was shades of 1962 as the FA named Bobby Robson as his successor. Ramsey had peaked at the right time, taking an unheralded side to the top of the league. Robson had spent relatively little in guiding his team to the runners-up spot in the past two seasons, together with a UEFA Cup victory.