Image copyright © 1997 Sports Projects Ltd.

Brian Little joined Aston Villa as an apprentice in 1968, choosing the club because they had just been relegated and he did not consider himself good enough to play for anyone 'bigger' having failed the county trials two years before (probably the only beneficial relegation and failure ever!).

He made his debut in October 1971, aged 18 and was at the club for eleven years before his career was ended by injury. During his playing career, Brian help Villa win the FA Youth Cup in 1972. Little won League Cup medals twice, in 1974-75 (1-0 victory over Norwich) and 1976-77 against Everton where he scored two goals including the winner in the last minute of extra of the second replay.

His international 'career' is the seventh shortest on record, he appeared for ten minutes in a game against Wales in 1975, laying on the winning goal for David Johnson. He only got to play for 19 minutes, brilliantly he crossed to David Johnson in the 86th minute, giving England the equaliser against Wales. It was a great debut. After the match Don Revie galloped onto the pitch and picked Little up. He later proclaimed that his ten minutes was the most influential international debut ever and never picked him again.

In all, Brian Little played 294 games for Aston Villa scoring 82 goals. It his proteges at Villa park could all be half as good was at his best, the future will be very bright!

In 1979-80 a proposed transfer to Birmingham City collapsed due to his failing a medical and many Villa fans heaved a huge sigh of relief. After retiring as a player Little worked in the club shop and sold lottery tickets before becoming youth team coach.

Image copyright © 1997 Sports Projects Ltd.

Little as a player was brilliant, creative in play, amazing in ball control. Fast, clever and skillful, how tragic it was when he was forced to retire prematurely with a knee injury at a mere 27. Little`s first team career at Villa Park spanned the top of Division three to the top of Division one. He was particularly spectacular during the League Cup of 1976/77 when he scored ten goals, finally scoring twice in a thrilling 3-2 2nd replay against Everton.

Brian Little was - as said - amazingly only picked for England once. His selection meant he had to rearrange his wedding plans to Villa secretary Heather. Instead of being on his honeymoon he was playing for England.

Little joined the Villa coaching staff, taking charge of the youth team. He worked with lads such as Mark Walters, Tony Daley, Tony Dorigo.. He felt Daley was not ready to leave the Youth team, so after a few disagreements he joined Wolves.....but found the facilities far poorer than he had found during 12 years at Villa.

He returned to the North for a spell to work at Middlesbrough for 4 years with Villa colleague Bruce Rioch. He left to manage Darlington where after being relegated to the Vauxhall Conference promotion was achieved in a season. He moved back to the Midlands to manage Leicester City...alongside his Villa colleagues and took them up to the Premier League, on a limited budget.

But Brian`s heart was at Villa. He once said of Villa Park.. "I love it down there. I`d go back tomorrow and you know the first thing I`d do if I wasn't in football? buy a season ticket for Villa!"

So it was no surprise in November 1994, on his 41st. birthday, that it was announced that Brian Little was to be the new manager of Aston Villa. His first season was indeed difficult. he had inherited a struggling team. Nevertheless, survival was achieved (just) and he has proceeded to buy wisely on players such as Mark Draper, Savo Milosevic and Gareth Southgate. The style of play looks exciting, and reminds me, at least of the days he was playing on the pitch! His premature retirement has given him the experience required in coaching and management to come back to Villa Park and manage the club he has been with since his teens and always wanted to lead.

Following a disagreement with Graham Turner, Little resigned. In 1986 he became coach and later manager of (then fourth division) Wolverhampton Wanderers. After taking the Wolves from sixth from bottom to sixth from top in the division during his period in charge (a matter of weeks) he was sacked to allow Graham Turner to take over.

Bruce Rioch offered Brian another chance in football as reserve and youth team coach at Middlesbrough where he stay for a short time before Darlington asked him to be their manager.

It was February and Darlington were bottom of the fourth division, Little failed to prevent the club from being relegated, but did lead them to the Vauxhall Conference title the following season and the Fourth division the year after. So In three season, Darlington had been relegated and promoted twice. Then came the move to Leicester in 1990.

At Leicester Little's team reached the play off final three years running, losing 1-0 to Blackburn and 4-3 to Swindon Town. On the third occasion Leicester defeated Derby County 2-1 to gain promotion.

Thanks to Mark Lawton & Pamela Field for the above text.

In November 1994 he left Leicester acrimoniously and join Villa as manager three weeks later, where Ron Atkinson had just gotten the boot after a dismal half season. However, Ron had taken Villa to a Coca Cola Cup half a year before, and so his sacking was quite controversial. Little faced a massive task: to pull Aston Villa out of the gutter and have them stay in the Premier League.

Little did just that, but only after a nerve-shattering last part of the season. Aston Villa started off very well after his arrival, his first game being a win at White Hart Lane, 4-3 against Tottenham. Villa only won one of the following eight games, but just as questions started to be asked about his abilities, Villa won five of the next six games, and all the critics shut up, especially since this included a 7-1 massacre of Wimbledon at Villa Park, with new boy Tommy Johnson scoring a hat-trick along with Dean Saunders. However, this was almost as far as the glory went. Next game saw Leicester recover from being 4-1 down to a 4-4 draw at Villa Park. The claret and blue won just two of the last 13 games of the season. The worst day at the ground for a long time was when Arsenal pummelled Villa 4-0 at Villa Park, five games from the end. Villa were in serious relegation worries. A loss and a draw in the next two games saw Villa in the red zone with two games left of the season. Then came the relief. An astounding 2-0 victory over Liverpool at Villa Park took Villa out of the bottom three and into safety. Now all they needed was a draw at Norwich to stay. They got that, 1-1 at Canary Road had Villa stay in the Premier League, three points safe. Brian had saved us for now.

Brian realised heavy reinforcements were needed, and opened his wallet with three major signings over the summer: Gareth Southgate from Crystal Palace, Savo Milosevic, the Yugoslavian top goalscorer from Partizan Belgrade and Mark Draper from Brian's former club Leicester, bringing up his total spending spree to 9.25 million. Worried faces started top appear as both Dalian Atkinson and Dean Saunders left for Turkish footie and John Fashanu retired from football due to a knee injury. The fans needn't have worried, though. The 95-96 season saw an Aston Villa recovery of untold dimensions. From being a bottom team that crashed out of both cups early in the season, Brian Little had created a team that finished fourth in the league, Coca Cola Cup winners and FA Cup semi-finalists. The only clouds on the horizon were that Villa lost three games out of three to Liverpool, including the FA Cup semi and Savo Milosevic's questionable form. However, when "Milo" rifled in the opener vs Leeds in the Coca Cola Cup final, few moaners were left. Villa won the big game 3-0 and the elation at Wembley was phenomenal. Other truly great performances were the opening day 3-1 win over reigning champions Manchester United, a 6-0 wallopping of Peterborough at Villa Park, a 3-0 victory at Coventry with Milosevic bagging a hat-trick (one of his few good days), a 4-1 win at Upton Park (West Ham) and the crowd pleaser: 4-1 vs Coventry at Villa Park (the closest thing Villa came to a derby game that season). Yes, Brian Little's first full season in charge was very promising indeed.

Inevitably, fans were expecting even more from the following season. Brian Little made two purchases over the summer, Sasa Curcic from Bolton (a record transfer fee of £4 million) and Portugese international Fernando Nélson. The 96-97 season saw Aston Villa give roughly the same performance in the league as the year before, finishing fifth, qualifying for the following season's UEFA cup for the second year in a row. However, there were some minuses. Aston Villa made an embarrassing exit to Swedish Helsingborg in the UEFA Cup's first round and was knocked out of the 4th round of both Coca Cola and FA Cup. On the positive side, most significant of all was a lovely Christmas present in the shape of a 5-0 clobbering of Wimbledon at Villa Park on December 23. Villa's main problem was the goal-scoring. Their defence usually provided a cut-throat mentality, but Dwight Yorke was mostly alone up front, Savo's performances being very volatile. Most fans felt that all Villa needed now was a great striker to partner Dwight Yorke up front.

It arrived! Stan Collymore was signed right after the end of the season for an astonishing £7 million. He immediately scored a goal in Villa's friendly against Los Angeles Galaxy in USA. Simon Grayson also arrived from Leicester, and with the only departure being Gareth Farrelly to Everton, everybody felt that this was to be the season. Not so! Villa started off losing the first four matches, including an embarrassing 4-0 defeat at Villa Park vs Blackburn. We got knocked out of the Coca Cola Cup at our first attempt, a 3-0 loss against West Ham in London. We did reach the FA Cup 5th round, but much to the dismay of the Villa faithful, Coventry knocked us out with a 1-0 victory at Villa Park, their first ever victory at our ground. The story was the same over and over, just as things seemed to brighten up, new losses came our way. The confidence stayed low. At the same time, Stan Collymore understandably had difficulties settling with a new team in crisis, and after scoring a goal vs Tottenham on August 27 in our third game of the season, he entered a 3 month goal-drought, not bagging anything until December 6. What many fans missed was that he did bag a lot of assists. Back to Brian: the only light at the end of the tunnel was Aston Villa's gobsmacking performances in Europe. We seemed a totally different team when we played in the UEFA Cup. Villa knocked out three European stage big-shots: Bordeaux, Athletic Bilbao and Steaua Bucharest.

When Villa lost 5-0 against Blackburn at Ewood Park, the speculation arose, how much longer could Brian stay if things didn't change? As Villa got knocked out of the FA Cup by Coventry, lost to Man Utd at home and Wimbledon away, the desperation began to mount. However, noone truly expected to see Brian go, and it came as a massive shock when Brian Little resigned on February 24, 1998, since he had stated that he intended to keep working hard after the Wimbledon defeat, and having been given a standing ovation by the shareholders after a meeting the day before.

Little himself said that he had become increasingly unhappy with life behind the scenes at Villa Park and that his involvement with the players was bringing them down. "I sat and had a chat to a couple of players (on Tuesday) as I often did. But I was not happy with the mood. I felt for a while that the speculation surrounding my position was affecting them, and here was further evidence. The lads were a bit sheepish towards me, and then more than at any other time. I sensed this would be the day when I would leave."

Regardless of how it ended, Brian Little will always have a room in Aston Villa supporters' hearts. He will be remembered as perhaps the greatest ever legend to grace the club, both as player and manager. Thanks for everything, Brian. You're a Villan!