SHREWSBURY TOWN Ladies are delighted to welcome Dex’s Midnight Runners (DMR) Same Day Couriers as a new sponsor.

DMR has had an interest in Shrewsbury Town Football Club for years, including sponsoring and delivering the away tickets for the first team, before getting involved in sponsoring the ladies side.

ObviousShrewsbury Town in the Com-

munity will be looking to be much more involved in the running of the ladies’ set-up as they look to build for next season.

In a statement, DMR said: “See-ing as we have a number of female couriers, the link to the ladies team was obvious.

“But there was more in that, having watched a few games, we realised the team always plays pos-itively and loves to win, but trying to do it with style and quality too.

“That strikes a chord at DMR where we have a similar philoso-

phy in business. The icing on the cake for us was the ladies’ team’s link with Shrewsbury Town in the Community.

“We could see the tremendous efforts being made to support the development of women’s and girls’ football throughout Shrop-shire and together with our foot-

ball interest and being a proud Shropshire company, we really love the idea of helping support that work.”

There is a personal element in the decision to become a sponsor. DMR’s director, Derek Bennion, has a family history with ladies’ football through a current gener-

ation of daughters, granddaugh-ters and nieces. His grandmother played football for ‘one of the top teams’ in the early 1920s, when women’s football was starting to appear on the scenes.

Derek said of the partnership: “We are an immensely proud Shropshire-based company, and

the opportunity to support the STFC Ladies team who are part of the community development within the county is a great one for us.”

Come on Town! Dex’ssign sponsorship deal

Shrewsbury Town ladies celebrate their sponsorship agreement with Dex’s Midnight Runners

ON THIS DAYTEASERSl Who was the first Shrewsbury Town manager after the Second World War?l Against which team did Rob Smith manage the Bucks in his first game back as manager in 2015/16?l Who are the four clubs that Wolves have lost to in second tier play-offs?

In 2007, Shrewsbury Town were beaten 3-1 by Bristol Rovers in the League Two play-off final. Town’s Stewart Drummond opened the scoring, but Richard Walker (2) and Sammy Igoe gave Rovers a

3-1 victory in front of an excellent Wembley crowd of 61,589.l Who is this former Shrewsbury player?

ANSWERS: 1. Leslie Knighton; 2. Gloucester; 3. Bolton, Crystal Palace, Norwich, West Brom; Picture. Chris Neal

A victory toremember – and celebrateTO VILLA’S newest generation of supporters the knowl-edge their club once won the European Cup must seem barely believable.

Each anniversary since the greatest moment in the club’s history has been marked with celebrations of varying degrees, yet none had been reached with Villa’s standing so low as it is now.

A difficult present naturally heightens nostalgia and Nigel Spink is unlikely to be the only man in the Mid-lands who will sit down with the DVD and relive the triumph all over again.

Yet it is not just Villa’s own fall from grace which con-firms their victory came from another age. The compe-tition itself has changed dramatically in the following 35 years.

Then the exclusive provision of domestic champions on a divided continent, it has expanded into a money-driven behemoth, complete with extended group stages, more clubs, more countries, yet where the names who domi-nate are the same year on year.

The competition in which the likes of Villa, Liverpool and Nottingham Forest triumphed was no less special. Nor was it necessarily any easier to win.

But it was different, in almost every conceivable way.No longer do players, as Spink did, sign their first

professional contracts for a sum of just £50-per-week. No more do clubs have to worry about travelling to the other side of an Iron Curtain, or the disruptive tactics which could sometimes come into play on foreign soil, as Villa found out ahead of their quarter-final first leg with Dynamo Kiev.

Opponents were typically unfamiliar, while pitches could often be far from perfect.

Villa’s victory could also be seen as one seriously against the odds. They were big underdogs in the final,

while the entire European campaign took place against the backdrop of a domestic campaign which began in-consistently and threatened to descend into meltdown in early February when Ron Saunders walked out.

Tony Barton won the tie with Kiev while still care-taker boss and had not been in charge for two months by the time the final rolled around. Just 17 players, meanwhile, were used including Spink and Ivor Linton, who like the young goalkeeper made only one substitute appearance.

It is fair to question whether Villa themselves should be doing a little more to mark the occasion. A 35th anni-versary isn’t perhaps one which immediately jumps out but it is now 10 years since the last organised celebra-tion and many of the heroes of that night are getting no younger.

Supporters of rival clubs in the region might accuse Villa of already going on about 1982 quite enough but there was a time not so long ago when the occasion often seemed to be downplayed within the walls of Villa Park itself.

That changed with the arrival of Randy Lerner in 2006. The American’s promise of a bright future might not have come to fruition but he could never be accused of not possessing a firm grasp of the club’s history.

A pitch parade of the Rotterdam heroes to coincide with the 25th anniversary and the final home game of the 2006/07 season provided the last organised get-to-gether and one of the more poignant Villa Park scenes of recent times.

There are now five years until the next major land-mark. The stories will keep getting told, the memories of those who were there will remain vivid, the DVD will doubtless get a good few more spins.

Let us hope that, in 2022, Villa are able to celebrate their finest hour from a position of greater strength and hope for the future.

Follow me on Twitter@mjmarr_star

Villa’s fall from grace confirms their victory came from another age

1 First round: FC Valur (Villa win 7-0 on aggre-gate). Villa probably couldn’t have wished for a better draw in their first excursion into the Euro-pean Cup than Icelandic outfit FC Valur.

The part-timers from Reykyavik included a teacher and economist in their starting line-up and were easily swept aside 5-0 in the first-leg at Villa Park, with Peter Withe and Terry Donovan both scoring braces after Tony Morley had broken the deadlock.

Gary Shaw then grabbed both goals in the second leg as Villa eased through to the second round.

2 Second round: Dynamo Berlin (2-2 on aggre-gate – Villa win on away goals rule). Villa made the first of two trips to the other side of the Iron Curtain for the first leg of their tie with the East German champions,

who had given Nottingham Forest a run for their money in the competition two years previously.

In the shadow of the Berlin Wall, Morley gave Villa the perfect start when he opened the scor-ing inside five minutes. But the tide then looked to have turned when, after Riediger had equal-ised early in the second half, the hosts were awarded a penalty with 10 minutes re-maining.

Jimmy Rimmer saved Ulrich’s spot-kick and the follow-up and Morley then grabbed a winner five min-utes later as Villa clinched a 2-1 first leg lead. It would prove a critical passage of play after Dynamo won 1-0 at Villa Park, the hosts going through on aggregate.

3 Third round: Dynamo Kiev (Villa win 2-0 on ag-gregate). The build-up to Villa’s third round tie in Kiev would make a decent book itself. Ron Saun-ders resigned as manager, to be replaced by chief scout Tony Barton, pictured centre, on a caretaker

basis.The first leg was then moved 300 miles south from Kiev

to the Crimean city of Simferopol due to icy conditions in the Ukrainian capital. Villa’s hotel was also switched without their prior knowledge, while the kick-off time was brought forward two hours for local TV. Events on the pitch

were much calmer. Villa drew the first leg 0-0, before goals from Shaw and Ken McNaught in the return

put them into the last four and earned Barton the manager’s job on a full-time basis.

4 Semi-Final: Anderlecht (Villa win 1-0 on aggregate). The defining moment of Villa’s semi-final meeting with Ander-lecht came just 27 minutes into the first leg at Villa Park when Morley scored the

goal which would seal his team’s passage to Rot-terdam. Sadly, the rest of the tie is often remem-

bered for less joyous reasons. The second leg in Brussels was marred by fighting in

the stands, with the referee suspend-ing the game at one stage for seven minutes when one fan ran on to the pitch. Anderlecht argued that the game should be replayed, or Villa kicked out of the competition al-together, and only when a UEFA committee rejected the appeal in late April, could Barton begin planning for the final.Penalty save: Rimmer

The road to Rotterdam forclaret and blue class of ‘82

At the double: Gary Shaw

Goal: Tony Morley

Quit: Ron Saunders

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