Tying in with the “Take one for the team” campaign from our sponsors Champion, we pay tribute to a star player whose team meant everything to him.
Most young fans of the modern-day Premier League don’t know who Gary Shaw is. In fact, there’ll be young Aston Villa fans who will know precious little about the man who back in the very early Eighties was one of the rising stars of the English game.
There are many players who are talked of as the Next Big Thing, but Gary Shaw was different. Gary was not just a man with promise, he was a young forward who was part of the league-topping team of the 1980-81 season, who lifted the European Cup the following year and who was voted the 1981 PFA Young Player of the Year.
That’s not to mention his part in Villa’s two-legged Super Cup defeat of Barcelona, after which one young Argentinean by the name of Diego Maradona sent his agent to the Birmingham side’s dressing room in order to get Shaw’s shirt.
When he achieved these feats he was the only Birmingham-born man on the team and had been a Villa fan all his life. He was a gifted but never greedy player – the perfect up-front partner for the older, much more experienced Peter Withe.
Commitment
The commitment shown consistently by Shaw was all the more impressive due to the fact that, with just 14 players in the Villa squad, his place was never at risk. Under deadpan manager Ron Saunders there was no room for gloryhunters – you could be the star man on a Saturday, but nothing would be mentioned on Monday. That suited team-player Shaw just fine.
Shaw’s glory days ended during the 1982-3 season. Yes he went on to play for Villa until 1988, but that that doesn’t really tell the whole story.
It was at an away game at Nottingham Forest that it all went wrong. After a particularly heavy tackle, he was helped back onto his feet by Ian Bowyer and something in his knee ‘clicked’.
That really should have been the end of his Villa career, as it was soon apparent that he’d never regain the agility that he’d had before his knee had given up on him. However, there was only really ever one team for Shaw and even if he had to spend most of the rest of the Eighties cheering on and supporting the team he was only rarely a part of, he showed no bitterness at what had happened to him.
Though Shaw did make a brief move to Klagenfurt in Austria, followed by equally brief stays at Kilmarnock, Shrewsbury, Walsall and Hong Kong, it was to Villa that he ultimately returned and became involved in youth team training and hospitality at Villa Park.
These days you can catch Gary at Villa-related functions, giving a bit of a talk and maybe showing off his medals. But if you want the best chance of bumping into him, then just head down to the Holt End during a home game, and look out for a man cheering on his favourite club a little more fervently than everyone else. A team player who still has a passion for the club that he once helped bring so much glory, we salute you, Gary Shaw.
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