Nobody Remembers Second: Aston Villa 1989-1993

Nobody Remembers Second: Aston Villa’s Near Misses: 1989-1993 charts a fascinating period in Villa’s history and features exclusive interviews with many of the central characters.

There were two League Cup wins in the 1990s, but apart from that the huge Midlands club failed to match its former glories.

However, in the 1989/90 season, manager Graham Taylor and players such as Paul McGrath, Gordon Cowans and David Platt powered the side to the runners-up spot behind Liverpool, and for much of the season they were in title contention despite narrowly avoiding relegation the season before.

Three years later, new manager Ron Atkinson also led a title charge, with a vastly changed squad. That bid faltered at the finish, when Manchester United became the first champions of the newly formed English Premier League.

This book delves into the 1989 to 1993 period in unprecedented detail and gets the views of Atkinson, then club secretary Steven Stride and a host of key players.

Richard Sydenham has been a sports journalist for 30 years, writing for such outlets as The Sunday Telegraph, Reuters, the Associated Press, the Daily Star Sunday, Gulf News in Dubai, Bloomberg News, the New York Times and the Sydney Morning Herald. He owns and runs a professional sports management agency, managing elite cricketers and hosting former footballers and cricketers for speaking events. This is his eleventh book.