My first view of Gerry Hitchens was not of him in a Villa shirt, but in Cardiff City colours in a match at Villa Park towards the end of Villa’s Cup-winning season of 1957. It was one of those very rare occasions when I went to a match with both my parents, and it was (because of no floodlights at that point) played on a Wednesday afternoon. Villa won easily that day, 4-1, but father had eyes for the opponent’s centre-forward. “Good player”, my dad said afterwards, and I took his word for it; I was more interested in what the Villa players were doing! But it was Hitchens that had scored the Cardiff goal.
My dad knew a thing or to about fine footballers. His hey-day as a young Villa supporter had been in those starry times at the end of the 1920s and early 1930s, when the Villa again threatened to take the football world by storm. In those days there were certain players like Jimmy Gibson, Billy Walker, ‘Pongo’ Waring and Eric Houghton to admire. He also saw Trevor Ford. So dad had a fair measuring stick to go by.
And so it was that at the end of 1957, Gerry signed for the Villa. That made my dad happy. For me, I was not so sure. This Gerry Hitchens looked alright, but nothing fantastic, I thought. I wasn’t sure what my dad had seen. And neither was I sure whether the fact that Gerry was on his National Service had anything to do with it; after all, a footballer is a footballer, isn’t he? What did serving in the Army have to do with things?
But, slowly, Gerry grew on me. And when it came to the decisive match against the Albion in April, 1959 – to decide the relegation issue – Gerry scored the opening goal and until two minutes from the end, Villa looked safe from relegation. It was not Gerry’s fault that Villa did go down. He had done his part of the job – in my book at least.
It was that year that Gerry did come into his own, though, with the Army becoming past history. By November, Villa were doing alright in the Second Division, but the Villa forwards were not setting the world alight in their goalscoring. Joe Mercer (Villa’s manager) put pressure on his men by threatening he would play the reserves if they did not start hitting the net more often. The result was startling – 11 (eleven) goals were scored against Charlton Athletic! Gerry scored five of those, the last breaking the poor keeper’s finger as he tried to save it!
The magnificent goalscoring did not end there; Villa then scored five at Bristol City (Gerry grabbing another three), and then five more at home against Scunthorpe, Gerry getting two more, to make his tally for those three consecutive matches a lovely 10 goals! Villa got promotion that season, and Gerry and Peter McParland finished with 25 goals apiece.
Season 1960-61 proved to be the pinnacle year for Gerry in England. At one point he was regularly scoring two goals a week, and finished with 29 League goals and 42 goals overall. Apart from his hat-trick against our cross-city neighbours, my most vivid memory of him in his last season – reflecting both his determination and confidence – was in a home match against Blackpool. Then Blackpool were a club not yet on the wane, still having a player of the class of Jimmy Armfield, then England’s regular right-back. It was Gerry who pursued Armfield to the by-line, stole the ball off him and after moving closer to goal hit a stunning shot from an angle of no more than 30 degrees and a distance of 18 yards. I was virtually right behind that shot, and I saw the ball hit the back of the net off the far upright before you could blink! And that with a heavy leather ball!
The final Villa game of the 1960-61 season was against league runners-up Sheffield Wednesday and England goalkeeper Ron Springett. Villa won 4-1. Villa brought back Villa’s old Cup-winning skipper, Johnny Dixon, for his last match, and The Birmingham Post headline read: “Hitchens Finds a Foil – Too Late”, clearly indicating the degree of Dixon’s help to Hitchens (who scored two, the first – early in the match – from an adept Dixon assist). It was extraordinary that Villa’s old skipper and Hitchens played their last match that day for the Villa. Both looked like supreme strikers, and we would have loved it if they could have continued in that partnership.
Gerry Hitchens won his first England cap whilst still a Villa player against Mexico, which England won 8-1. He scored the first goal in the first minute or two and played in an England team that contained the likes of Johnny Haynes, Bobby Charlton and Bobby Robson. He did not look out of place in that company.
Not long after came the news that Inter-Milan had signed Gerry. It was a hammer-blow for the supporters, and even though Tony Hateley eventually came and showed his great scoring skills, it was never going to be the same without Gerry. And, as Villa languished in the lower reaches of the Football League some ten years later, the rumour started that Hitchens was coming back to England from Italy, and that he might sign for the Villa. The thought of that was akin to the news of King Richard returning from the Holy Land to return to his subjects, but, alas, it was not to be. And, of course, the announcement of his premature death in 1983 was a great shock.
If Gerry Hitchens was not the best centre-forward Villa have ever had, then all I can say is that he must have been very close to that standard. An unselfish player, he remains the Villa’s most regular goalscorer since The War, and his cowboy-like style when he was on the scoring warpath was a sight to be seen.
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